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It was the Met Gala on Monday night. Every major name in fashion was there. The Duchess of Sussex was not.<\/p>\n
Her absence tells you everything you need to know about where the Duchess of Sussex finds herself right now.<\/p>\n
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Share<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In today\u2019s brand new episode of The Royalist podcast, which should drop in a few hours <\/span>here<\/a>, I sit down with <\/span>Alison Boshoff<\/strong> \u2014 the <\/span>Daily Mail<\/em>\u2018s brilliant showbusiness reporter, and arguably one of the finest chroniclers of the Sussex saga working today \u2014 for a forensic, damning, but at times almost poignant, account of the collapse of the Meghan-and-Harry operation that you will hear anywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n Alison\u2019s sources are impeccable. Her piece in this weekend\u2019s Mail lit up the internet. And today she goes even further.<\/p>\n The picture that emerges is of a strategy and a commercial operation in freefall.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s spiralling badly,\u201d one insider tells Alison. \u201cThey\u2019ve lost the plot.\u201d<\/p>\n The fashion deals haven\u2019t materialised. The brand partnerships haven\u2019t come. The big names \u2014 Balenciaga, Dior, Chanel \u2014 have not called.<\/p>\n And the people who did try to help? Meghan has managed, with remarkable consistency, to alienate each and every one of them.<\/p>\n Anna Wintour, the Kardashians, Ari Emanuel, Netflix\u2026the list of burned bridges is a rollcall of the most powerful figures in fashion, social media, and Hollywood, all of whom are, as Alison puts it, simply <\/span>done<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n What does Meghan have left? A share in a knock-off shopmy wardrobe platform, some Netflix projects sitting on the shelf for years and an Instagram strategy that her own husband isn\u2019t remotely happy about.<\/p>\n And a kitchen that, I\u2019m told by someone who lives near them in Montecito, looks like it\u2019s straight out of an Olive Garden circa 1994 cos they can\u2019t afford to remodel.<\/p>\n It\u2019s remarkable, really, to ponder what might have been as the King was charming presidents and filling rooms with grace and authority.<\/p>\n The Duke and Duchess of Sussex could, had they played their cards differently, have been there. Instead they were in Montecito, watching it all on television like the rest of us.<\/p>\n And in the time I spent in the USA talking to people close to them, people who know them, people who work in the worlds they so desperately want to penetrate, well, a clear picture emerges, and it is not a pretty one.<\/p>\n As \u201cBosh\u201d points out. Meghan arrived in royal life as a stylish, ambitious woman with genuine influence. She wanted to be a brand ambassador for the great fashion houses. She went to the Balenciaga show in October, but in February, when Balenciaga announced eleven new ambassadors, Meghan was not among them. <\/p>\n The great fashion brands, Alison explains, just do not want her.<\/p>\n The comparison Alison draws is with Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama, as First Lady, generated an estimated three billion dollars in sales for the brands she wore. She did not make a penny from any of it. And that, Alison tells me, was precisely the source of her power. You can\u2019t have it both ways. The moment you\u2019re seen grubbing around for a cut, the class evaporates.<\/p>\n Alison tells me: \u201cAnna Wintour is the top of the tree for fashion. They\u2019ve alienated her. The Kardashians are the top of the tree for social media. They\u2019ve alienated them. Ari Emanuel is the top of the tree of Hollywood agents. And they\u2019ve also alienated Ted Sarandos at Netflix \u2014 the richest streamer, which has won the streaming wars. So that\u2019s pretty good going.\u201d<\/p>\n Paula Froelich On The Invictus Games: Where Is The Money?<\/strong><\/p>\n Also in today\u2019s episode, my partner-in-crime Paula Froelich \u2014 who has been doing extraordinary investigative work on her Substack and YouTube channel \u2014 joins me for our segment Tea with Tom to go deep on a story that I think deserves far more scrutiny than it has received: The Invictus Games, Harry\u2019s flagship charitable endeavour, the thing he has staked his post-royal identity on, the thing he is coming to Birmingham for this July for the \u201cone year to go\u201d event, and to which the King will be invited to appear on stage with him next year.<\/p>\n