Harry and Meghan 'detoxifying' their brand with Americans 'warming to them' (2024)

The trip to Nigeria went off without incident (Image: Getty)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are successfully “detoxifying” their brand after a series of total bombshells, royal-watcher Jack Royston claims, which is said to be increasing their popularity in the US.

But, he adds on Newsweek’s Royal Report podcast, their progress is being held back by “a very negative streak in their fan base".

He then referred to the very clear statement issued by the Duke and duch*ess of Sussex following Princess Kate’s shock cancer diagnosis.

“There was an implicit suggestion that the Harry and Meghan fan base should have laid off her…but clearly, nobody paid particular attention to those words and, or at least, certain significant figures within the Harry and Meghan fandom did not listen to that message.”

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The Princess of Wales made a very welcome return for the Trooping of the Colour (Image: Getty)

Jack says that Harry and Megan’s public image had become entwined with a general sense of hostility to the wider Royal Family, but they had been doing the best to dispel the idea: “And over the past year and a half, they've been working quite hard to detoxify and they've been doing a reasonably good job of it.

“The tour of Nigeria was fantastic. They did some good positive stuff with the Invictus Games last year.”

Overall, the campaign seems to be working, Jack says: “You can see it in the polling of American public opinion…Americans are warming to them again.

"But this very negative streak in their fan base is a hangover from…the era of Royal bombshells.”

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Harry and Meghan scored a diplomatic triumph with The Invictus Games (Image: Getty)

It's all very, very toxic and ridiculous, but it's exactly what the anti-Meghan trolls do

This negative streak, he adds, threatens to derail everything that the Sussexes have recently achieved: “People may well see this stuff on social media, see a picture of Harry and Meghan on the account that's posting it, and think, goodness me, is that really what Harry and Meghan are about these days?”

Harry and Meghan may need to “take on” their own fanbase if they’re to complete the successful “detoxification” of their brand.

He says: “That would signal to people that they don't support the way that Kate was treated in a really clear way, and in so doing, it serves to protect them from being damaged reputationally, kind of damage by association.”

He points out that the baseless conspiracy theories have yet to disappear entirely, picking for just one example the claim that Prince William was “telling off” his wife while they were standing on the Buckingham Palace balcony: “It was a moment on the balcony that went mega, mega viral.”

But, viewed in context, it’s clear that William was actually speaking to his father, The King, at that moment.

The “telling off” only appeared in a cynical edit of the footage: “And that is just the exact party trick that Harry and Meghan's most cynical critics have been pulling on them for years. That is what people do,” Jack says.

“All of those body language conspiracy theories that inhabit TikTok, or if they talk about the Meghan claw, and they say that Meghan controls Harry all the time. She uses her hand like a claw to kind of pull him away from people he's trying to talk to.

"It's all very, very toxic and ridiculous," he says, "but it's exactly what the anti-Meghan trolls do.”

Overall, he says, the stage is set for a healing of the reported rift between the two royal brothers.

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