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Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, whose spokesperson has refused to confirm on the record that she is living in the United Kingdom, has nonetheless posted a video of herself and the fifth, sixth and seventh in line to the British throne gallivanting around in an idealized version of the English countryside, with a Union Jack and a heart emoji plastered over the top.
Lilibet on a bike with pink tassels. Archie running beside her down a tree-lined path, deer in the distance. Harry fishing with the children from a little boat, a Labrador on the bank, a fire, the couple holding hands. It is very squarely aimed at presenting a happy, settled version of the Sussexes as they ease back into British life.
This comes just days after Harry was spotted wandering around the reception of the pool area at Soho Farmhouse, a private club in Oxfordshire about 40 minutes from the property where it is believed that Harry and his family are staying. (That followed Meghan’s own first sighting in the U.K. at the same club.)
Many people assumed Meghan’s new video was filmed at Althorp, the Spencer family’s estate. The Royalist’s sources, however, believe this is not the case. This raises many questions: where was it filmed, whose land is it, and who was behind the camera?
Then there are the contradictions, which are hard to ignore.
The Sussexes say they want to be private, that they need protection, that it is impossible for them to live as normal private individuals, and that this is why they must be treated as public figures again. Then they do a huge amount to publicize themselves.
They say social media is bad and children need to get off their phones. Then they use the same platform to mediate their relationship with the public, and put their own children at the core of it.
Meghan’s lifestyle brand exists entirely within the attention-economy infrastructure she and Harry denounce: the curated grid, the soft kitchen shots, the funnel from feed to website to jam. We got used to the California version. Here is the U.K. version. A bit muddier, sure, but the same basic idea.
These are the couple’s own children, posted to advertise how well the family is doing back home. The hidden faces are not protection; they are a curiosity gap, which makes the story more clickable and the eventual reveal more valuable. This has happened before: in May, for example, Meghan posted a picture of Archie and Lilibet in her dressing room the day before she stood up in Geneva to lecture the world about “relentless algorithms” and “exploitative engagement.”
Two bigger stories sit underneath all this. First, the privacy war between Harry and Meghan over the children is clearly not over, and on this evidence, Meghan is winning it: the brand had been flatlining, no footage of the kids had appeared since the return, and now the strategy of folding domestic life into the personal brand has been switched back on. Second, the King. He was assured the Sussexes would abide by the Sandringham terms; the Lord Chamberlain restated last week that they are not working royals. Now they are running their own royal social media operation from the English countryside, wrapped in the flag, with the children front and center.
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