[imagesource: Netflix]

Can you believe the nerve of it all?

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made a documentary where they give their own side of the narrative that has surrounded them over the past few years.

They were probably paid an astronomical figure for doing so as well. First, they want nothing to do with Royal Family duties, and now they’re going off on their own and making money.

Where will it end? Meghan is even smiling in the promo photo you see above. Grab the pitchforks!

Let’s go with a reasonable response to the teaser trailer which dropped yesterday, via Sky News:

Netflix describes the documentary, titled Harry & Meghan, as a “global event” and says it is “coming soon” – reports say it will land on 8 December.

It says the show “explores the clandestine days of their early courtship and the challenges that led to them feeling forced to step back from their full-time roles in the institution”…

It adds: “The series does more than illuminate one couple’s love story, it paints a picture of our world and how we treat each other.”

The doccie will feature commentary from friends, family, and royal historians and is directed by Liz Garbus, a two-time Academy Award-nominee and Emmy winner.

Roll tape:

It’s believed the deals that the couple signed with Netflix and Spotify are worth more than £100 million combined.

So that’s the reasonable stuff out of the way. Now let’s lose our marbles and head to The Daily Mail, where rabid royal reporter Sarah Vine says the trailer shows “weapons-grade narcissism and a Biblical level of betrayal”:

It’s a declaration of war and it cannot be ignored. How else do you explain the timing of this trailer’s release, barely a day after the Prince and Princess of Wales touched down in America on a royal tour?

The whole thing is a masterclass in passive-aggressive media manipulation, deftly casting the princess as the wicked sister-in-law, with Meghan as the helpless victim. And one wonders, by the way, who has been taking all these intimate black and white photographs. Is this what they’ve been planning all along, right from the start?

Who has been taking these photos for this documentary that has been in the works for years?

Not only is the trailer vomit-inducing in its saccharine one-sidedness, it’s also terribly sad. For however much William might have wanted, in the past, to give his brother the benefit of the doubt or even – as we have seen on several occasions – extend an olive branch, this all-out attack on his wife surely leaves him with no choice.

I had a quick look through some of Sarah’s recent stories. September was a busy month:

She stuck up for Boris Johnson and decried any attacks on Liz Truss.

Funny, because less than a month later she wrote “Truss was a disastrous dalliance who served only to remind us what a real leader looks like”.

Anyway, the right-wing media in the UK is having a normal one about all of this. Sky has rounded up some newspaper front covers:

Crazy thought – maybe they don’t like being followed by paparazzi who use their photos for headlines like those above, so they’ve cashed in and filmed a doccie where they get paid for being followed around.

I don’t even like Harry and Meghan, really. I think the entire Royal Family is a farce and should be disbanded and they should hand over their assets to the British public.

Anyway, The Daily Mail and The Sun and so on must be licking their lips at the months and months of content coming their way.

I’m just glad those of us in South Africa live in a normal, functioning democracy that definitely isn’t falling apart at the seams.

[sources:sky&dmail&sky]