Chuyển đến nội dung chính

‘Make or break time’: Meghan and Harry’s final countdown

In a few hours, Meghan and Harry will step out for their final royal engagement – but it’s what comes next that will “make or break” their legacies.It is a matter of hours. At the time of writing it is just over 12 hours until Harry and Meghan the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will arrive outside London’s famed Westminster Abbey and begin their final official engagement as working members of the royal family.While their official end date is March 31, for all intents and purposes, when they enter the 930-year-old church early on Tuesday morning Sydney-time, it will be the last time that either of them will be addressed as His or Her Royal Highness – and, for Meghan, after less than 1000 days on the job.Unlike any other Commonwealth Day service, this year’s outing will incite global media coverage and every photo and video of the Sussexes’ interacting with the Queen, Prince Charles, William and Kate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Edward and Sophie the Earl and Countess of Wessex will be pored over.This will be the first time the rebel duo will be seen in public with his wider family and every flinch, blink and smile will be analysed by a veritable army of global royal obsessives and journalists.And then? Harry and Meghan will, most likely disappear. When and how they leave the UK will only emerge after the fact.






They will, again most likely, head back to Vancouver Island where they have been bunking down in a borrowed $20 million mansion.And like that, Harry and Meghan will largely be gone from the public eye.While they will have 20-odd days, roughly, between leaving Britain and their own personal independence day, there is another much more weighty clock ticking down.Because if the first quarter of 2020 has been defined by their dramatic quitting then they face a fast contracting window in which, to borrow from the sort Los Angelese that Meghan tends to favour, to reshape their personal narrative.For the roughly 18-months, between their glittering, love-saturated 2018 wedding and their startling resignation announcement in January this year, the pair might have found themselves at embroiled in various PR pickles (the NY baby shower, Archie’s christening, Wimbledon and that whole private jet imbroglio) however their work ethic and commitment to using their platform to help other has never, ever been in doubt.They both found issues that they were truly passionate about – gender equality and social justice for her; supporting military veterans and environmental issues for him – and bought a remarkable passion and verve to working on their respective projects.Go back and look at photos from any of their engagements since 2018 and look at the faces of the everyday people they were interacting with and you will see nothing but astonishing joy.There has never been anything stiff or formal about a Sussex event, rather than seem united in the authenticity of the connection and goodwill on display.In June 2019 it was revealed that the Sussexes would split off from the Royal Foundation, the charitable umbrella organisation set up by William and Harry in 2009, with the widely held view that they would establish their own foundation.In February this year, they revealed they planned instead to launch a “non-profit entity” and the couple intended “to develop a new way to effect change and complement the efforts made by so many excellent foundations globally”.All of which was lofty, intriguing and totally inscrutable.However, the last few months have seen them face accusations that they are more interested in hanging out with Hollywood A-listers and earning whopping great pay cheques than saving the world.Whether there is any truth to those charges is up for debate but what is not is the fact they face a shrinking time frame to prove their philanthropic bonafides.Essentially, having been released from the bonds of HRH-dom, Harry and Meghan now have only a brief period to put paid to those notions and to cement their post-royal brand and altruistic credibility.If they are looking for a sure-fire, failsafe template here, as luck would have it, history can provide one.In 1996, Diana, Princess of Wales attended the Met Gala, the then-delicious night which was a heady melange of facelifts, fashion enfant terribles and New York old money.However, she undertook this trip in between her ongoing work with the British Red Cross Anti-Personnel Land Mines



Campaign, Centrepoint (a London homeless charity) and the UK’s AIDS Trust among a handful.In the wake of her split from Charles, Diana managed to both firmly lodge herself on the global stage as a humanitarian tour de force AND build the sort of joyfully glamorous life she had been denied all those years being stuck inside the squat brick walls Kensington Palace.Last week it was reported that Meghan has allegedly been invited to attend the Met Gala alongside UK Vogue editor Edward Enniful this coming May.If she does go, and in the intervening time she and Harry have done little more than perfect their asanas and take Archie on myriad hikes (i.e. no unveiling of ambitious international plans for do-goodery) this will give rise to some serious narrow-eyed chuntering about where their true ambitions and interests lie.This is the tightrope that Harry and Meghan have to walk now. No one would begrudge them the chance to quaff champagne with the glitterati but they need to strike a delicate balance between enjoying all the perks of being A-listers and truly establishing their brand as global good Samaritans.The bottom line here is, once they leave Westminster Abbey tonight, they face a ticking countdown clock to firmly cement their new image and brand as being powerful, exciting forces for change and not simply as two 30-somethings who caused a kerfuffle, quit jobs they were sick of and now regularly brunch with Beyonce.While the first quarter of this year might have been trying for Harry and Meghan, the next quarter is truly make or break time.

Nhận xét

Bài đăng phổ biến từ blog này

Meghan Markle's shock family showdown in LA

The Markle family are again lashing out following new claims that Meghan Markle has not reached out to her father during the coronavirus crisis.In yet another explosive interview, Thomas Markle, 53, has claimed that his half-sister is still yet to check in on their 75-year-old father, Thomas Markle Sr.It comes just days after it was revealed that Meghan’s father-in-law, Prince Charles, is no longer in self-isolation after he had symptoms and tested positive for the life-threatening COVID-19 last month.“Meghan has not called [Dad] to ask how he is,” says Thomas. “It’s really, really, absurd Thomas, who insists he is in daily contact with their Mexico-based father, believes Meghan has shown zero concern for their elderly father.“She has made no effort to find out how he’s coping with this crisis, if he’s got enough food and supplies or if his health is OK,” Thomas continues.The Markle family are again lashing out following new claims that Meghan Markle has not reached out to he...

Chamisa's lawyer spoke out about Mnangagwa's fraud evidence during the election

OPPOSITION MDC leader Nelson Chamisa will launch a renewed bid to oust President Emmerson Mnangagwa by seeking to have the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) review its own judgment based on “new evidence.”.Chamisa’s lawyer Thabani Mpofu said after studying academic works on the elections published by self-exiled former minister Jonathan Moyo, they were now making efforts to have the judgment on the 2018 presidential elections set aside.The country’s top court ruled that Chamisa had failed to prove allegations of fraud during the presidential election, a vote which left the nation polarised and violence on the streets of the capital Harare.Mpofu said the basis of approaching the ConCourt was because they now believe that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) presented to the courts false information and, therefore, their call for the judgment to be set aside.“The general rule is that once a final judgment or order has been given, the judge who gave it or any other judge of parallel juri...

Grace Mugabe to make a graceful exit from politics

The future of former First Lady, Grace Mugabe, who arguably created more enemies than friends during her husband's last days in office, now hangs in the balance. The demise of the former president.Robert Mugabe, the man from whom Grace drew power and protection, leaves his wife now exposed. Grace, who during the greater part of husband's presidency had been focused on charity work, before later venturing into politics..With the support of Mugabe, Grace was in December 2014 parachuted to the helm of ZANU-PF Women's League, automatically qualifying to sit in the ruling party's highest decision-making body, the Politburo..The ex-First Lady then used her position and marriage to Mugabe to vilify all those she perceived to be harbouring ambitions of succeeding Zimbabwe's long-time ruler..She became literally untouchable with ministers currying favours with her to avoid being sacked by the President. The former First Lady ganged up with the G40 faction of ZANU-PF....