Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have had a tough few weeks after the couple were criticised in a damning Vanity Fair article last month.
The article, published in January, was made up of a number of new accusations, including claims that Meghan, 43, had treated ex-employees with “mean girls” behaviour that left them needing therapy.
While Harry, 40, and Meghan have not publicly responded to such claims, it is believed the couple were left “distressed” by the article. They have been seen very few times out and about in their Montecito neighbourhood since.
The Sussexes have also attracted positive headlines in the US recently. A source close to the couple praised them for their efforts helping other during the LA wilfires – where they ” toured the hardest-hit areas, comforting victims and making multiple donations in the days after the disaster.”
Friends of the Duchess have also hailed her new cooking show on Netflix.
Although criticism is something the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been used to in the UK since quitting life as senior royals in 2020, it is not necessarily what they expected when living out in the US.
However, it is not the first time a US publication has slated the couple.
Although the couple were initially popular in the US – Meghan’s home country – this has been slowly dipping from as early as 2022 as reported by Newsweek, just two years after they relocated to the States full-time.
In 2022, New York Magazine’s The Cut sent Allison P. Davis to Montecito to interview Meghan. Davis said: “She has been media trained and then royal-media trained and sometimes converses like she has a tiny Bachelor producer in her brain directing what she says.
“At one point in our conversation, instead of answering a question, she will suggest how I might transcribe the noises she’s making: ‘She’s making these guttural sounds, and I can’t quite articulate what it is she’s feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she’s just moaning.’
“At this stage, post-royal, there’s no need for her to hold back. She’s flinging open the proverbial doors to her life; as any millennial woman whose feminism was forged in the girlboss era would understand, she has taken a hardship and turned it into content.”
Another publication that showed signs they were less-than keen on Meghan was Variety, hitting out at both Meghan and Prince Harry after the release of their docuseries Harry and Meghan in 2022.
Andrew Wallenstein, president and chief media analyst of its Intelligence Platform, wrote: “Their game plan has always been, Come for the sob story, stay for the high-minded uplift.
“But that’s a shaky strategy for keeping an audience around that probably doesn’t care about anything either of them has to say that isn’t royal gossip.”
Another of the more damning articles written was in The Hollywood Reporter, published just months ago in September last year.
Titled ‘Why Hollywood Keeps Quitting on Harry and Meghan’, the article was a major hit to the couple and their popularity.
Based on what the publication had been told by sources, The Hollywood Reporter included claims about the duchess that were extremely critical, including how one ex employee had said Meghan was a “dictator in high heels.”
The article read: “Why’d they all leave? What explains the churn? ‘Everyone’s terrified of Meghan,’ claims a source close to the couple. ‘She belittles people, she doesn’t take advice. They’re both poor decision-makers, they change their minds frequently. Harry is a very, very charming person—no airs at all—but he’s very much an enabler. And she’s just terrible.'”
Despite the mixed reviews, Prince Harry and Meghan are continuing to live their lives in America together at their sprawling Montecito mansion, which they share with their two children Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three.
