ROYAL PURSE

Why Pay-Per-View Prince Harry’s Saddest Gig Yet Matters

The irony of a man who spent years railing against being commodified by the media now voluntarily compressing himself into a life of paid appearances is inescapable.

It is hard to think of a sadder symbol of Prince Harry’s slide from global change-maker to rent-a-prince than the news that he will on Monday take the stage at a Canadian real estate conference, a pay-to-play gathering designed to hash over Ontario housing policy and zoning permissions. His office did not respond to a request asking why he would be in attendance at the OREA Powerhouse event, but in the absence of him developing a newfound passion for leasehold reform, it seems reasonable to assume the Duke of Sussex, who once strode into war zones and whose mother opened the world’s eyes to the horror of landmines, is keen to make a buck. There is a bleakness to the conference website’s sell: See Prince Harry in person. Not hear him, not learn from him. Just see him. It didn’t have to be like this. Harry is a much-diminished figure now; Meghan seems way out of her depth. His allies will always tell you that Harry is happy being a dad, happy in the California sunshine—and making plenty of money. But that doesn’t erase the tragedy of the Sussexes, which is that they could have been magnificent, and they threw it all away.

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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