As end of year round ups go, it's a pretty scathing one. This week, Harry and Meghan have been dubbed some of the 'biggest losers' of 2023 by The Hollywood Reporter as part of its annual round-up of the industry’s movers and shakers.
While Taylor Swift, Jenna Ortega, Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were among the stars who came out as winners, Harry and Meghan apparently ‘lost’ this year, along with Elon Musk, Disney and Ezra Miller.
The article detailed moments from Harry and Meghan’s year, including being dropped from their £18 million Spotify deal (despite Meghan securing legendary guests like Serena Williams, Mariah Carey and Mindy Kaling for her podcast, Archetypes) and being labelled ‘f**king grifters’ by US podcaster Bill Simmons. It went on to call the couple's projects 'whiny', including Harry’s memoir Spare and the couple’s six-part Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, and called Meghan's podcast 'inert.'
According to the article, the icing on the cake - or ‘the pin’ that popped their ‘sanctimonious bubble’ - was when the couple were mocked on South Park. The episode, which aired earlier this year, portrayed Meghan as a 'sorority girl, actress, influencer, victim' while Prince Harry as someone who wrote a tell-all book about his family and the media called 'Waaagh!'
‘After a whiny Netflix documentary, a whiny biography and an inert podcast, the Harry and Meghan brand swelled into a sanctimonious bubble just begging to be popped — and South Park was the pin,’ the article states. ‘The show’s 20-minute World-Wide Privacy Tour takedown in March was savage, and was followed by Spotify dropping Archetypes, with a top executive labelling the duo “grifters.”’
The article comes in the same week that it was revealed donations to the couple's charity, Archwell, has suffered a donation plunge of nearly £10m in a year. The couple also hit the headlines last month after the Dutch version of Omid Scobie's book Endgame appeared to name two royals said to have questioned the skin colour of Harry and Meghan's son Archie before his birth.
However, it's not all bad news for Harry and Meghan. Last week, People magazine listed Harry as one of its 25 'most intriguing' celebrities due to the way he 'opened up like never before' in Spare, revealing 'the good, the bad and everything in between' of life behind palace walls.
Meanwhile, Talent agent Prof Jonathan Shalit OBE maintained that, despite their tumultuous year, things could turn around for the couple. 'The last few months haven’t been good from a PR perspective but equally the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are far from out. They are a magnetic couple who the world is hugely interested in,' he told The Sun. 'Yes, they are still trying to find their place in the public arena. But in the greater scheme of things there’s a lot to play for.'