Even before the sensational Oprah Winfrey interview most Americans needed little persuading that there was something deeply wrong behind Harry and Meghan’s jailbreak.
The view of the Windsors on this side of the pond had already been indelibly conditioned and shaped by watching The Crown.
And then, in the hands of Oprah, the story moved seamlessly from the anguish of Diana as portrayed in The Crown to the anguish of Meghan in the flesh.
Same family, the Wicked Windsors. Same problems.
Harry, speaking of his mother, said “we felt her presence through this whole process” and it was clear that Meghan was reaching back to Diana for the basic text to frame her unforgiving account of her suffering.
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She was everything the Windsors were not.
She was the beauty and they were the beast.
She was vulnerable and they were strong and cruel.
She was the future and they were the stubborn past.
She was generous of spirit and they were mean.
But, unlike Diana, Meghan was addressing an audience already on her side.
America has enthusiastically welcomed the Sussexes as kin who fled a stuffy penitential royal cage for a freer life, welcomed them almost as though they are rebels fleeing the same royal tyranny that inspired the American war of independence.
When Meghan wrote movingly about her miscarriage in the New York Times there was a very telling line that foretold her heartfelt Oprah revelations.
She talked of living in a silo ‘where moments sad, scary or sacrosanct are all lived out alone. There is no one stopping to ask, “Are you OK?”’
Now this astounding performance with Oprah is bound to eclipse anything that the Windsor spin machine can muster.
However, hard they try to rebut the most damning public indictment of the royal family’s internal dynamics ever made it cannot equal the platform that Oprah gave to Meghan and Harry.
Seen from this side of the pond the palace’s attempts at a pre-emptive strike on Meghan looked vindictive and petty – dragging up from 2018 an alleged case of intimidating her staff and inadvertently wearing earrings gifted as a wedding present by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shortly after he masterminded the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
That last charge was a bit rich coming from a family that has embraced the Saudi royals for decades and acquired a hoard of jewellery given by them.
Remember, too, that these were the people who thought they could rehabilitate Andrew by setting him up with an interview with Emily Maitlis.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
I seriously question whether anyone in the palace really understands how much harm the trashing of Meghan had already done to the royal family’s reputation here before she even decided to bare her soul to Oprah.
The coincidence that series four of The Crown reached the first act of the Charles and Diana saga at the same time that Meghan and Harry fled to North America was certainly not good for the Windsor brand.
Then the Golden Globe awards to Josh O’Connor for his performance as Charles (self-pitying nasal whine) and Emma Corrin as Diana (radiant innocent betrayed) confirmed what Americans already felt, that this is how it really was in that hell of a marriage.
When Harry struggled as he talked to Oprah to explain his feelings about his father – ‘I feel really let down because he knows what pain I feel and Archie is his grandson’ he gave a picture of Charles that, it seemed, was all too familiar.
I have given virtual talks at libraries across America about my book on how the Queen has handled the crises of her reign.
The first questions are always about the authenticity, or otherwise, of The Crown.
I point out that it is drama, not a documentary, and that it takes the liberties allowed to drama. It shifts and conflates events but is, with some exceptions, good on characters.
Harry seems to agree.
He told James Corden: "It gives you a rough idea about what that lifestyle, the pressures of putting duty and service above family on everything else, what can come from that."
Meghan and Harry now own the narrative of their torments at the hands of the Windsors.
A royal insider said to me before the broadcast that he hoped "she doesn’t play the race card."
Well, she did not play a card, she laid it all out and only just managed to hold back, as did Harry, exactly who it was in the palace who wanted to discuss how to handle "concerns" about the skin colour of their children.
When Oprah, hearing this, responded with a shocked "WHAT?" she was speaking for a large chunk of the huge American audience.
From here, that was probably the most damning moment of the two hours.
Watch the full interview on ITV at 9pm on Monday night and on ITV Hub, Courtesy of Harpo Productions/CBS
