<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nHis new book, Royal Spin<\/i>, a young adult novel written with the American author Robin Benway, tells the story of Lauren Morgan, a Prada pump-wearing American press officer who goes to work at Buckingham Palace. Morgan is a fish out of water, dealing with bitchy British courtiers and being scolded for going bare-legged instead of wearing tights. There\u2019s also a problematic relationship with her estranged father. Her first task is to handle a royal crisis: damage control for a senior member of the family who has been caught in a racism row. Is Scobie sure he made this all up? <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen dealing with a fictional royal family, you\u2019re going to be able to draw some parallels to real royals because there are certain aspects of that life that are just a shared experience,\u201d he says coolly when I point out the similarities. \u201cObviously there\u2019s a lot of Meghan\u2019s experience as an outsider, but I didn\u2019t want anyone to think this is Meghan. We tried so hard to make sure that there was nothing in common other than, you know, being American.\u201d <\/p>\n
Scobie and Benway began writing the book in January 2024. He leaned on her for her knowledge and experience of writing fiction \u2014 Benway has published ten books \u2014 while she leaned on him for his knowledge of royal households. \u201cI did not have a raging interest in the royals at all,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I love writing about families, and with the royals there\u2019s a lot of family trauma and drama.\u201d <\/p>\n
The exact nature of Scobie\u2019s access to the Sussexes was hotly debated around the publication of Finding Freedom<\/i>. Details in the book, such as Harry\u2019s emoji use and Meghan\u2019s favourite hair-highlight shades, suggest that he had closer access than most. He was one of three journalists invited to Meghan\u2019s final solo appearance as a working royal in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace and says he shared a \u201cbig farewell hug\u201d with her beneath the \u201cmalachite candelabras\u201d. \u201cI think she wanted to share that last moment because it is a moment in history. But also to do it in an environment she felt safe in,\u201d he later told Tatler.<\/p>\n\n
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Meghan in the 1844 Room during her last solo engagement as a working royal<\/p>\n
CHRIS ALLERTON<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Initially Meghan claimed she had no involvement with Finding Freedom but later, in November 2021, while in court taking on The Mail on Sunday for privacy invasion, she acknowledged that she had provided \u201cbriefing notes\u201d for an aide before his meeting with Scobie and Durand. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny reports that suggest that I am their friend, that I have a direct line to them, that I\u2019ve received notes or calls from Meghan, are false,\u201d Scobie says. But he has previously mentioned mutual friends, \u201cless so now because their circle is different, a lot of their team has changed\u2026 People that have been by their side for a long time are no longer by their side. My life changed too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Scobie believes that he deserves more credit for his work. \u201cI hustled and worked so hard when Harry and Meghan were the big story\u2026 It\u2019s always frustrated me that I am \u2018the mouthpiece\u2019,\u201d he says. He puts much of the frosty reception he received down to snobbery: \u201cIf it was someone else, I would tip my hat to them for managing to get so far into the middle of the biggest royal story of this century. But I\u2019ll never get that credit, the narrative has always been different for me. I was the outsider in the royal press pack. I worked for an American magazine, I dressed differently, I was younger.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are several reasons why Scobie\u2019s connections with the Sussex circle may have chilled. In 2021, in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, the couple claimed that an unnamed member of the royal family expressed \u201cconcerns\u201d about what colour their son Archie\u2019s skin would be. Two years later, the Dutch translation of Endgame <\/i>named the King and Princess of Wales as the individuals involved. The Dutch book was swiftly pulled from shelves and thousands of copies were destroyed. Scobie said he had never included the names in the manuscript. Buckingham Palace declined to respond to the book\u2019s claims. It was \u201ca disaster, an absolute nightmare,\u201d he recalls. He \u201chated everything\u201d about the experience, especially the accusations that the whole thing had been a publicity stunt.<\/p>\n\n
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Prince Harry and Meghan during their interview with Oprah Winfrey<\/p>\n
JOE PUGLIESE\/HARPO PRODUCTIONS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Scobie says he knew the book would end his days as a royal reporter, and claims he didn\u2019t receive any dramatic pushback from his Palace sources but was gradually phased out. \u201cSuddenly you stop receiving the palace briefing notes and months later, you open your phone and realise you\u2019ve been removed from the royal press WhatsApp group. There\u2019s some things I removed myself from as well,\u201d he adds. Did it bother him? \u201cYou expect all of that stuff to happen. None of the fallout came as a shock.\u201d Death threats from the public did though. \u201cI think people assume that if you criticise the British royal family, you are therefore anti-monarchy,\u201d he says. \u201cPersonally I just think that we should live in a world where we can scrutinise publicly funded figures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scobie sees Royal Spin<\/i> as his new era. It\u2019s a jovial take on the years he spent observing royal life and their publicity teams including the Buckingham Palace offices, which are described in the book as \u201cmore like drab office space in a corporate park somewhere in Indianapolis\u201d. He found the real offices \u201cshocking. The fluorescent strip lighting, exposed pipes on the ceiling, peeling paint and bad carpet\u2026Despite the grandeur and glamour at the front of the palace, in many aspects it\u2019s like a shoestring operation,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
It gave him empathy for the communications team: \u201cPeople that are working in a not very glamorous space, just trying to get the job done and dealing with the biggest stuff. They\u2019ve got so much weight on their shoulders.\u201d However he is critical of their strategies. \u201cThe Palace does have a habit of burying its head under the sand until it gets really bad, we\u2019re seeing that right now,\u201d he says. \u201cOne could argue that, perhaps if more was done to stop the Andrew situation from spiralling, we\u2019d be in a different position today.\u201d<\/p>\n
From what he knew of the Sussexes, he \u201cwould imagine they\u2019re horrified\u201d by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor<\/a>\u2019s links to Jeffrey Epstein. \u201cI would imagine that they\u2019re quite relieved that they are 5,000 miles away. Certainly in the past, there was frustration from both Harry and Meghan that the way they were treated was much worse than the way people spoke and thought about Andrew.\u201d<\/p>\nScobie has mapped out a Royal Spin<\/i> sequel and is developing a television adaptation. Its typical reader, Benway says, is somebody who \u201cbuys a book at Los Angeles airport and reads it on the plane to JFK. It\u2019s not going to make you cry, it\u2019s not going to make you sad. But you can read it and recharge a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once Scobie has built his new universe, he plans to abandon the monarchy. \u201cRoyal Spin<\/i> will be the last royal project for me,\u201d he states. He has high hopes for it though because, \u201cwhether you give a shit about the royals or not, it\u2019s so relatable. That relationship you thought was leading to marriage, that job you thought was for life, the career path you thought you were on\u2026 There\u2019s always that moment when it all comes crashing down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thetimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Omid Scobie wrote Endgame, his 2023 book about rifts within the royal family, it was the mic drop at the end of almost 15 years spent reporting on the monarchy. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be on the royal beat for the rest of my life,\u201d says Scobie. \u201cStaying on the same story about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2283486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2283485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Omid-Scobie-says-his-royal-novel-definitely-isnt-about-Meghan.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2283485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2283487,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283485\/revisions\/2283487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2283486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2283485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2283485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2283485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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