PRINCE Harry and Meghan have been making headlines, once again, with their three-day tour of New York.
The couple – who stepped down from royal duties in January 2020 – met officials at the city’s 9/11 memorial, held talks with the UN and rallied the crowds at the Global Citizen gig in Central Park, calling for a worldwide vaccination campaign.
But writer Angela Levin, author of Harry: A Biography of a Prince, says the couple’s non-royal tour leaves a bitter taste.
She writes:
WATCHING Prince Harry and Meghan’s arrogance and hypocrisy on their preachy tour of New York appals me.
The three day visit felt like the launch of a woke alternative to the Royal Family that we have in the UK; a push for everybody to ditch them to follow Harry and Meghan, who understand young people and the issues that matter.
Their appearance at the Global Citizen concert was nauseating.
Harry was like a cheerleader, or master of ceremonies, whipping up the crowd with shouts of ‘Come on, we want this!’ and the crowd yelling ‘Yeah!’ and Meghan chipping in with, ‘It’s got to happen.’
When the reality is they are not experts about COVID-19 or climate change.
It’s all so vacuous and superficial, and aimed at a US audience that’s lapping it all up.
Every time this couple makes a move, the hypocrisy grows.
They went 2,800 miles in a private plane to the concert, which was about climate change, among other issues.
They then shot around New York in with three gas guzzling SUVs with a whole patrol of security people, which was hardly necessary, before talking to the UN about ‘climate action’.
They expect everybody else to do as they say, to save the planet, while they do the exact opposite.
‘No one knows poverty like the filthy rich’
It’s the same hypocrisy when they stand up a concert and bleat about world poverty.
It’s a case of nobody knows more about poverty than the very rich, and that’s highlighted by Meghan’s appearance at a rundown school in Harlem, where the kids are really deprived, wearing a £5,600 pound outfit and dripping in diamonds. It’s so insensitive and not the right thing to do.
Yes you need to look smart, because they want to see somebody who looks as if they know what they’re doing, but you don’t have to go over the top.
She also used the trip to promote her own book, The Bench, but it’s written for three or four year olds, with one line on each page, and all the children were 11.
The whole thing was actually to show off and to get some sales in America, because it hasn’t sold well there.
Baffling fawning of political leaders
What baffles me is why the UN Deputy General, the New York Governor or the New York City mayor wanted to spend time with them.
The UN, for example, spent 90 minutes, during a busy sitting, talking about mental wellbeing, youth engagement, climate action and economic empowerment, whatever that means.
The Governor and Mayor – Kathy Hochul and Bill De Blasio – fawned over the couple at the Ground Zero memorial commemorating the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
They’re trying to promote themselves as important heads of state or leaders of a country but they’re far from it.
They don’t belong to anything, they’re not representing anything, certainly not the UK, and not even any company or organisation that is known to be specialist in the areas they are trying to cover.
I can’t imagine the Royal family will be pleased with the UN speaking to them about world issues, rather than an actual representative of the UK.
The Queen will shrug her shoulders and pass it off Harry’s latest antic, but I think inside she will be very hurt because he is trying to out-manoeuvre her and do more worthy things.
This week we saw Harry in a documentary about his wonderful grandfather saying how ‘adorable’ the Queen and Prince Philip were – which was pretty patronising – but he simply hasn’t shown her any respect in his recent choices.
They are determined to set up this woke alternative to the real Royal court, and to get one over on Prince William and Kate.
Meghan likes to see herself as a leader and any way she can beat Katherine and William, she’ll go all out for it.
She is very competitive and also very resentful, if she doesn’t get her own way.
She wants to get her own back on the Royal family for not listening to her modernisation ideas but Harry should have explained to her, and she should have had the common sense to know, that you don’t go into a huge organisation in a different country that you know nothing about, and tell them how to run the show.
Harry was furious that they didn’t listen to Meghan enough.
Meghan said herself that she knew nothing about Harry or the Royal family before she met him, so how can you come along and tell everybody what to do?
You wouldn’t go to a new company and tell the boss what he’s doing wrong when you’ve been there five minutes.
Hang on, learn, watch – because your immediate view isn’t necessarily one you might have six months or a year later – then make gentle suggestions.
In the interviews I did with Harry, for his biography, he kept saying how he yearned for a normal life, a private life.
How can that possibly be so when they surround themselves with all these people to protect them, and do high profile tours like this one?
Harry also said every time he hears a camera click, it reminds him of all the paparazzi who he believes caused the death of his mother, Princess Diana. Yet in New York, when he was having his picture taken he was beaming.
They’re not saying much that they genuinely follow themselves – instead they are constantly counteracting what they’re saying with their own behaviour.
It’s sad, irritating and pathetic.
