Meghan’s Met Gala Absence Becomes a Convenient Synecdoche for Failure

We know where it all went wrong. Do they?

It was the Met Gala on Monday night. Every major name in fashion was there. The Duchess of Sussex was not.

Her absence tells you everything you need to know about where the Duchess of Sussex finds herself right now.

In today’s brand new episode of The Royalist podcast, which should drop in a few hours here, I sit down with Alison Boshoff — the Daily Mail‘s brilliant showbusiness reporter, and arguably one of the finest chroniclers of the Sussex saga working today — for a forensic, damning, but at times almost poignant, account of the collapse of the Meghan-and-Harry operation that you will hear anywhere.

Alison’s sources are impeccable. Her piece in this weekend’s Mail lit up the internet. And today she goes even further.

The picture that emerges is of a strategy and a commercial operation in freefall.

“She’s spiralling badly,” one insider tells Alison. “They’ve lost the plot.”

The fashion deals haven’t materialised. The brand partnerships haven’t come. The big names — Balenciaga, Dior, Chanel — have not called.

And the people who did try to help? Meghan has managed, with remarkable consistency, to alienate each and every one of them.

Anna Wintour, the Kardashians, Ari Emanuel, Netflix…the list of burned bridges is a rollcall of the most powerful figures in fashion, social media, and Hollywood, all of whom are, as Alison puts it, simply done.

What does Meghan have left? A share in a knock-off shopmy wardrobe platform, some Netflix projects sitting on the shelf for years and an Instagram strategy that her own husband isn’t remotely happy about.

And a kitchen that, I’m told by someone who lives near them in Montecito, looks like it’s straight out of an Olive Garden circa 1994 cos they can’t afford to remodel.

It’s remarkable, really, to ponder what might have been as the King was charming presidents and filling rooms with grace and authority.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex could, had they played their cards differently, have been there. Instead they were in Montecito, watching it all on television like the rest of us.

And in the time I spent in the USA talking to people close to them, people who know them, people who work in the worlds they so desperately want to penetrate, well, a clear picture emerges, and it is not a pretty one.

As “Bosh” points out. Meghan arrived in royal life as a stylish, ambitious woman with genuine influence. She wanted to be a brand ambassador for the great fashion houses. She went to the Balenciaga show in October, but in February, when Balenciaga announced eleven new ambassadors, Meghan was not among them.

The great fashion brands, Alison explains, just do not want her.

The comparison Alison draws is with Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama, as First Lady, generated an estimated three billion dollars in sales for the brands she wore. She did not make a penny from any of it. And that, Alison tells me, was precisely the source of her power. You can’t have it both ways. The moment you’re seen grubbing around for a cut, the class evaporates.

Alison tells me: “Anna Wintour is the top of the tree for fashion. They’ve alienated her. The Kardashians are the top of the tree for social media. They’ve alienated them. Ari Emanuel is the top of the tree of Hollywood agents. And they’ve also alienated Ted Sarandos at Netflix — the richest streamer, which has won the streaming wars. So that’s pretty good going.”

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Paula Froelich On The Invictus Games: Where Is The Money?

Also in today’s episode, my partner-in-crime Paula Froelich — who has been doing extraordinary investigative work on her Substack and YouTube channel — joins me for our segment Tea with Tom to go deep on a story that I think deserves far more scrutiny than it has received: The Invictus Games, Harry’s flagship charitable endeavour, the thing he has staked his post-royal identity on, the thing he is coming to Birmingham for this July for the “one year to go” event, and to which the King will be invited to appear on stage with him next year.

Paula Froelich: Uncensored has been going through the numbers. And the numbers, to put it kindly, raise questions.

Key jobs, one year out from Birmingham, remain unfilled. Paula spoke to people who were approached by headhunters for these roles. One of them asked: is Prince Harry involved? When the answer came back yes, the person said: “I am not interested. My reputation is also at stake.”

The financial accounts, in places, read — as Paula puts it — “like a CIA document.” Redactions abund, including, most curiously, the licensing fee that each host city pays back to the parent Invictus Games Foundation.

Harry’s charity, licensing its own name, to itself. For an undisclosed sum. In a document that is supposed to be fully transparent.

Paula and I get into all of it today. And I think you’re going to find it pretty shocking.

I contacted Invictus for comment but they haven’t got back to me.

The Royal Roast: William and the Prison on the Moor

I also have a Royal Roast for Prince William this week.

I think William is largely doing an excellent job. But he is making what I consider to be a serious and unnecessary mistake by refusing to be transparent about his finances.

The Sunday Times reported this weekend that William pays around $7 million a year in income tax — a figure the Palace neither confirmed nor denied, but seemed content to let circulate. The problem is that we don’t actually know whether that’s true. Unlike his grandmother, who voluntarily disclosed her tax payments, and unlike his father as Prince of Wales, William has never made a formal declaration.

Why does this matter? Because among the assets of the Duchy of Cornwall — the vast land holdings that generate William’s income — is Dartmoor Prison. William collects approximately $1.5 million a year from the lease on Dartmoor Prison. And Dartmoor Prison is empty. It is empty because it has dangerous levels of radon gas. The state is paying a private individual to lease land for a prison that cannot be used, on moorland that many would argue should not be privately owned at all.

If you can’t see why that is a problem, Prince William, then I’m afraid today’s Royal Roast is very much for you.

And Charlotte Turns 11

We also have something rather lovely: Princess Charlotte’s 11th birthday, and the photographs and video released by Kensington Palace thereon. They are charming, they are professionally done, and they tell you — if you look carefully — a great deal about the difference between the Wales and Sussex approaches to raising children in the public eye. I have thoughts.

Today’s episode is as good as anything we’ve done. I am so proud of it. Thanks for your support which has made it possible, and see ya in the comments hopefully about 5pm EST /10pm GMT on the Royalist channel.