‘It’s backfired on Harry & Meghan Markle’, claims PR guru as he reveals why couple’s latest backlash is worst one yet

THEY once represented an institution that promoted national unity but Prince Harry and Meghan now seem to cause division whatever they do.

As they sit in their nine-bedroom mansion in Montecito, California, contemplating the latest controversy to beset them after a row over Harry accepting an award in honour of a war hero, the couple could be forgiven for wondering why they can’t do right for doing wrong.

The row over Harry accepting the ESPY Pat Tillman Award -  an honour named after an NFL American footballer who abandoned his lucrative playing career to serve in the US Army Rangers in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks only to die under friendly fire -  is the latest in a series involving awards for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

AVIATION ACCOLADE

In January there was outrage in some quarters when Harry, 39, a former Army Air Corps Apache helicopter co-pilot gunner, was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation at a ceremony in Beverly Hills, joining a list of “remarkable people of extraordinary  accomplishment in aviation and aerospace”. 

Critics said the Duke, who served in Afghanistan, was unworthy to be ranked alongside astronauts, innovators and engineers, and record breakers as a Living Legend. 

They complained even though previous inductees also included a long list of pilots who have become celebrities and celebrities – such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta – who have become pilots.

HUMANITARIAN HONOURS

There was similar outrage in October 2022 when a human rights organisation named after the assassinated US Senator Robert F Kennedy gave Harry and Meghan a Ripple of Hope Award because of their “heroic stand” against “structural racism within the institution” of the monarchy.

WOMEN ADVOCACY

In May last year when Meghan, accompanied by Harry and her mother Doria Ragland, went to New York to collect the Ms. Foundation’s Women of Vision Award for her advocacy on behalf of women and girls, the accolade was overshadowed by a row over paparazzi following them in a car chase.

The couple’s fans blame the British media for stirring up much of the controversy but the Sussexes, who lost the support of many Britons when they quit official royal duties,  are now becoming controversial figures in the US as well.

When they left the UK in the spring of 2020 and set up home first in Canada and then the US, Americans seemed generally sympathetic. 

US newspapers and television channels portrayed Meghan as their American princess who had been traduced by racist Brits.

But over time opinion has become more divided on the other side of the pond. 

PAT TILLMAN AWARD

More than 76,000 people signed a petition against Harry receiving the Pat Tillman Award. 

A Redfield & Wilton poll commissioned by Newsweek magazine last week found 38 per cent of Americans opposed the honour after the war hero’s mother, Mary Tillman, objected on the grounds it should go to an unsung hero.

“I am shocked as to why they would select such a controversial and divisive individual to receive the award. There are recipients that are far more fitting,” she said.

Tillman’s widow, Marie, and some veterans supported giving it to Harry for his work creating the Invictus Games for injured troops – but only 21 per cent of Americans backed them, the poll found. 

The largest group, 41 per cent, were undecided, perhaps reflecting the fact that many Americans know very little or care even less about Harry and Meghan.

Among those who do care, there are political divisions. 

Donald Trump is not a fan and polls have suggested his Republican supporters tend to be more hostile than Democrats. 

On social media there are warring groups of Americans fans who either stoke hatred towards the couple or the Royal Family. 

But for many Americans the Sussexes remain irrelevant.

Autumn Brewington, a longtime royal commentator and former Washington Post journalist who wrote the paper’s royal newsletter, said: “Americans don’t really make a distinction between royalty and celebrity and to most Americans royalty is just another form of celebrity.” 

While noting the brutal war of words on social media between fans of the Sussexes and supporters of the rest of the Royal Family, she added: “My sense is that a majority of Americans don’t care.”

AWARD CONTROVERSY

The latest row may have raised the Sussexes’ profile. 

Some cynics argue publicity over controversies surrounding famous people receiving awards is often useful to awards organisations and to celebrities receiving the awards.

But British PR guru Mark Borkowski thought it had damaged the couple and the awards. “It’s definitely backfired on the awards,” he said. 

And although he admitted he usually believed “the only bad publicity is an obituary notice”, he said Harry and Meghan should worry about the negative publicity in US newspapers and on television.

The couple’s office has declined to comment but friends have suggested they have been stunned by criticism of Harry’s Tillman award for Invictus, a Paralympic-style international sports competition regarded by friend and foe alike as his greatest achievement during his royal career. 

Increasingly though, those Americans who are interested in him and Meghan want to see the couple replicate that achievement and move on from complaining about their treatment inside the Royal Family.

Brewington argues they have promised much but not delivered, especially after the failure of Meghan’s $20million podcast deal with Spotify, which prompted one executive at the US company to label them grifters.  

“Harry and Meghan have said they are going to do a lot of things that nobody has actually seen them do yet,” she said.

Borkowski echoed her. “It’s too early to write their obituary notice but they are going to need to get out there and be seen to be doing things that are successful,” he said.

SUSSEX STRATEGY

To be commercially successful and maintain their lifestyle they need public recognition in the US.