SO that’s it, folks. Courtesy of Netflix, we’ve had six hours of Meghan and Harry whining and spewing boiling spite.
And they have £88million for our pains and those of the Royal Family — who have been accused of everything from abuse to racism and telling porkies.
GettyThe Sussexes in New York last year at a gala to honour the military[/caption]
Pixel8000Meghan weeps during the Netflix show as Harry throws his head back[/caption]
But all bad things come to an end.
Meghan and Harry have told their “truth” until truth has been begging for mercy.
So what are the World’s Greatest Victims going to do for the rest of their misbegotten lives?
Life in La La Land doesn’t come cheap, after all. To most Hollywood luminaries, £88million is chicken feed.
Hell, the Spielbergs probably spend that on upholstery.
Poor Meghan and Harry have to keep up.
They may have titles (as of writing) but no one likes repetition, even in Hollywood.
At least franchises like Superman attempt new plotlines.
But when you’re a one-trick phoney, and your act is narcissistic self-pity combined with tearing your family to shreds, you’re in a conundrum.
The Sussexes’ delusion and blow-hard gall might have taken the first prize, but it has no future.
Harry and Meghan have spent the past few years in the biggest act of familial destruction since Hamlet.
But as 2022 draws to a close, they are being deprived of their raison d’etre. (Somehow I doubt Harry’s forthcoming tome, Spare, will be up for a Nobel Prize, so that’s a career in literature out).
When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided England was too small and too ungrateful for such grand fromages as they, the couple had a choice.
They could have emulated those earlier royal exiles, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Did Edward and Wallis complain about their lot and the way the Royal Family treated them?
Yes. But they never aired their grievances in public.
The Duke yearned for a reconciliation, becoming a surprisingly conscientious Governor of the Bahamas, and spending the rest of his life wishing he was back in Blighty.
But like the perpetually wronged 1940s cartoon character Mona Lott, the Sussexes decided on a vicious and destructive narrative that has left no door open for a return to the royal fold if life in LA goes awry.
Which means their options are running out.
Who are they, really, when you strip away their tawdry celebrity?
Before Meghan joined the Royal Family, she was an inconsequential television actress staring at the abyss of bit-parts in B-movies.
It was only her marriage to Harry, and the generosity shown to her by the late Queen, that made her a star.
Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey in March last yearGetty
The Royal Family turned a virtual unknown into a household name, sprinkling its unique brand of regal magic on her wedding to Prince Harry, while the British public stood up and cheered.
Meghan had done nothing to deserve this sort of fame apart from persuading an impressionable man- child to fall heavily in love, by telling him what he wanted to hear.
And like all narcissists, she felt not a jot of gratitude or loyalty towards her royal benefactors.
Americans have always envied us our monarchy, which is why they have treated some of their presidents, notably JFK and his chic wife Jackie, as “royalty”.
Could it be that Meghan and Harry aspire to create an alternative royal family in the United States, setting themselves up as a king and queen over the water?
It would not be beyond the Duchess of Sussex to start a sort of monarchy of the downtrodden, a protectorate of victims of alleged racism, sexism, British imperialism, tabloid news-paperism and other unbearable oppressions.
These days I’m sure she would see the acting profession as beneath her, so the life of a professional activist with a title holds out some allure.
There is, however, a problem with this.
Let us rewind to Meghan and Harry’s move to Los Angeles, the first staging post on their quest to con-vince an awestruck world of their stature as great humanitarians and public figures.
The harder she and Harry tried to coerce us into acknowledging their worth, the more they resembled Lilliputians in the midst of giants — gilt as opposed to genuine, 18-carat gold.
They sought comparison with people like the Obamas and Clooneys, but came off looking like cheap circus performers.
We were treated to Oprah, self-indulgent podcasts, patronising hom-ilies on race, the announcement of a tawdry deal with Netflix, continual attempts to upstage William and Kate, and now the Netflix series.
It tried so hard to be Hollywood, but it looked forced and ugly. And the discordant soundtrack to all of this?
Meghan and Harry’s continual, histrionic pleas for privacy, while acting like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard — permanently ready for their close-ups, and recording it all for television right from the start.
Circus performers
To be fair to Meghan, she has smarts and a pretty face. But her entire life has been a masquerade bordering on a lie.
She thought she was a brilliant actress, perhaps one of the best of her generation. But for some reason she never managed to win any parts worth having.
Playing the minor role of Rachel in the obscure TV drama Suits was the height of her career.
How come her transcendent talent languished unrecognised?
Dare I say it is because she does not have the qualities she believes she has.
Her intelligence is basic rather than profound, and her values acrid and transient.
She is a bolter, who won’t stick to things she finds hard or disagreeable, nor accept life’s rougher edges.
Can she truly set up her stall amongst the cream of America — amongst people whose fame is of the solid and enduring kind that is based on extraordinary talent, frequent hardship, hostile criticism and grindingly hard work?
No. Harry and Meghan had one big chance to prove themselves and make their future unassailable, one big chance to look themselves in the mirror with pride and self-assurance.
They were given that chance as working members of the Royal Family.
When the curtain came up on the first act of their starring role as a couple, the audience, namely the British public, were warm to the point of effusion.
So was the Press, though the Sussexes have singled it out for particular opprobrium.
The Queen even gave Meghan special privileges — such as allowing her to stay at Sandringham before her marriage — that were denied to Kate.
But they took their chances and threw them back in the faces of those who had wished them well.
Deep in the mud
Meghan is a survivor, and the United States is her home.
But what of Harry, who admits that he has “sacrificed everything” he knew?
The Bible says that, “He who brings trouble on his house will inherit the wind”.
Harry is 38 and, while not being moronic, never played with a full deck.
His pleasures were basic — country shoots with his old chums in the driving rain, serving in the British Army besides his comrades.
He was never woke and, unlike his father King Charles, had no intellectual interests.
He was a typical royal son of England, with his taste for risqué jokes.
So, what is this Bertie Wooster to do in Hollywood?
Continually talking about his mother and her untimely death is now beginning to pall, even with Americans.
So can he carve out a career lecturing about mental health? There are others more qualified.
He can’t lecture on geo-politics, economics or business and I can’t see a major film studio giving him a contract any time soon.
At present, he exists on sexual love. But being hopelessly in love with your wife is not a dependable career, and even the most deathless love can wear out.
GettyHarry and William briefly reunited at Windsor Castle after the Queen’s death[/caption]
There is another caveat. Even his American supporters like the CBS broadcaster Gayle King have spotted something unpleasant about the final three episodes of Harry And Meghan.
King went as far as to call them “dicey”.
Harry is like the child in the playground who, having been told that he can’t have it all his own way, goes rogue.
The Sussexes expect everyone to feel towards them the same unquestioning love and respect that they feel towards themselves.
Yet the truth is that Meghan and Harry, who show so little love and respect to others, are increasingly desperate.
They resorted to prostitution and sold themselves and the Royal Family, as a way of building their financial “brand”.
Now they cannot escape the toils they have made for themselves.
They have nothing more to say, and if they did, I doubt anyone of note would want to listen.
Genuine celebrity is like diamonds — its value depends on a controlled and limited output.
There may still be a few foolish and gullible Americans — the sort who are a sucker for conspiracy theories and tales of wicked royals — who will believe their words to be wisdom.
But the sophisticates the Sussexes love, and aspire to join, are turning away from them.
They have descended too deeply into the mud.
Meghan and Harry have sacrificed their credibility on an altar of gold — but having done so, have sacrificed the rest of their lives.
As the Italians would say, finita la musica.
Exiles Edward and Wallis in the Bahamas during the FortiesGetty Read More