In 2023, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s year can best be described as a public relations disaster. Their tumultuous journey throughout the year led to them being dubbed as two of the biggest losers of the year by a prominent entertainment publication. Notably, a respected commentator in the industry characterized their post-royal lives as nothing short of a disaster. The year began with the release of Prince Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” which stirred up numerous controversies, including the claim that Queen Camilla posed a danger. Following this, there was a significant amount of speculation surrounding King Charles III’s coronation in early May, with the Duke of Sussex making a brief appearance at the crowning ceremony before swiftly departing for California.
One of the most notable incidents occurred when they found themselves in a near-catastrophic car chase by paparazzi through the streets of Manhattan, which many analysts considered a departure from the norm. This incident garnered attention from fellow celebrities, the NYPD, and even the Mayor of New York City, all questioning the characterization of the pursuit on the narrow, slow roads of the Big Apple.
In June, the couple suffered a major setback when Spotify dropped them from their roster and released them from the contract they had signed with the audio giant back in 2020. An executive from the company publicly referred to the couple as “effing grifters” during a podcast appearance. In the same month, Prince Harry became the first senior British royal to give in-person testimony in a London court since 1891. Throughout the year, questions regarding the Sussexes’ marriage, their living arrangements, and the status of their $100 million Netflix contract, which remained intact, continued to surface.
September’s Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany, marked the only high-profile joint appearance of the year for the former working royals. However, even this event was not without criticism for Meghan. Many experts and commentators viewed it as a clear signal that Hollywood was losing interest in the couple, especially given their negative industry label as “losers.”
In 2020, Meghan and Harry had departed from a life of ceremonial public service to capitalize on their celebrity status in the United States. However, their foray into the entertainment world, marked by a Netflix documentary, a controversial biography (notably titled “Spare”), and an unremarkable podcast, created an image that some considered sanctimonious and ripe for a fall. South Park’s merciless takedown of the couple in a 20-minute worldwide episode in March was particularly savage. Subsequently, Spotify also severed ties with Meghan’s podcast, with a top executive branding them as grifters.
An in-depth analysis of several autobiographies released in 2023, including Prince Harry’s “Spare,” was conducted by Paul Affleck, a writer for News Nation Now. The report from News Nation Now labeled “Spare” as a financial failure. Taking into account Prince Harry’s reported four-book deal with Penguin Random House, estimated to be worth $35 to $40 million, and the fact that “Spare” only sold 1.2 million hardcover copies, Paul deduced that, to recoup the publisher’s upfront investment, they would need to sell twice that number, or 2.7 million copies, at the original price of $36 each. In her assessment, Paul firmly concluded that, in any case, Penguin Random House had overpaid Prince Harry.
Throughout the year, Prince Harry had various legal encounters in the United Kingdom High Courts, with mixed rulings. In one case, he lost an appeal and was ordered to pay legal costs to the defendant, with a strict deadline set for payment before the end of the year. In another case, he achieved a small victory when the judge ruled that his voicemails had been hacked and his information illegally gathered by Mirror Group Newspapers between 1996 and 2009.
