Hollywood Insiders Speak on the Sussexes

Movers and Shakers in the entertainment industry share what it's like to work with Harry and Meghan.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (TheWrap/Chris Smith)

Hello Dear Readers!

I hope everyone’s having a great Sunday (or Monday if you’re one of my subscribers in Australia). Today’s newsletter, our free post of the month for March, and in the same vein as February’s free post where we detailed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bumpy start to the new year. In case you missed it, I’ve linked the newsletter below:

This time, I thought I’d write about news that hails from the States as opposed to good ol’ Blighty: An exposé written in TheWrap detailing Harry and Meghan’s Netflix deal and how their company is in, and I quote: “Chaos”, based on numerous interviews with those that have worked with them the past two years. But first! If you’re new here, please subscribe with the prompt below. Subscribing sends you the Royal Tea, straight to your inbox so you never miss a thing.

For those unfamiliar with TheWrap, it’s an American Hollywood trade publication founded in 2009 by Pulitzer-award nominated journalist Sharon Waxman. The Wrap is the only independently owned Hollywood trade and has served as a reliable and trusted source of :breaking news, investigative reporting, expert analysis and in-depth features in show business for over a decade”. So when they speak, I tend to listen.

What makes writing about Harry and Meghan tough is you have to sort through a lot of poo. Some of the coverage about them is unbalanced. Harry getting a nothing burger “aviation award” shouldn’t cause people to lose their minds for three days. And I said as much in one of our January newsletters.

Because a fair amount of the coverage about them is silly and unnecessary, people make a habit of discounting or making excuses when a thorough investigation like The Wrap’s is released. And Dear Readers, this is a darn shame because this story has all the Royal Tea. TheWrap did their homework and interviewed “industry veterans” as well as “exhausted agents” (possibly at Meghan’s talent agency WME) who’ve worked with Harry and Meghan through their “revolving door of staff” at Archewell. And the picture they painted wasn’t kind. Here are the biggest quotes from the article and my thoughts.

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1 - “Multiple insiders who say the Sussexes have worn out their welcome in Hollywood with an iron-fisted desire for control, combined with a lack of experience.”

This was always going to be the outcome from the multiple development deals and contracts the Sussexes signed. Meghan graduated from a great university with a degree in theatre, then became a full time actress on a cable tv show for seven years. Prince Harry was a Prince of the United Kingdom and wasn’t exactly known for his bookish nature and thirst for knowledge. Put simply, neither of them had the resume or technical know-how to deliver on nearly $200 million dollars worth of media contracts. What made Harry and Meghan interesting was their adjacency to the royal machine. Once that connection was in the periphery, there wasn’t much left by way of creation or ideas. And Hollywood insiders are letting it be known that the Sussexes have “worn out their welcome”.

2 - “Another insider with knowledge of the management of Archewell agreed, saying the couple have proven to be stubborn to the point of alienating others. “It appears that they just want what they want and won’t take advice,” the insider said.”

Alienating others was also a given. Initially, after their exit, I often found myself asking “Who’s giving them advice”? It wasn’t until the passing of Queen Elizabeth that I finally realized that they, more than anyone, are surrounded by capable and smart staff.

If there were issues, or decisions made that only exacerbated the situation, it was likely because they didn’t listen to advice. Valentine Low, author of Courtiers detailed how aides ran up against Harry and Meghan’s impatience when it came to projects, not receiving feedback on the timing of things and horrid communication throughout their time as a couple in the Firm. Look no further than when it came to something as simple as Communications aide Sara Latham giving advice to Harry and Meghan on how to avoid bad press:

In the summer of 2019, the couple’s taste for private-jet travel brought them further criticism. After Harry gave a barefoot address about the need to save the environment at the three-day Google Camp being held on Sicily (and then flying back on a private jet provided by Google with Leonardo di Caprio), he and Meghan took four flights on private jets in less than a week to visit Ibiza and the south of France. This prompted accusations of hypocrisy in the media, and rows with Sara Latham, who had advised Harry against taking private jets. Relations between the couple and their media adviser became increasingly tense. Close colleagues began to wonder how long Latham would want to stick around for. Would she even make it to the end of the year? At the back of their minds was the feeling that anyone leaving the Sussex team would be best advised to think of a good excuse: Meghan did not like it if she thought it was about her.

Excerpt From

Courtiers, Valentine Low: The inside story of the Palace power struggles from the Royal correspondent who revealed the bullying allegations

It’s exceedingly challenging when you’ve been hired to do a job and the people who hired you aren’t receptive to your advice. It can be quite demoralizing so I’m not surprised that their stubbornness has also alienated their advisors in America. For more insight into clashes with their staff, please read the beginning of the below newsletter which details just how important timing and communication can be and the drama that ensued when Meghan took matters into her own hands while organizing her last series of engagements in the UK.

3 - “A revolving door of executives have departed the couple’s production company, Archewell, in the past two years while a long list of exhausted agents, producers and other industry veterans have stamped it with a “life’s too short” reputation.”

I won’t pretend I know much about Hollywood because I don’t. But I assume that to work there, you have to have thick skin. So much of your time’s likely spent hearing the word “No” or “We went with someone else”. Archewell has only been around for two years. That TheWrap was able to find a “long list” of “exhausted agents, producers and other industry veterans” who all had the same thing to say: “Life’s too short to work there”. This is damning. And while it’d be a normal reflex to chalk this up to jealous smears as many were won’t to do when they were working royals. But how much longer can this excuse hold? Maybe the easiest explanation is also the most obvious: The Sussexes are very hard to work with and don’t exactly treat their aides or staff well. If they did, I wonder if their staff would be airing their dirty laundry out like this.

4 - “Harry and Meghan made the collaborative process very hard, to the point that there was no collaboration at all…dealing with the royal couple was a 'nightmare'” “She is extremely ambitious and knows what she wants,” an industry insider told TheWrap of Markle’s discussions with the talent agency [WME]. “But there have been issues with executive turnover inside Archewell.”

Dear Readers, now it’s just getting repetitive. It seems even crossing the Atlantic doesn’t remove their reputations as hard to work for and hard to collaborate with. I don’t believe Hollywood and the US media writ large are in a shadowy cabal together, game-planning how to take down the Sussexes in a racially-motivated smear campaign. The feedback in this exposé is consistent. And every single quote harkens back to how they were described in stories sourced in Britain when they were working members of the Royal family. TheWrap isn’t in the Palace’s pocket. Their ties to Hollywood and the movers and shakers in the industry adds plausibility and cogency to make this story what it is: Credible and believable.

There’s more to read in the expose. It details how their projects at Netflix haven’t gotten off the ground and there isn’t much confidence that they ever. It also goes into the staff turnover/attrition problems at Archewell and list the five Executives they’ve lost in the past year. HRH Royal Tea’s newsletter in October of last year, which you can read below, compared staff changes between Kensington Palace and Archewell. But be forewarned, it’s already out of date on the Sussex side as more people left shortly after I hit publish. You can read the newsletter below.

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All in all, this story by TheWrap doesn’t paint a flattering picture. And it lends credence to the uncomfortable truth that perhaps Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace aides did the best they could whilst working with difficult people. What are the chances Harry and Meghan suddenly became controlling, hard to work for and cantankerous as soon as they began their life in the US? Claims from Harry and Meghan that they weren’t supported by the Firm may not be telling the whole story…

So what’s next for Harry and Meghan? Social media regularly floats the idea of her re-starting some version of “The Tig” and moving in the direction of trying to be a Gwyneth-type influencer, which might give her some of the prestige and attention she’s craving while helping to build her coffers. I think that would’ve been a much easier task if she’d gone that route a year or two ago. There’s not much that’s “aspirational” about Meghan and Harry anymore.

A fancy house in a celebrity neighborhood aside, most people don’t dream of living a life full of anger and resentment, estranged from friends and family, constantly seeking revenge with the help of their biographer, Omid Scobie. Back when Meghan married Harry her cachet was at an all time high, and she was presented as this woman of character who had tried to build a life focused on giving back and finding good causes to support. Harry insisted to everyone that she was still that woman when they decided to step back from royal duties.

That would’ve been the opportunity to pounce. Obviously there is still a “squad” of people hanging on her every word, and there are those of us who pay attention because we enjoy a good train wreck, but I’m not sure how many brands are clamoring to be associated with her right now. Whatever she does next will be met with a healthy dose of skepticism, at best.

What I’d personally love and definitely tune in for is a good tongue-in-cheek blog/satire promoting things like the ripped jeans, barefoot ensemble Meghan wore to play hostess to Prince William and Princess Kate --an outfit “guaranteed to horrify your stuffy WASP inlaws.” Or the lip gloss Catherine ever so reluctantly loaned Meghan on one of their outings (So regal the thought of sharing is practically out of the question!). Or the waffle maker Archie received from the Queen, complete with an artisanal waffle recipe using berries grown in Meghan’s backyard from plants fertilized by the poo of a dozen rescue chickens. Throw in a juggling lesson from Harry dressed as a court jester for good measure, and maybe some tips and pointers for creating the most natural looking open mouthed laugh pose ever in all of your faux-candid photos. That’s the content I want.

All of these stories about the Sussexes being incompetent reflect terribly on Netflix (and Spotify too even though that contract has ended). I never understood how the executives at those streamers could justify signing such lucrative deals with a couple who had no production experience, no known creative talent, and dubious “work” reputations. They should never have signed them for such a huge deal without any indication that they could pull it off. The Obamas didn’t have any production experience either, but you look at their record and you know these are people who’ll get it done one way or another.

My takeaway from TheWrap investigation and other things that have been said about Meghan and Harry’s media deals is that it seems like they wanted to be figureheads and not do any actual production work. Kind of ironic that they went running from jobs that actually were that of a figurehead, and now don’t understand why they can’t do that for every job.

The Sussexes aren’t evil people. They haven’t beheaded or assaulted anyone. But then, neither is anyone condemning the Sussexes to the dungeon. They are being judged by the court of public opinion, which seems appropriate when they have chosen to make so many things public. The honeymoon reception they received when they first arrived in the States on their Freedom Flight has long ended. When I think of what they’ve done (or in Spotify and Netflix’s case, not done) over the past year or so, it’s certainly worthy of some level of ridicule, but that’s because I feel they have been ridiculous.

That this many people were willing to speak to TheWrap about what it was like to work with Harry and Meghan doesn’t bode well for the future of Archewell or the Sussex’s Netflix contract. Only time will tell if it’s on its last legs. Did any quotes in this exposé surprise you? Or like me, you’re unsurprised because Palace aides said much of the same?

Yours in Royal Tea,

Lady Sinclair