The Anatomy of a Sussex PR Blitz

After months of bad press, a chaotic day of obvious messaging from Sussexland

Hello Readers! Happy August!

For this column, I had planned to write about August being a slow month for Royal News as the British Royal Family decamps to Balmoral for family time. But it was not to be. After months of near constant cannonade from the press, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have come out swinging in the way they know best: Enlisting the help of anonymous sources, holding institutions responsible for their failures, sniping about (you guessed it) The Princess of Wales and throwing Prince Harry under the bus.

Many of the stories came from People Magazine, which got the exclusive from “sources close to the Sussexes”, an “Archetypes production source”, and “sources close to the couple”. Let’s dig into these stories one-by-one. Take it away, “sources” ;)

“Growing Pains” in Showbiz

The gist of this exclusive story was to discuss the fallout from Spotify, and their media deals writ large. The messaging being communicated by Sussexland? Spotify the company which paid them millions, is to blame as the Duke and Duchess were not set up to succeed:

“A source close to the Archetypes production says the couple was not set up for success on Spotify: "They were given no formal lay of the land to kick things off, so they were already on unsteady footing even before the ink was dry."

Though Archewell Audio produced just 12 episodes of Archetypes for Spotfiy, the source noted, they "have a lot of ideas and did pitch them," but said there was too much red tape between Spotify and the Sussexes. "Things moved very slowly on both ends.”

I’m going to steal a Palace aide’s line and state: Recollections may vary. Let’s take a look at what Spotify sources described as the reason for the falling out: