Harry and Meghan Netflix documentary

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The original article was by the Times, there it says 'they want' : https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/harry-and-meghan-want-a-royal-summit-and-an-apology-hm58n8s6p
There are some interesting things in there.

Do you happen to have the original article without a paywall?

 

[Karin1984]

Do you happen to have the original article without a paywall?

Oops, sorry. Of course,

Harry and Meghan want a royal summit — and an apology
The Sussexes are pushing for the family to make the first peace offering and recognise they were wronged

Roya Nikkhah, Royal Editor

Saturday December 17 2022, 6.00pm GMT, The Sunday Times

“It is like living through a soap opera where everyone else views you as entertainment,” the Duke of Sussex said about life in the royal family, during six hours of prime-time, “Kardashian-style” Netflix access into Harry and Meghan’s world of “truth”.

It is now clear that theirs is a soap opera the royal family want no part in.

Last year, in the aftermath of the couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, or “Soap Oprah” as the Palace dubbed it, Queen Elizabeth issued her masterstroke statement that “some recollections may vary” when the royal family stood accused of racism and callous disregard for the couple’s mental health. This time, the silence from Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace is deafening.

The royal family’s actions speak for themselves. The King danced the afternoon away on Friday at a Jewish community centre in north London. On Thursday, hours after the Sussexes’ second round of hand grenades, the Windsor clan was out in force at Westminster Abbey for the Princess of Wales’s carol service, dedicated to the values and legacy of the late Queen. Prince William read an extract from their grandmother’s 2012 Christmas message on “the spirit of togetherness”. Need he say more?

But Harry and Meghan do want more. It can be revealed today that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex want to “sit down with the royal family” for a meeting to address their “issues” after their damning six-hour Netflix series, which involved relentless criticism of the monarchy.

The couple feel the royal family has shown double standards by instigating a reconciliation meeting between Ngozi Fulani, the charity boss, and Lady Susan Hussey, a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. The latter made “unacceptable and deeply regrettable” comments about Fulani’s heritage last month, and Hussey offered her “sincere apologies” at last week’s meetings.

A source close to the Sussexes said: “Nothing like that was ever done when Harry and Meghan raised various concerns — no meeting, formal apology or taking responsibility or accountability. That is hard to swallow — 100 per cent yes they’d like to have a meeting.”

Meanwhile:
• The Sunday Times understands that Harry’s autobiography, Spare, which will be published on January 10, includes claims about the monarchy that are more incendiary than those made in the Netflix series.

• They are keen for a meeting and reconciliation with the royal family before the coronation next May, which they are expected to attend. A senior palace source said: “If they want to get in touch with the King, they know where he lives.”

• Friends of the Prince of Wales, who came under heavy fire in the Netflix series, said he had no plans to speak to his brother: “Things have been very strained for a while,” said a friend. “There is sadness at where things currently are with his brother . . . and there’s a memoir coming.” Another close friend of Prince William said: “The whole thing is mad.”

• It is understood the royal family and Buckingham Palace have no plans to respond to the Sussexes’ claims in the Netflix series or to arrange a meeting with the couple. A courtier said of Harry’s criticism of the monarchy in the series and his forthcoming book: “That is Harry’s decision – he’s taking one decision, we’re taking another.”

Asked why the royal family stayed silent last week, a courtier says: “We are deliberately keen to send a message by being voiceless. Our duty is to get on with the job. It isn’t to respond.”

The strategy of silence has been heard loud and clear around the world. Even the American TV news anchor, Gayle King, a close friend of the Sussexes, agrees with the approach: “That would seem the right tack to take from the Palace, just have no comment,” she said on her morning show last week.

A friend of the royal family adds: “They are right to rise above it and concentrate on demonstrating that service and duty matter. Let the trivialities, pettiness and contradictions speak for themselves.”

Harry’s childhood agony of growing up inside the royal goldfish bowl after his mother died, and Meghan’s suicidal thoughts and mental health issues as she struggled to cope with royal life are painful to watch. But during three more episodes of rage and revenge, Harry, still so raw, seems not to have come to terms with where he has ended up. Maybe he never will. Maybe that’s why the Netflix narrative needed massaging to support the Sussexes’ version of events.

Harry said it was “terrifying” to have William “scream and shout” during the Sandringham summit, a meeting called by the late Queen in January 2020 to determine the Sussexes’ future. The King said things “that simply weren’t true” and Her Majesty sat “quietly” taking it all in. “You have to understand,” Harry told us, “that from a family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate mission, goal, slash responsibility is the institution. People around her are telling her that proposal or these two doing x, y or z is going to be seen as an attack on the institution, then she’s going to go on the advice she’s been given.” Here, then, is Harry’s new version of the Queen — a pushover monarch, guided more by courtiers than her own razor-sharp instinct honed over a 70-year reign.

The problem is that his version doesn’t tally with anyone else’s experience of the Queen, who was “sharp as a tack” and calling the shots until the day she died. “It’s outrageous,” says a courtier. “Harry never wanted to admit to himself that it was the Queen who said, ‘no, you’re out’. He couldn’t fathom that he wasn’t the cheeky chappy who was going to sweet-talk grandma into getting what he wanted.”

Another seasoned courtier who watched the Sussex storm become a hurricane observes: “The narrative has shifted from Prince Harry on the Queen. It was always ‘my commander-in-chief, the boss’. But when he was not getting the support from her he wanted, she is represented as a diminutive figure sat in the corner.

“That is another manipulation of the narrative to suit the outcome as felt by Harry. Advisers made recommendations to Her Majesty, but there was only one person making the decisions. To look the truth squarely in the eye, to realise your relationship has been damaged and to know it was his commander-in-chief who decided he couldn’t have the half-in, half-out role he wanted, is probably too painful for him to accept.”

Nor does Harry seem able to accept anyone else’s point of view. When he returned for Prince Philip’s funeral last April, a year after ditching royal life, he said “chats with my brother and my father” frustrated him, because they were “very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation”. But the late Queen, the King and the Prince of Wales were always clear — part-time royals don’t work, never have, never will. Harry can’t forgive them: “I have had to make peace with the fact we’re probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.”

A friend of the royal family says: “Harry is convinced his view is correct. He’s a man on a mission to change things in a way he thinks they need to be changed. It’s a true quest he’s on. The rest of the family think what he’s doing is hugely damaging. It’s two ideologies clashing in the quadrangle where neither can cede ground.”

A friend of Harry’s agrees: “People ask ‘why air your dirty laundry?’ Everything Harry does and says is rooted in wanting to try and change things for the better, even if not everyone agrees with that. If the outcome of all of this is an institution and a family that operates in a more modern way, then so much the better . . . if there is a chance to improve things for the next generation, that’s a positive.”

Of course, there was more media-bashing and claims that the British press is the Palace’s “partner”, working hand in glove to thwart the Sussexes at every turn. Harry spoke of “institutional gaslighting”, which sent royal insiders’ eyebrows skywards: “Gaslighting? You are gaslighting the family via global television,” says a former courtier.

A friend of the King says: “It’s a disgraceful betrayal of trust, an unwelcome distraction in the short term and very hurtful to the family. But it’s not as damaging to the monarchy as we feared. Most sensible people will see it for what it is — self-indulgent, one-sided and exploitative. With every passing month and year, it will be seen as the tawdry, shameful exercise it was. I’m sure Harry will come to regret it unless he’s lost to the world. William must be furious and the King will be devastated, but they will crack on, showing on a weekly basis what the job entails and the value it brings — Harry and Meghan can’t. Any chance of reconciliation is much harder now.”

Harry spoke last week of new chapters: “As sad as it is, in order for change to happen sometimes a lot of pain has to come to the surface — in order to move to the next chapter you’ve got to finish the first chapter.” Next month, he is primed to give us many more chapters — 416 pages’ worth — when his memoir Spare is published.

But royal sources believe that the couple have “overplayed their hand quite badly” with so much deeply personal content, much of it scathing of the monarchy and how it treated them. A source says: “They’ve fired all their ammunition and keep shooting the same bullets. Their business model must rely on them making money from something, what will it be if not to rely on this narrative of victimhood?”

A source close to the Sussexes says that after Harry’s book, the couple will “focus on their service work” rather than “anything personal — they’re looking forward to people being interested in what they’re doing beyond all the drama.”

An increasingly weary monarchy and public will hope Harry will be true to his word after he said in the final Netflix episode: “My wife and I, we are moving on. We are focused on what’s coming next.” It’s a funny way to describe six hours of looking back at years of family strife, which has alienated him from most of his family and some of his friends: “I miss my friends. I’ve lost a few friends in this process as well.” By her own admission, spilling the beans has not given Meghan “peace” after all: “I can’t have peace without truth. We got some truth out there but it hasn’t given us peace.”

A YouGov poll last week showed the Sussexes’ popularity has fallen to new depths with Britons. Only Prince Andrew is now less popular. The audience, it seems, has decided.

@RoyaNikkhah

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Thank you very much for that

“We are deliberately keen to send a message by being voiceless. Our duty is to get on with the job. It isn’t to respond.”

I agree that no comment is better than engaging in tabloid fashion as a back and forth but I do understand why H&M feel a contradiction here. If indeed the royal family instigated a reconciliation that is responding rather than being silent. On the other than H&M have to understand the royal family was engaging in diplomacy. They can and likely should in this day and age be able to openly condemn someone who makes comments about someone's ethnicity and background but unfortunately leadership also has to play in a diplomatic fashion. That never had to apply to H&M and much more so after their break from the royal family.

But during three more episodes of rage and revenge, Harry, still so raw, seems not to have come to terms with where he has ended up.

No I don't think he has. Like I mentioned before I've begun to really think Meghan is his vehicle to showcasing some of his past and probably buried deep feelings. You know probably what gets to him a lot is not really commenting, it sounds like from things I've read in the past he's felt like not really needed and now they are just showing him he isn't whether that was ever their intent and he does have culpability in there. It's a mixture of perhaps long-held feelings and self-fulfilling prophecies.

is Harry’s new version of the Queen — a pushover monarch, guided more by courtiers than her own razor-sharp instinct honed over a 70-year reign.

He couldn’t fathom that he wasn’t the cheeky chappy who was going to sweet-talk grandma into getting what he wanted.”

Nor does Harry seem able to accept anyone else’s point of view. When he returned for Prince Philip’s funeral last April, a year after ditching royal life, he said “chats with my brother and my father” frustrated him, because they were “very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation”. But the late Queen, the King and the Prince of Wales were always clear — part-time royals don’t work, never have, never will. Harry can’t forgive them: “I have had to make peace with the fact we’re probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.”

These three things are sad TBH. A lot of what comes across is Harry wanting validation for how he feels and because of the position of his relatives they are going to be less likely to give that; there's more at stake than your average family and family issues are hard enough for the average family. I've always had some mixed feelings about some of the decisions the Queen has made (largely related to country controls) but I do think she was a very strong leader but I also think there probably were decisions made where someone was nudging her towards that with respects to family issues. It's easier to see that I think because there was not issues for the most part with William and Kate so having issues with one grandson and his spouse there had to have been pressure there. I wonder if some things would have happened now if William and Kate were the issue being older, married first, etc since that line of succession was on them first and foremost.

A friend of Harry’s agrees: “People ask ‘why air your dirty laundry?’ Everything Harry does and says is rooted in wanting to try and change things for the better, even if not everyone agrees with that. If the outcome of all of this is an institution and a family that operates in a more modern way, then so much the better . . . if there is a chance to improve things for the next generation, that’s a positive.”

Gee..this sounds really familiar to some of my thoughts.

Most sensible people will see it for what it is — self-indulgent, one-sided and exploitative.

I agree but it's also not like the royal family is ever going to want people to really know what happened behind closed doors (it's already bad enough for them to have Andrew) so being one-sided is par for the course.

royal sources believe that the couple have “overplayed their hand quite badly”

Yup they have

“My wife and I, we are moving on. We are focused on what’s coming next.”

Well kinda hard to do that when you have other things coming out

A YouGov poll last week showed the Sussexes’ popularity has fallen to new depths with Britons. Only Prince Andrew is now less popular. The audience, it seems, has decided.

That's why I wondered how the Canadian survey would do these days. TBH I'm less inclined to care much about what England feels like about royal family. I want to know what other countries think about them.

 

[Karin1984]

I think the only way Harry gets the apology he wants, he has to write it himself and give it to his father and brother. No matter what they say, I'm sure Harry will find something wrong wit it.
But even if they did it like that, Harry probably would think the apology isn't sincere. Which is because it won't be sincere.

We can say for sure, nothing is going to happen or come out officially till Spare is released.

The documentary had some worrying things in there, but for sure not what everyone was braced for. All eyes are on Spare now.
24 days to go. Can I get an Advent Calendar for this?

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

.

 

[Karin1984]

Karin, if you saw anything that was "worrying" check yourself on that reaction. So much of it was just plan false. So how can anybody rely on anything that was just "invented", twisted, misquoted, taken out of context etc. Narcissistic behavior does all of that without any restraint. It is a central characteristic that the truth is not within their reality.

Maybe this is my Dutch pragmatic way of thinking. But everyone had expected bombshells like during the Oprah interview. Did we get those? No.
Yes, the Royal Family, especially William and second Charles, got some sneers. But that there was nothing they HAD to respond to is a good thing. Everyone was prepared for the end of the monarchy and/or things that could really damage the UK. Like a crisismanagement expert in the tabloids said recently, it was a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

The inconsistencies and the one-sidedness is a good thing, because it makes H&M unreliable. I might even say for the Royal Family and the UK, this might be the best outcome possible. It would have been worse if the documentary was good and well-reviewed. H&M threw away their shot.

So, I have checked my reaction, and I am going sticking with 'Some worrying things', but not something to loose (much) sleep over.

Does the Royal Family have to tread carefully? Yes, because you never know with these two.

 

[BayouQueen]

***

 

[barkley]

is it just me or does anyone else get a major veruca salt (willy wonka and the chocolate factory) vibe from both h&m?



I won't talk to you ever again! You're a rotten, mean father! You never give me anything I want!

I want a party with roomfuls of laughter,
Ten thousand tons of ice cream,
And if I don't get the things I am after,
/ I'm going to screeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEAM.

I want the world
I want the whole world
I want to lock it all up in my pocket
It's my bar of chocolate
Give it to me
Now!

I want today
I want tomorrow
I want to wear 'em like braids in my hair
And I don't want to share 'em

And now
Don't care how
I want it now
Don't care how
I want it now!

 

[Karin1984]

is it just me or does anyone else get a major veruca salt (willy wonka and the chocolate factory) vibe from both h&m?

I am still stuck on the Evita sound track. Mainly the song below, but also some others.

[Eva:] Colonel Peron
[Peron:] Eva Duarte

[Eva and Peron:]
I've heard so much about you

[Eva and Peron:]
I'm amazed, for I'm only an actress (a soldier)
Nothing to shout about (One of the thousands)
Only a girl on the air (Defending the country he loves)

[Eva:]
But when you act, the things you do affect us all

[Peron:]
But when you act, you take us away from the squalor of the real world
Are you here on your own?

[Eva:]
Yes, oh yes

[Peron:]
So am I, what a fortunate coincidence
Maybe you're my reward for my efforts here tonight

[Eva:]
It seems crazy but you must believe
There's nothing calculated, nothing planned
Please forgive me if I seem naive
I would never want to force your hand
But please understand, I'd be good for you

I don't always rush in like this
Twenty seconds after saying hello
Telling strangers I'm too good to miss
If I'm wrong I hope you'll tell me so
But you really should know, I'd be good for you
I'd be surprisingly good for you

I won't go on if I'm boring you
But do you understand my point of view?
Do you like what you hear, what you see
And would you be, good for me too?

I'm not talking of a hurried night
A frantic tumble then a shy goodbye
Creeping home before it gets too light
That's not the reason that I caught your eye
Which has to imply, I'd be good for you
I'd be surprisingly good for you

[Peron:]
Please go on, you enthrall me
I can understand you perfectly
And I like what I hear, what I see, and knowing me
I would be good for you too

[Eva:]
I'm not talking of a hurried night
A frantic tumble then a shy goodbye
Creeping home before it gets too light
That's not the reason that I caught your eye
Which has to imply, I'd be good for you
I'd be surprisingly good for you

 

[barkley]

I am still stuck on the Evita sound track. Mainly the song below, but also some others.

[Eva:] Colonel Peron
[Peron:] Eva Duarte

[Eva and Peron:]
I've heard so much about you

[Eva and Peron:]
I'm amazed, for I'm only an actress (a soldier)
Nothing to shout about (One of the thousands)
Only a girl on the air (Defending the country he loves)

[Eva:]
But when you act, the things you do affect us all

[Peron:]
But when you act, you take us away from the squalor of the real world
Are you here on your own?

[Eva:]
Yes, oh yes

[Peron:]
So am I, what a fortunate coincidence
Maybe you're my reward for my efforts here tonight

[Eva:]
It seems crazy but you must believe
There's nothing calculated, nothing planned
Please forgive me if I seem naive
I would never want to force your hand
But please understand, I'd be good for you

I don't always rush in like this
Twenty seconds after saying hello
Telling strangers I'm too good to miss
If I'm wrong I hope you'll tell me so
But you really should know, I'd be good for you
I'd be surprisingly good for you

I won't go on if I'm boring you
But do you understand my point of view?
Do you like what you hear, what you see
And would you be, good for me too?

I'm not talking of a hurried night
A frantic tumble then a shy goodbye
Creeping home before it gets too light
That's not the reason that I caught your eye
Which has to imply, I'd be good for you
I'd be surprisingly good for you

[Peron:]
Please go on, you enthrall me
I can understand you perfectly
And I like what I hear, what I see, and knowing me
I would be good for you too

[Eva:]
I'm not talking of a hurried night
A frantic tumble then a shy goodbye
Creeping home before it gets too light
That's not the reason that I caught your eye
Which has to imply, I'd be good for you
I'd be surprisingly good for you

in an earlier post on this thread i posted that i feel h&m spent time during the covid lockdown to watch/rewatch and be inspired by evita.

 

[Disneychick75]

Oops, sorry. Of course,

Harry and Meghan want a royal summit — and an apology
The Sussexes are pushing for the family to make the first peace offering and recognise they were wronged

Roya Nikkhah, Royal Editor

Saturday December 17 2022, 6.00pm GMT, The Sunday Times



@RoyaNikkhah

They're nuts if they really expect this. The name of their documentary should have been, "Poor Poor Pitiful Us".

 

[Pea-n-Me]

So let’s see. They chose to up and leave the “institution” after their $45 million dollar wedding and $3.2 million dollar Frogmore Cottage renovation, they trashed the RF in front of the world in the Oprah interview last year, they refused a personal invitation to go to see HMQE while they were already in the UK just before she passed, they further threw the RF under the bus via the Netflix whateveritis, and will divulge God-only-knows-what in the book that’s coming out next month, among other things, but they want an apology from the RF? Um, ok.(They probably shouldn’t hold their breath!)

 

[dvcgirl67]

They're nuts if they really expect this. The name of their documentary should have been, "Poor Poor Pitiful Us"

To me it seems like their demand for a summit and an apology are a kind of attempt to make this docuseries appear like this was its purpose…..to open a dialogue to work towards change and an apology. I’m not buying that. The “demand” is a PR move by H&M. To me this docuseries mainly serves as the content that Netflix demanded in order to write that 100 million dollar check.…which is why they did it. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that….they needed a big payday and they got it. But to try now to kind of say that this whole deal is some high minded attempt to get a royal sit down to work things out…..is kind of ridiculous.

 

[Karin1984]

Anderson Cooper from CNN will do the sit-down interview with Harry about Spare on January 8th.

I do not watch a lot of CNN, is Anderson Cooper a journalist to ask further and ask the hard questions, or should we see it as another opportunity to tell his story.

 

[Disneychick75]

Anderson Cooper from CNN will do the sit-down interview with Harry about Spare on January 8th.

I do not watch a lot of CNN, is Anderson Cooper a journalist to ask further and ask the hard questions, or should we see it as another opportunity to tell his story.

Cooper will more than likely throw soft questions at Harry. For some reason, the press in this country have taken up the cause of Harry and Meghan.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Anderson Cooper from CNN will do the sit-down interview with Harry about Spare on January 8th.

I do not watch a lot of CNN, is Anderson Cooper a journalist to ask further and ask the hard questions, or should we see it as another opportunity to tell his story.

I would say the latter.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

.