The only moment that rang vaguely true was when Harry acted as though he were desperate for a role in the aforementioned Hallmark movie, pleading that he would “do anything”, and adding that he could ride a horse and fly a helicopter.
Take out the reference to Gingerbread Christmas Prince saves Christmas in Nebraska and that’s just about right; a 41-year-old Prince, begging for a role. His wife’s hilariously banal cookery and lifestyle show may not bag her any awards but at least she’s conspicuously doing something. Harry? Not so much.
That’s presumably why he’s reinventing himself, and thus far he’s making a complete hash of it, not least because it comes across as needy – and nobody warms to neediness.
British PR guru Mark Borkowski hit the nail on the head when he observed: “What we’re seeing is the classic identity vacuum of a man who walked out of the royal machine without building a new one to stand in. Every skit, every podcast cameo, every crowd-pleasing wisecrack is an attempt to reverse-engineer a persona the public never actually asked for.”
Ouch. If only Harry and his missus could rely on wise heads to advise them on optics. Then again, since they left the Firm their determination to do their own thing their own way has left them with a reputation for high staff turnover.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain on the publication of his 2022 book Courtiers, author Valentine Low claimed that palace staff who had worked under the couple called themselves the “Sussex Survivors’ Club” and that Meghan was nicknamed “Duchess Difficult”.
Since their move to California, the churn continues – and it has been reported that 25 staffers have come and gone. Some voluntarily, others not, a pattern that was touched upon in a Vanity Fair cover story in January of this year, provocatively headlined “American Hustle”.
In that piece, someone described as a person “inside the couple’s circle” said of Harry: “He looks like the kind of guy who would, frankly, happily work for charities for the rest of his life and would be very happy if Meghan made all the money and he didn’t need to.”
So what does his Late Show foray tell us about the Duke of Hazzard? Apart from the glaringly obvious revelation that a career in stand-up isn’t a viable option?
At least one social media contributor mooted the idea he might be angling for a job in politics, a suggestion that seems laughable to us in the UK, where keen intelligence and fierce ambition are the necessary bedrock. In the US? As we have seen with former Apprentice-host Trump, anything can happen; but it still seems highly unlikely.
My advice: if Martin Scorsese, or whoever, decides to go ahead and make Gingerbread Christmas Prince saves Christmas in Nebraska, he should take it. Why? I’ve seen an awful lot of clunky Hallmark movies filmed on a shoestring and take it from me; Harry could well end up being the best thing in it.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.telegraph.co.uk ’
