There is a very specific art to the climb down or as Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex might like to think of it, the tactical retreat.
You know what they say: One person’s U-turn is an HRH’s “pivot”.
Because, if there was a subtle but distinct beeping noise coming from the environs of Montecito this week it’s because he and wife Meghan the Duchess of Sussex have reversed course on a major Megxit decision.
Brand Sussex is setting up shop in the UK! Again.
For the first time since the couple gave the royal family the slip and relocated to Oprah’s backyard, they have returned to plant their flag in the duke’s home soil, having hired themselves a London-based PR representative named Charlie Gipson whose former clients included Pedigree dog food and Mars Bars.
So, Harry and Meghan want back into the UK, or at least back into the media whirligig, with Gipson sent to serve as their “brand manager” according to the Telegraph, making it sound like the sort of role that would no doubt bring a proud tear to the eye of Kris Jenner.
And in the actual UK? Kate the Princess of Wales is proving her brand is stronger than ever with King Charles having handed her a shiny new title for all her hard work.
In the latest honours list the Princess of Wales has been named as a Royal Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour, which was founded by King George V in 1917, the first member of the royal family to ever be awarded this title.
The comparison – Harry and Meghan calling in professional help to manage their PR in Britain while Kate receives her umpteenth shiny honour – says a hell of a lot about where the cards have fallen four years after Megxit.
There’s a lesson in here somewhere, if only we could find it …
The background here is to remember that when the Sussexes upped polo sticks and decided they wanted to make their own way in the world via borrowed private jet, they also very volubly broke up with the British press.
In early 2020, Harry and Meghan said they would be “adopting a revised media approach” and that they would “Engage with grassroots media organisations and young, up-and-coming journalists.”
Since then, they have worked with such grassroots outlets as Time, the New York Times, Fast Company, New York magazine’s The Cut, the Telegraph, Good Morning America, Today, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Variety, and James Corden’s Late Late Show among others.
Throughout this they have continued to energetically voice their dislike of Fleet Street with their rhetoric ramping up to the point where last year Harry referred to the tabloid press as “the devil” during an interview with 60 Minutes.
However Gipson’s hiring marks quite the backtracking. As the Telegraph’s Victoria Ward put it, the Sussexes have “pivoted on their initial refusal to deal with the British tabloids, with their current team recognising that it was more conducive to maintain open lines of communication.”
Don’t worry, if you’re feeling confused here, you are far from alone.
Harry and Meghan devoted a significant part of their nearly six-hour TV series to laying out the many misdemeanours and sins of the British press and yet suddenly want to have “open lines of communication”? After all these years and lawsuits and so much simmering, roiling anger, they are going to be paying someone a salary to do business with “the devil”?
I don’t know about your forehead but mine is already starting to hurt.
Why now suddenly do the Sussexes want or need someone on the ground and within spitting distance of a Wetherspoons pub? Why do they care about their brand in a country that they had “fled”, ‘fearing for their lives’, as the duke told ITV’s Tom Bradby?
Making the Sussexes’ Gipson appointment all the more surprising is that it seems unlikely the duke and duchess will have any major commercial projects to push in the UK or Europe until much later this year at the earliest.
This month, Harry started shooting his series about polo (Keeping up with Stick and Balling?) while Meghan started filming a lifestyle show about how lovely flowers are and how to make organic lemon curd using the fruit from your own citrus orchard.
Even optimistically, it seems unlikely that either of these shows will arrive on Netflix screens for at least six months, so what will Gipson be handling for them in the meantime?
The duchess’ forthcoming lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard hardly seems geared to wow the British market, a nation where, according to YouGov polling, only 26 per cent have a favourable view of the former Suits star.
While the Sussex star might be on the blink in the UK, Kate’s rises ever higher with the King honouring the princess for her public service.
It’s interesting that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s about-turn is happening at a time when normal has long since left the royal building and with both the King and Kate largely out of the picture, literally and figuratively.
We should be on the cusp of a full-throttle hat-a-thon as the Their Majesties and the Prince and Princess of Wales lead the much-reduced pack of card-carrying, working HRHs. Instead the biggest draw card Crown Inc currently has to wow the masses and woo the gloomy public are a 76-year-old who permanently looks like she would rather be reading PD James than making small talk with some retiree who raises money for donkey rescues and a 40-something father-of-three who looks like his passions include a nice ironed pair of socks.
Which is to say, UK meet royal void; royal void meet a tired nation suffering through an extended cost of living crisis and facing down a dismal election.
We are in an unexpected, unplanned moment, one that is ripe with possibilities, which happens to be coming at a time when the Sussexes are trying to stake out their careers and post-royal brands.
A caveat here though. Given that Harry, we now know, has changed his official country of residence to the land of Stars and Stripes sand bald eagles landing on apple pies set to a soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen hits, and the Sussexes are sans fixed address in the UK, let’s no one start to get into a lather about the duke and duchess staging some big return.
But, still. Something would appear to have changed in the duke and duchess’ thinking about the degree to which and how they are willing to engage with “the devil”.
Maybe the lesson we should all be drawing here is, if life, or the royal family, gives you lemons, then all you can do is make lemon curd for the TV cameras.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.