Welcome back to the Deep Dive. It is Saturday,
January 24th, 2026. And, you know, I was looking
at the calendar this morning and it really it
just struck me how fast the last, say, decade
has flown by. It's unbelievable. It really is.
But if there's been one constant, one headline
that has just been glued to the front of every
paper, the top of every feed and like right at
the center of the cultural conversation for that
entire time, it's the subject of today's deep
dive. It would be genuinely difficult to find
a single person in the English speaking world
who doesn't have an opinion on it. Oh, impossible,
I'd argue. We are talking, of course, about Prince
Harry, the Duke of Sussex. And the reason we're
doing this today. specifically today, here in
early 2026, is because the sheer volume of news
around him, it hasn't slowed down at all. If
anything, it's just become this deafening roar.
Really has. You just look at the last few months
alone. You've got major legal rulings. You've
got these charity shakeups, political comments.
It's a lot. It is a lot. And I think the reason
it feels so intense right now is that we're seeing
a kind of culmination of choices that were made
five, maybe six years ago. The dust isn't settling.
It's actually being kicked up into a storm. Exactly.
And that is the hook for me. That's what I find
so fascinating. When I was reading through this
mountain of sources you sent over, which is massive,
by the way. It's quite a stack. It is. I just
kept coming back to the contradictions. The guy
is a figure of such massive contradictions. What
do you mean? Well, just think about it for a
second. He's a prince of the blood, right? Born
into the ultimate goldfish bowl of the British
monarchy. He leaves that entire institution explicitly
to find a privacy and to protect his family.
It's a stated goal. It's a stated goal. And then
he releases Spare, which becomes the fastest
selling nonfiction book of all time. And it details
the most intimate, sometimes excruciatingly private
moments of his life and his family's lives. It's
a fundamental conflict, isn't it? Leave me alone,
but first buy my book. Exactly. And then you
have the other side of it. He's a decorated soldier.
Captain Wales, a guy who flew Apache helicopters
in a war zone. But now he's viewed by, well,
half the world as this controversial media figure
living in California, you know, cutting deals
with Netflix. It's just it's a fascinating disconnect.
It really is. It has the arc of a tragic hero
in some classical sense. Or, you know, perhaps
it's just the very messy, very public reality
of a modern celebrity life. You've got the wild
child of the early 2000s, the war hero of the
2010s. And now. What some of the critics are
calling the Duke of Montecito. OK, so here is
our mission for today. We have a lot to get through.
We have a comprehensive biography that literally
takes us from his birth in 1984 all the way to
like last week. Yeah, we have court judgments
from late 2025 Charity Commission reports. It's
all in there. So we're going to try to move past
the tabloid froth. I really don't care about
who wore what to which gala. Agreed. Let's leave
the fashion critiques to the fashion blog. We
want to understand the arc of this life. How
did Captain Wales, the war hero, become the Harry
we see today? We need to analyze those key turning
points, the military, the marriage, the exit,
and of course, the fallout. And to understand
the present, especially this really complicated,
really litigious present of 2026, you absolutely
have to go back to the foundation. You have to
understand the architecture of his childhood.
Okay, let's do it. Let's unpack this. Segment
one, the making of the spare. And that word,
I mean, it's not just a book title, is it? It
was his reality from the second he took his first
breath. It really was. Born September 15th, 1984.
Henry Charles Albert David. He was the second
son of the then Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess
of Wales. And in the, let's call it the brutal,
cold calculus of a hereditary monarchy, you have
the heir. That's William. And you have the spare.
It sounds so medieval when you put it like that.
It is medieval. I mean, that's the whole point.
The system requires an heir to continue the bloodline,
and it requires a spare just in case, you know,
something tragic were to happen to the heir.
A backup. A constitutional backup. But once the
heir grows up and has children of his own, which
William did, of course, the spare becomes, in
a way, mathematically redundant. And Harry was
aware of this from a young age. Oh, painfully
so. He's spoken about it at length. But what
I found really interesting in the research is
that this wasn't just, you know, an emotional
feeling. It was financially codified. It was
written into the family's finances. This blew
my mind. The Queen Mother's trust funds. Right.
So their great grandmother, the queen mother,
she established these trust funds for both boys.
And when you look at the details, Harry actually
received a significantly larger share of that
specific pot of money than William did. Which
seems so counterintuitive, doesn't it? I mean,
usually the older brother gets everything. In
the aristocracy, yes. But the logic here was
actually quite clear. William was going to be
king. William would inherit the Duchy of Cornwall,
which is a billion pound estate that generates
tens of millions in profit every single year.
So William was set. William gets the throne.
William gets the palaces. William gets the history
books. So the extra cash for Harry was what?
A consolation prize. Sorry, you're not going
to be king. Here's some money. Essentially, yes.
It was the family's way of trying to balance
the scales. It was a recognition that you don't
get the destiny. So here's a little extra financial
cushion. It highlights that from day one, everyone
knew Harry's path would be different. He would
need to fend for himself in a way that William
never, ever would. But, you know, no amount of
trust fund money can insulate a child from real
trauma. And we absolutely cannot talk about Harry
without talking about 1997. Diana. He was 12
years old. He was at Balmoral Castle in Scotland
when it happened. And his father, Charles, has
to come into his room and tell him that his mother
has died in a car crash in Paris. The impact
of that. I mean, losing a parent is devastating
for any child. But the way it happened and the
immediate aftermath. It's almost inconceivable.
The public nature of it is what separates it
from, you know, what we might call normal grief.
And the specific image that I think is burned
into the collective consciousness of the entire
world is the funeral. The walk behind the cortege.
I mean, you have a 12 -year -old boy, Harry,
walking through the streets of London behind
a gun carriage that is bearing his mother's body.
And he's flanked by his grandfather, Prince Philip,
his father, Charles, his 15 -year -old brother,
William. And his uncle, Charles Spencer. And
there are millions of people lining the streets,
just wailing, throwing flowers, and then billions
more watching on television around the globe.
Can you even imagine? No. He has spoken about
this in recent years, specifically describing
just the sound of the horses' hooves on the pavement
and the constant wailing of the crowd. He called
it a genetic pain and suffering. And he mentioned
that for a long, long time, he just blocked it
out completely. He said he just... didn't think
about her. That's a classic trauma response,
isn't it? Dissociation. He said he couldn't cry.
He cried once at the burial and then not again
for years and years. But when you bottle that
kind of thing up, it comes out sideways. And
that brings us directly to the wild child phase.
Because if you were reading the papers in the
early 2000s, Harry was a chaotic figure. He was
acting out. He was angry. And he was doing it
all under this incredibly intense microscope.
So for his education, he went to Eton College.
Now that was unusual, wasn't it? The Windsor
men, like Philip and Charles, they all went to
Gordonstown in Scotland. Which is famously tough.
Known for cold showers, brutal morning runs,
all about character building. I think Charles
called it coldets and kilts. Right. But Harry
went to Eton, which is, you know, just down the
road from Windsor Castle. That was the Spencer
tradition, right? Diana's family went there.
Correct. But Harry... Well, let's just say he
wasn't exactly setting the world on fire as an
academic scholar. I saw his A -level results
in the notes. He got a B in art and a D in geography.
And even that B in art was surrounded by controversy.
Ah, the cheating allegations. This was a huge
story at the time. An art teacher at Eaton, a
woman named Sarah Forsyth, she alleged that she
was essentially bullied by the school administration
into helping Harry cheat on his A -level art
project. She said he couldn't have done it himself.
She claimed he was a weak student and that she
basically did a lot of the work. Did anything
ever come of that legally? Well, there was an
employment tribunal. It ultimately cleared Harry
of the cheating allegation itself, meaning he
didn't knowingly cheat. but the tribunal did
accept that he had received help in preparing
the project. So it was this very murky gray area.
But the narrative it solidified was that Harry
wasn't the smart one. Exactly. You have William
the golden boy off to St. Andrews University,
and then you have Harry, the one who's just scraping
by. And then came the partying, the underage
drinking, the smoking. The Highgrove sessions.
He was, what, 16, 17? Drinking at the local pubs,
smoking cannabis at his father's country estate.
Highgrove. And Charles actually got a lot of
credit for how he handled that, didn't he? He
did, yeah. It was seen as very modern parenting
at the time. Charles sent Harry to Featherstone
Lodge, which is a drug rehabilitation center,
just for a day. Right, not as a patient, but
to talk to people. Exactly, to talk to recovering
heroin and cocaine addicts. He wanted Harry to
see the real ugly consequences of addiction firsthand.
It seemed to work for a bit, or at least the
press kind of laid off him. But then we get to
2005. The costume party. Oh, the colonial and
native themed party. Which, I mean, first of
all, who throws a party with that theme in 2005?
It was a different time, but not that different.
It was already in incredibly poor taste. But
Harry. Harry shows up wearing a Nazi Afrika Korps
uniform, complete with a swastika armband. I
remember that photo so clearly. The sun put it
right on the front page. Harry the Nazi. It was
a global scandal. Yeah. I mean, just think about
it. You have the grandson of the queen who served
in World War II wearing the uniform of the enemy.
Jewish rights groups, politicians, veterans,
everyone was justifiably appalled. He apologized,
of course. He had to. He issued a statement saying
it was a very stupid thing to do, but the damage
was done. It made him look reckless, deeply insensitive,
and just historically illiterate. And sadly,
that wasn't the only time he was caught using
really offensive language or imagery. There was
that video that surfaced in 2009. Right. And
this was footage that he'd filmed himself back
in 2006 when he was a cadet at Sandhurst. He
was filming his platoon mates. And he used some
slurge. He did. He zoomed in on a fellow officer
cadet of South Asian descent and called him our
little packy friend. Later in the same video,
he saw another soldier who was wearing a scarf
over his head and called him a raghead. Wow.
Hearing those words now is... genuinely shocking.
It was shocking then, too. I mean, David Cameron,
who was the leader of the opposition at the time,
called it completely unacceptable. The Ministry
of Defense had to launch a formal inquiry. Harry
was forced to undergo this intense diversity
training. So by the time he's in his early 20s,
the public perception is pretty much set, isn't
it? This guy is a liability. He's a party animal.
He's offensive. He's lost. He was spiraling.
You can see it. He desperately needed structure.
He needed a purpose that wasn't just being the
spare. And he found it. He found it in the military.
This brings us to segment two, the transformation.
He has said himself that his 10 years in the
Army were the happiest times of his life. Absolutely.
For 10 years, from 2005 to 2015, he wasn't His
Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales. He was
just Captain Wales. It all started at Sandhurst.
The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. It's the
elite training ground for British Army officers.
And the thing about Sandhurst is, you know, The
drill surgeons really don't care who your grandmother
is. If your boots aren't polished, you get screamed
at just like everyone else. And I think he loved
that anonymity. He thrived on it. For the first
time, he was in a true meritocracy. He could
physically do the work. He was good with the
other guys. It was the brotherhood he'd been
missing his whole life. But the big question
hanging over everything was always, can you actually
send a prince to war? It was a logistical and
security nightmare. In 2007, there was this massive,
very public plan to send him to Iraq. But then
the insurgents publicly stated they would make
him a primary target. They wanted to kidnap or
kill the third in line to the British throne.
In general, Sir Richard Dannett, who was the
head of the army, he eventually said no, right?
He did. He made the call and said the risk to
the men serving with Harry was just too high.
Harry was a magnate for bullets and it wasn't
fair to his unit. And Harry was furious at that.
He famously said he wouldn't drag his sorry ass
through Sandhurst just to sit at a desk in London.
He threatened to quit the army entirely. So the
palace and the Ministry of Defense, they went
back to the drawing board and they hatched a
secret plan. The first Afghanistan deployment.
Late 2007, they sent him to Helmand Province
as a forward air controller. His job was on the
ground, calling in airstrikes on Taliban positions.
But the condition, the absolute non -negotiable
condition, was a total media blackout. This is
what fascinates me about that period. Every single
newspaper editor in London knew. The broadcasters
at the BBC and ITN knew. And they all agreed
to say nothing. It just shows you the relationship
between the palace and the press back then. It
was a different world. They could still make
a deal like that. They kept the secret for 10
weeks to keep him safe. Until the blackout broke.
An Australian magazine called New Idea and then
a German newspaper. They published the story.
And once it was out, it was out everywhere. And
he had to be pulled out immediately. Literally
within hours. He was on a plane back to the UK.
He was devastated. He felt like he was abandoning
his team, his brothers. But that taste of combat.
It changed him. He knew he wanted to go back.
But he couldn't go back as a ground controller.
He was too easy a target. Right. So he went up.
He retrained as an Apache helicopter pilot. The
front seat. Right. Co -pilot. Exactly. The person
who controls the weapon systems. And he went
back in 2012. For a 20 -week tour. And he was
in the thick of it. I mean, the Apache is a fearsome
attack helicopter. And this leads to another
one of those slightly controversial, hairy moments.
In an interview he gave during that tour, he
compared... firing the weapons to playing video
games. I'm essentially a joypad user, I think
was the exact quote. It was. And for some, that
played right into the out -of -touch prince who
doesn't understand the gravity of war narrative.
But for others, it was just, you know, a soldier
being brutally honest about the sanitized nature
of modern technology and warfare. But the real
controversy about his service didn't come until
much, much later. It came in the book, Spare.
The Kill Count. He wrote, plain as day, that
he had killed 25 Taliban fighters. And he described
them not as people, but as chess pieces that
had been removed from the board. He said you
can't think of them as people if you want to
pull the trigger and stay sane. The reaction
to that specific passage was just visceral. It
was. Senior military figures, retired colonels,
commanders, guys who had been in charge came
out and said, we just don't do that. You don't
brag about a kill count. You don't treat it like
a scorecard. It violates the unwritten professional
code of a soldier. And worse, it was a massive
security risk, wasn't it? A huge one. The Taliban
actually issued a statement condemning him by
name. It basically put a fresh target on his
back and on the backs of British soldiers years
after he had left the service. And that soldier
identity, it's still so core to who he is. We
saw it flare up just this month in January 2026.
The comments about NATO. Right. So Donald Trump
made some comments questioning the value of NATO
allies, which is pretty standard rhetoric for
him by now. But Harry responded. Which is very,
very rare. Royals, even former senior royals,
they usually stay completely out of geopolitics.
But Harry released a statement, a personal statement,
saying that the sacrifices of NATO troops must
be spoken about truthfully and with respect.
It was a direct rebuttal, no question. It absolutely
was. And it shows that he still considers himself
part of that military brotherhood. He feels a
profound duty to defend the soldier, even if
he can no longer officially wear the uniform.
And the ultimate expression of that duty, of
course, is the Invictus Games. Without a doubt.
Launched in 2014, he was inspired by the Warrior
Games in the U .S., and he brought the concept
to the U .K. and then made it global. It's an
international sporting event for wounded, injured,
and sick servicemen and women, both serving and
veterans. It was a masterstroke, wasn't it? It
was his redemption. In one move, it completely
changed the narrative from party prince to humanitarian
leader. It gave him a legacy that was entirely
his own, separate from the monarchy. And it was
during this high point, this period where he
was arguably the most popular royal in the entire
country, that his personal life took the turn
that would change history. Segment three, love,
marriage, and Megxit. Before we get to Meghan,
we should probably briefly mention the serious
relationships before her. Chelsea Davy and Cressida
Bonas. Right, they were long -term girlfriends.
Years. Chelsea Davy for about six years, Cressida
for about two. But both relationships ultimately
ended for pretty much the same reason. The goldfish
bowl. The goldfish bowl. The story goes that
Chelsea Davey attended the wedding of William
and Kate in 2011, saw the absolute insanity of
the press coverage and the lack of freedom, and
basically said, this is not the life for me.
She wanted a career. She wanted privacy. So Harry
was looking for someone who could handle it,
or maybe someone who didn't fully know what they
were getting into. Enter Meghan Markle, summer
of 2016. They met on a blind date in London?
Or was it through Instagram? The story seems
to change. It's a bit of both, from their telling.
A mutual friend set them up, but they had sort
of seen each other via social media. Meghan was,
of course, an American actress starring in the
TV show Suits. She was divorced. She was mixed
race. She was an outspoken feminist. She was,
in many ways, everything the British monarchy
usually wasn't. And initially, that was seen
as really exciting. A breath of fresh air. But
the press coverage turned toxic almost immediately.
And this is a pivotal moment in the entire Harry
timeline, November 2016. The statement. Yes.
Usually, the palace just ignores gossip. Their
mantra for a century has been, never complain,
never explain. But Harry instructed his communications
secretary to release this blistering statement.
He attacked the racial undertones of the comment
pieces. He attacked the outright sexism and racism
of social media trolls. He attacked the photographers
who were literally besieging her mother's house.
It was a declaration of war on the press. He
was drawing a very clear line in the sand. He
was saying, I failed to protect my mother from
this. I will not fail to protect this woman.
Exactly. That core trauma from 1997 was driving
the bus. No question about it. They get married
in May 2018. It was a spectacular, beautiful
event at Windsor. They become the Duke and Duchess
of Sussex. And for a moment, it really felt like
a genuine modernization of the monarchy. It did.
But we now know that behind the scenes, the structure
was already rotting. They were living at Kensington
Palace. Then they moved to Frogmore Cottage.
There were endless reports of rifts with William
and Kate, the so -called dueling households.
Stories about Meghan making Kate cry or Kate
making Meghan cry. It was nonstop. And the staff
turnover, the bullying allegations. That was
huge. Senior staff were quitting in droves. There
was talk of a Sussex Survivors Club. The atmosphere,
by all accounts, was poisonous. And then the
break. January 8th, 2020. The Instagram post
that shocked the world. They announced, without
consulting the queen, that they were stepping
back as senior members of the royal family. They
wanted a kind of hybrid model, right? A half
-in, half -out role. That's what they proposed.
They wanted to be financially independent, but
still support the queen by carrying out some
royal duties. They wanted to keep their titles
and their security, but also be free to earn
money commercially. And the institution, the
firm, said absolutely not. The Sandringham Summit.
The Queen, Charles and William sat Harry down
and they laid down the law. You cannot monetize
the monarchy. You are either in serving the public
100 percent or you are out. There is no middle
ground. So they chose out. They chose freedom.
Yeah. But the price of that freedom was immense.
OK, let's talk about that price, because it really
does set up everything that happens over the
next five years. First, they lost the use of
their HRH titles, his or her royal highness.
Second, and this one. devastated Harry. He lost
his honorary military appointments. Captain General
of the Royal Marines was a huge one. And the
money? This is the absolute key to understanding
everything that followed. 95 % of their income
had come from the Duchy of Cornwall, which is
Charles' private estate. That was cut off. Cold.
Just gone. Gone overnight. So suddenly they're
living in Tyler Perry's mansion in Los Angeles,
then buying a massive $14 million estate in Montecito.
They have a security bill that runs into the
millions of dollars per year, and they have zero
income. That pressure cooker explains what happens
next. Segment four, the commercial era, or as
some of the tabloids called it, the media wars.
And they had to make money. And they had to make
a lot of it fast. So they went straight to the
streamers. Netflix. The rumored $100 million
deal. And, of course, Spotify. So let's look
at the output from those deals. The Harry and
Meghan docuseries on Netflix that came out in
late 2022. That was a massive hit for Netflix.
Record -breaking viewing numbers. It was sleek.
It was emotional. It was their side of the story.
It did exactly what Netflix paid all that money
for. But the rest of the output has been... What?
Mixed? Mixed at best. The Spotify deal completely
collapsed in 2023 after just one season of Megan's
podcast, Archetypes. A senior Spotify executive,
Bill Simmons, went on his own podcast and publicly
called them heffing grifters. That was a really
low point for them, wasn't it? It was a PR disaster.
And even more recently, in December of 2024,
Harry produced a documentary about polo for Netflix.
And how did that do? It flopped. It didn't chart
well. The critics called it tone deaf and elitist.
Yeah. A show about rich people riding horses
while the rest of the world is dealing with inflation
and global crises. It just didn't resonate. But
the biggest commercial product and the one that
did the most damage to his family relationships
was the book, Spare. January 2023. Ghost written
by J .R. Mullringer, who is a Pulitzer Prize
winner. And you can tell it's a beautifully written
book. Yeah. But the content, my goodness. It
was scorched earth. He went after everyone. He
detailed a physical fight he had with William
where he claims William knocked him to the floor
breaking a dog bowl under his back. He accused
his stepmother Camilla of leaking stories to
the press for years to rehabilitate her own image.
And the really personal stuff. The frostbitten
penis anecdote at his brother's wedding. The
extensive drug use. Cocaine, magic mushrooms
at Courtney Cox's house, ayahuasca. He stripped
away every last shred of royal mystery. Why do
you think he did that? What was the goal? I think
he genuinely felt that he had been silenced and
his story had been twisted by the press for 35
years. He wanted to correct the record. He wanted
to own his story. But in doing so, he pretty
much burned the bridge back to his family to
the ground. And those admissions, specifically
about the drugs, they created a brand new legal
nightmare for him in the U .S. The Heritage Foundation
lawsuit. OK, explain this one, because it's a
little bit technical, but it is so important
to his current situation. The Heritage Foundation
is a conservative think tank based in Washington,
D .C. They filed a freedom of information lawsuit
against the Department of Homeland Security.
Their argument was pretty simple. Every U .S.
visa application asks, have you ever violated
any law relating to controlled substances? And
if you say yes to that? You are usually deemed
inadmissible. You would need a special waiver
to get in. If you say no, but you've just published
a global bestseller saying you did lots of drugs,
then you've potentially lied to the federal government,
which is a deportable offense. So they wanted
to see his application. Exactly. They wanted
to know what he wrote and if he got special treatment
because he's a prince. And this got very political,
very fast. Oh, yeah. Donald Trump weighed in
back in February 2025. He did an interview and
said, I wouldn't protect him. I'd leave him alone.
The implication being that if he were to become
president again, Harry could be deported. The
documents were eventually unsealed in March of
2025, right? They were, but they were so heavily
redacted that it was almost pointless. We still
don't know for sure what he checked on that box,
but the fact that a British prince's immigration
status became a political football in the U .S.
election cycle just shows you how far he's traveled
from Buckingham Palace. And at the same time
he was fighting to stay in the U .S., he was
suing half of Fleet Street back in London. The
privacy crusades. She launched a whole series
of lawsuits against the British tabloids. He
sued Mirror Group newspapers for extensive phone
hacking. And he won. That was a huge moment for
him. A massive vindication. In December 2023,
a high court judge ruled that he had been hacked.
And crucially, that senior editors, including
Piers Morgan, knew all about it. It proved he
wasn't just being paranoid. It did. It proved
that the paranoia he felt for years was justified.
They really were listening to his voicemails.
And he settled with The Sun's publisher in January
2025. For a huge payout. We don't know the exact
figure, but the reports suggest millions. But
the one big legal battle he lost was the one
over his police protection. The RAVXC case. And
I think this is the one that really hurts him
the most. He sued the home office because the
committee known as RAVs. removed his automatic
taxpayer -funded police security when he stepped
back from royal duties. And he offered to pay
for it himself, which to a lot of people sounds
reasonable. I'll pay for the police. It does
on the surface. Yeah. But the high court said
no. They ruled that you cannot privately fund
public police officers. It creates a dangerous
two -tier system where the rich can essentially
buy their own private police force. And that's
not how British justice works. So he lost that
case. He lost. And his appeal was rejected in
May 2025. And I read somewhere that the legal
costs for the taxpayer just to defend that one
case were over half a million pounds. Over 500
,000 pounds. Which, as you can imagine, did not
endear him to the British public who were dealing
with a massive cost of living crisis at the time.
Wow. So that brings us right up to the present
day, segment five, the state of affairs in late
2025 and January 2026. Because recently, even
the charity work, which was always the one thing
that was sort of bulletproof for him, has started
to look pretty shaky. It's been a very rough
six months for Brand Sussex. OK, let's start
with Centibell. This is the charity he co -founded
in Lesotho to help children with HIV. I mean,
this is his baby. It's his heart and soul. It
is. But in March 2025, he resigned as patron.
And it was not a happy, amicable handover. There
was a dispute. A massive governance dispute with
the charity's chair, a woman named Sophie Chandalka.
She publicly accused Harry of, and I'm quoting
from the reports here, harassment and bullying
at scale. That word again, bullying. We heard
it from the palace staff and now here it is again.
Exactly. She claimed he used imperious language.
She said he sent nasty, demanding notes to staff.
Did the charity commission get involved in the
UK? They did. They launched an investigation
and they reported back in August 2025. Now, to
be fair to Harry, their report found no evidence
of systemic bullying, but they did note there
had been poor governance and they acknowledged
that some people felt ill -treated. It was very
messy, very public falling out. And then there's
African Parks. This one is even more serious,
isn't it? Much more serious. So Harry was on
the board of African Parks, which is a major
conservation group, and reports started coming
out. that rangers who were funded by the charity
were abusing the Baka indigenous people in the
Congo Basin. And we're talking about serious
abuse. We're talking about horrific allegations.
beatings, torture, sexual assault. That is just
awful. It is. And Harry faced immense pressure
from human rights groups like Survival International,
who were calling on him to step down from the
board. It completely undercuts his image as a
global humanitarian when the organization he
helps lead is being accused of these kinds of
human rights abuses. And meanwhile, his family
relations are, well, what are they? Are there
any relations left? From all public reporting,
they're non -existent. There were reports in
late 2025 that Charles had stopped taking his
calls altogether. The bank of dad is well and
truly closed. And by all accounts, William and
Harry are effectively strangers. But he's still
trying to do some good. He's still trying to
do the work. He is. In September 2025, he and
Meghan made a donation of $1 .1 million to the
UK charity Children in Need. A huge sum of money.
And he's trying to find new causes, right? In
October 2025, he signed that open letter about
the dangers of AI. Right, calling for a ban on
artificial superintelligence. He's clearly trying
to pivot and position himself as a global thought
leader, a kind of statesman without a state.
But is the public, particularly the American
public, buying it anymore? Well, the data says
no. There was a ranker poll in October 2025,
which is based on millions of votes from the
public. Harry was listed as the third most disliked
celebrity in the entire U .S. In the U .S., wow.
That was supposed to be his safe haven, the place
that embraced him. That's the danger. He's not
just unpopular in Britain anymore, which you
might expect. He's becoming a punchline in America.
He's been lampooned by South Park, by late -night
hosts. The initial shine has definitely worn
off. And that leads us directly to that headline
from just a few weeks ago, January 2026, the
accusation of disaster tourism. Yeah, this was
painful to watch. The wildfires in Los Angeles
were raging. Parts of Pacific Palisades were
being evacuated. It was a genuine community tragedy.
And Harry and Meghan showed up. They went to
a local food bank to help pack boxes for displaced
families. Which, on the face of it, is a good
thing to do. In isolation, yes, it's a good thing.
But they brought a camera crew with them. Or
at the very least, they allowed a photographer
to take perfectly lit professional photos, which
were then immediately distributed to the media.
And the reaction online was brutal. Disaster
tourism. That was the phrase that was trending
all day. People felt they were using a community
tragedy as a PR opportunity to try and rehabilitate
their image after all those charity scandals.
It's the ultimate damned if you do, damned if
you don't trap, isn't it? If they sit in their
mansion in Montecito, people say, I don't care.
If they go to the food bank, people say they're
just doing it for the cameras. That is true.
But you could argue they built that trap themselves.
When you monetize every aspect of your life,
when you sell your family's secrets, when you
film your most private moments for Netflix, the
public eventually stops giving you the benefit
of the doubt. Everything starts to look like
a transaction. So after all of this, what does
it all mean? We've looked at this entire trajectory.
from the grieving little boy walking behind the
coffin to the hero pilot in the Apache to the
fairy tale groom at Windsor to the litigant in
the courtroom. I think what we were witnessing
is a man who desperately wanted to escape the
goldfish bowl. He hated the fishbowl. He hated
being watched, so he smashed the glass. But he
didn't realize that without the glass, he's just
flopping around on the floor for everyone to
see. He wanted to control the narrative, but
to do that, he had to sell the narrative. And
once you sell your story, You don't really own
it anymore. The public does. He has his freedom.
He got what he said he wanted. He has his financial
independence. He does. But the cost was the very
institution that gave him his platform, his purpose,
and his name in the first place. He is a prince
without a kingdom. It really is the ultimate
irony when you think about it. He is the Duke
of Sussex, a title given to him by the monarchy,
living in a gated American celebrity enclave,
fighting battles about U .S. visas and Spotify
podcasts, completely estranged from the very
thing that makes him Prince Harry. So the question
for the next decade, as he moves from his early
40s towards his late 40s, is a simple one. Can
he ever be just Harry? Or is the title, the connection
to the thing he left behind, the only thing that
keeps the whole show on the road? And that is
the provocative thought we're going to leave
you with today. We often talk about the cost
of fame, but it's rare that we get to see someone