Having dramatically exited one country’s putrescent ruling class, the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex have officially leapt into another: After landing multiyear content deals with both Netflix and Spotify, celebrity content merchant Prince Harry announced that he would be grabbing two more ersatz fiefdoms, each befitting his new American celebrity: a role as commissioner alongside others in the “thought leader” set at the Aspen Institute, and a C-suite position at BetterUp, a self-improvement tech company in Silicon Valley valued at $1.7 billion. The hires made international headlines—an outcome no doubt helped along by the couple’s ratings-smashing, heartstring-yanking Oprah interview this month, effectually marking the debut of their American brand.
Naturally, as former senior royals—in a universe Meghan and Harry convincingly depicted as toxic, stifling, and racist—the duo are hardly new to the rigors of branding. In some ways, the new lives Harry and Meghan are building together bear a striking resemblance to the ones from which they so dramatically flounced: Literal and figurative royalty are both clubs of which you will never be a part, nor will you come to enjoy the prestige, material wealth, or access to the most exclusive spaces on earth that these celebrity demigods enjoy. But if there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s that while the United Kingdom’s royal mega-influencers may be publicly provisioned, there’s far more money to be made off privatized brands.
For the alienated young Harry, that brand is increasingly associated with mental health. To his credit, it’s an issue about which he’s long been outspoken and that he’s made a centerpiece of past philanthropic work in Africa. Harry was tapped last year by the same elite six-figure speaking agency that reps the Obamas and Clintons to offer talks on mental health; he is also co-producing a docuseries for Apple TV on the topic with Winfrey—a project the legendary interviewer and doyenne of synergy seamlessly plugged as she drew out the couple’s harrowing story of their departure from royal duties in front of tens of millions of viewers.
March 29, 2021 at 05:00PM
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Prince Harry's Fake Silicon Valley Sojourn - The New Republic
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