“[The Sussexes] no longer simply bring with them the magic stardust of royalty but more baggage than a Louis Vuitton warehouse.” Photo / Getty ImagesOPINION:
If you think it’s hard finding the perfect gift for your nearest and dearest, spare a thought for the great and good who were meant to be celebrating President Barack Obama’s 60th birthday party on the exclusive island of Martha’s Vineyard this week. (The party was postponed at the eleventh hour due to a surge in Covid cases.)
What the hell do you get a man who’s had his own set of nuclear codes, personal email server and Boeing 747?
Luckily, that’s a conundrum Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex won’t have to find an answer to, given they were not going to the bash.
Curiously, we know that they were “not planning to attend” the shindig thanks to the New York Post’s Page Six column, which has broken a series of stories about the couple of late including Harry’s rumoured US$27 million book deal.
This latest tidbit about the Obama party popped up in a story about the duchess’ 40th birthday this week, raising the obvious question, were they actually invited to the party in the first place?
And this brings us to a particularly interesting point: Do Harry and Meghan have what it takes to cut it as global power players?
#Britain’s Prince Harry meets Obama on #US visit, cheers on basketball game with First Lady https://t.co/Oj56EbNjvDpic.twitter.com/nerz6BmBDR
— The Straits Times (@straits_times) October 29, 2015
Will the Sussexes be welcomed with open arms by the private jet-hopping, Davos-going global elite? (You know, the sort of names for whom buying an island, planning to colonise Mars and vaccinating an entire African country simply constitutes their Monday to-do list.)
As the US and much of the world reopens, will the most rarefied upper echelons of the business, entertainment and social worlds greet them with open arms and chilled flutes of Krug or are they about to fail to make the cut?
Yes, yes, I hear you. I know they are a bona fide duke and duchess who have the Queen’s mobile phone number, follow George Clooney’s secret Instagram handle and can get the Archbishop of Canterbury on the blower in a trice.
But look a bit closer and things are not quite as golden as they might first appear.
In July 2019, Harry and Meghan walked the red carpet at the London premiere of the Lion King movie and everyone from Beyonce to Disney supremo Bob Iger patiently, nearly nervously, waited to touch the hem of the Sussexes. There was no equivocation or sliver of a doubt about who precisely sat at the very apex of the social hierarchy that night.
If those same celebrities Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Elton John gathered with Harry and Meghan today on another red carpet, does that same pecking order still hold?
Beyoncé wishes Meghan Markle happy birthday in throwback photo https://t.co/ok083WVy0x
— The Independent (@Independent) August 5, 2021
I’m not so sure.
In February 2020, the Sussexes were invited to speak at a JP Morgan conference for which they were rumoured to have been paid a six-figure sum. There has not been a repeat performance.
In May they co-chaired the celebrity-strewn Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World, which was something of a damp squib, failing to make much of a splash and registering as something of a TV ratings flop, pulling in an audience of only 1.3 million people.
The only “stars” who now regularly speak out on the Sussexes’ behalf are her former Suits co-stars and her makeup artist Daniel Martin. We’re a long way from 2019 when their wedding guest George Clooney defended them, saying that the media’s treatment of the duchess had been “a little unjust”, “a little unfair”, and “unkind”.
Harry’s mate and Montecito neighbour Orlando Bloom signed on to a TV project which mocks the royal family, including Harry, the Queen and the late Prince Philip. (Things are going to be very awkward the next time these blokes bump into each other grabbing an açai bowl after Soul Cycle.)
New – The party plans had been months in the making and many invitees had already arrived on Marthas Vineyard when former President Barack Obama belatedly announced he was canceling his huge 60th birthday bash scheduled for Saturday.https://t.co/HQjFPh03aE
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) August 4, 2021
In July, the biggest names in the business and tech worlds gathered in Sun Valley, Idaho for the annual event billed as “Summer Camp for Billionaires”. They were not there.
The Sussexes might have signed a reported US$180m in business deals, but as yet have not produced, released or made anything that puts them on anywhere near a professional par with the sort of names who get invitations to the Obamas’ pot luck ‘n’ pinot nights.
Or, to put it another way, Harry and Meghan are yet to prove themselves and, to date, they are still best known because of who his grandmother is, not what they have personally achieved in the world.
All of this is a far cry from what might and could have been for the duke and duchess.
Rewind to March last year, when the Sussexes landed in Los Angeles and were the most sought after couple in the world. Any party, shindig or soiree they might have wanted entree to would have giddily welcomed them into their midst.
But a lot can change in 15 months, especially when Harry and Meghan have spent the better part of this year sharing their “truth” with all the pent-up urgency of a recently divorced yoga teacher who has taken up journaling.
Yes, they might have demonstrated again and again their eagerness to throw themselves into charitable work, but what defines them today is not their hard graft but the tumult and drama they have unleashed on the royal house and his family.
What that means is that the couple no longer simply bring with them the magic stardust of royalty but more baggage than a Louis Vuitton warehouse. Therefore, having transformed themselves into polarising public figures, are they still the prize invitees they might have been?
So too, has the growing chasm between the couple and the House of Windsor eroded some of that magical je ne sais quoi that usually comes with royalty?
Keep in mind here that post-Megxit, Harry and Meghan have been popping up on TV screens and headlines with such regularity that they have a quotidian presence thanks to their bombshell interviews, myriad lawsuits, business deals and ongoing family feuds. It is enough to make even the most ardent royal obsessive fancy a long lie down.
Think about it in economic terms. Scarcity raises the value of a commodity. In their rush to make a splash, what the Sussexes have incidentally done is to erode that value.
Consider also not only whether their own star might have waned a bit, but that they now live in the epicentre of celebrity culture and in a city where you can’t swing a purebred pomeranian without hitting an A-lister.
Harry and Megan might still be pretty big fish, but they are now swimming in a pond stuffed full of other big fish.
On September 13, the most dazzling extravaganza of all the Met Gala will return to New York for the first time in more than two years.
Given that Harry and Meghan have two-month-old daughter Lili and toddler son Archie at home, swigging champers with a room full of fashion and social heavyweights who have not eaten a decent meal since the Bush administration might not be their idea of a good time.
Fair enough.
But there will be more and more of these sorts of moments that will test just how high or low their social and professional stock is after the past very rocky six months of revelations.
Two years on from that Lion King premier, the words of Joni Mitchell come to mind: “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone” and George Clooney isn’t returning your calls.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.