Once again, it has been a lively week for the Real Housewives of Windsor franchise, with Harry and Meghan back in the UK for precisely 12 days before the king fired out a letter via the lord chamberlain on Monday, reminding viewers that the Sussexes are “private citizens” and not to treat them as working royals. You have to say the producers on this unscripted reality show are truly at the top of their game with these targeted provocations. Harry and Meghan duly took the bait and issued an intemperately hurt rejoinder – but we’ll get to that in a bit.
First, let’s deal with King Charles’s missive to “relevant senior stakeholders across government, the military and Lord Lieutenancies”. Ugh. Not to be too aesthetically sensitive, but I think we can all live without the sovereign being reduced to the ghastly language of “relevant senior stakeholders”. What next? Seeking “buy-in” for ribbon-cutting events and referring to posies as “high levels of audience engagement”? It does all rather reinforce the idea that the Windsors’ cringe-makingly self-styled “the firm” really is some dreary mid-range company with a wan Meet Our Team page on its website, in which Prince William – carefully photographed without a tie – explains that he “enjoys long walks with the dog and is a passionate Aston Villa supporter”.
Either way, the letter sent on Charles’s behalf was guaranteed to send the plot into overdrive, much as it does in any Real Housewives franchise when one of the cast sends a cease-and-desist letter to one of the others. (An event that basically feels like it can occur weekly.) Typically these letters then become dramatic drivers. Far from suppressing stories as supposedly intended, they always end up sparking whole new public debates and plotlines in themselves. This is what happened with the Windsors this week – and, indeed, was always going to happen, given the appearance of a pre-emptive slapdown.
The royal household must be able to see that the key thing about the Sussexes is that they are forever desperate to be taken seriously, like a music act that was put together on a TV talent show but now wants you to think they’re up there with Patti Smith and Nick Cave.
And so it was that Meghan and Harry’s spokesperson immediately hit back in public, announcing that the couple “were a little surprised not to have been told about this in advance”. Ouch. Never show weakness, guys! A briefing given to the Telegraph added that: “The Sussexes prefer the term ‘public figures’, and would have liked an acknowledgment that, on a personal level, they remained members of the royal family, despite no longer receiving public funding.”
As indicated, this all hints at a season of endlessly messy dramas to come, given it took less than a fortnight of the pair being back in the country before a public blow-up occurred. In terms of the kind of bizarro unintended consequences you might see on a Housewives episode when someone’s kicked off at a girls’ spa day, the military chief of Uganda promptly announced his country was pulling out of Prince Harry’s Invictus Games because they didn’t want to participate in something “that does not have His Majesty’s approval”. What can you say? Other than: deploy the reaction gifs.
You don’t have to be a reality TV obsessive to spot the faultlines here that should guarantee that the Sussexes’ unexpected return to the UK will result in endless drink tosses. It’s all there in their immediate reaction. Harry and Meghan are really wholly formed reality TV stars now. Not only do they do the tit-for-tat media release to move the plot along, but they also let you know what they were feeling when they read the original press-released letter from the king. In reality TV, moments like these are gleaned from “master interviews” (MIVs), filmed at the end of a season to provide useful retrospective commentary that the producers can cut the main action with. So you’ll see Hell’s Kitchen contestants helpfully reflecting on the scene you’ve just watched, and going: “And I’m standing there thinking – Chef Ramsay is going to go crazy when he sees this.” Or, in this case, “I was a little surprised not to have been told by Chef Ramsay about this in advance.”
This is precisely how the Sussexes now conduct public life, and it remains incompatible with the way the royal household does it. For all their supposed desire for a quiet life, Harry and Meghan have done that thing that the Beckhams – and indeed the secessionist Beckham-Peltzes – seemingly cannot help but do, where they claim to enjoy privacy but in fact live life out loud in a way that has come to feel normal to them but is really anything but.
Which brings us back to the burning question of why on earth you’d move back somewhere you are on the record – multiple times – as absolutely loathing in all its aspects. Increasingly, and faster than predicted, it feels like the answer to that is “for content” – scripted or otherwise. It’s fairly difficult to see the Sussexes’ relocation as anything other than laying the groundwork for a sequel to the only story of theirs that has ever rated with audiences: their own struggle with the forces of the British establishment/media/enemies within the royal household. Or as Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna once put it – and her head would be right up there on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore – “you better believe I’m gonna talk about it”.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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