As Prince Harry and Meghan Markle closed their week by mounting the stage at a glitzy New York gala to be named 'Humanitarians of the Year' and spoke about the "dangers of social media", jaws were on the floor in shock. This was the same couple who were currently in the middle of their latest downfall, with Meghan embroiled in a social media storm after an incident at Paris Fashion Week, and as Chad had cuts ties with the "disrespectful" charity linked to Harry — and yet there they were accepting the highest of accolades. Meghan dressed up to the nines in a plunging Armani power suit and Harry in matching black tie, all smiles.
It had all been going so well for Harry and Meghan – by recent standards, anyway. The Duke had just reunited with his father, King Charles, for the first time in 19 months and made a successful surprise visit to war-torn Ukraine. The Duchess’ business empire was booming with the launch of her new wellness-stroke-reality TV series and lifestyle brand. And the couple had even signed a new multi-year deal with Netflix, countering reports that the streaming company would not renew their contract. After years marred by questionable PR strategies and strained family relationships, Brand Sussex seemed, relatively at least, to be back on track – until it all went wrong.
See also: Inside Prince Harry’s triumphant tour of the UK and Ukraine
It began with a literal fall, in Paris, where Meghan, 44, was accused of being a “mean girl” during Fashion Week. She was filmed laughing on the front row and social media users connected it to a model who had meanwhile accidentally tripped on the runway. It was the Duchess’ first appearance at the event in a decade, and her surprise comeback had been hailed a PR power move and a “rebooting of the ages” until the awkward supposed giggling incident.
The public trip-ups didn’t stop there. Within hours of leaving the show, Meghan had been accused of posting a “thoughtless”, “insensitive” and “bewildering” video with her feet up in a limo near the Pont d’Alma tunnel, where her late mother-in-law Princess Diana died in a car crash.
In a separate incident two days later, Chad terminated its partnership with Africa Parks, a conservation charity for which Harry, 41, serves as a board member – yet another blow to the Duke’s charity efforts after a very public bust-up with staff from another of his Africa-focused charities, Sentebale, in March.
The couple’s accepting of the humanitarian award in New York is now being called “ironic” and “unsuitable”, and Meghan’s jam-jar brand has now started receiving yet more backlash on social media. So how did it go so wrong for the reboot of Brand Sussex, exactly? And who or what allowed it to unravel in the space of one week?
A PR coup turned PR flop
"Meghan Markle is officially cool again." "The rebooting of the ages." "A PR coup." These were just some of the phrases used to describe Meghan’s surprise appearance at Paris Fashion Week on Sunday – her first trip to Europe since the 2023 Invictus Games and the latest in what appears to be a series of solo engagements for the California couple, who are reportedly poised to spend more time in Europe now that Trump is back in the White House.
She swept into the Balenciaga show in white wide-leg trousers and a matching blazer by the brand’s creative designer and her friend Pierpaolo Piccioli, and the gossip machine began whirring within minutes. Why had she chosen now to leave her Montecito bubble and make a 25 hour-round solo trip across the Atlantic? Was her re-entry to the front row a strategic career move after years spent in the professional doldrums? Is there a new Sussex announcement coming?
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However people felt, one thing was almost universally agreed-upon: the Duchess of Sussex had stolen the show – no mean feat when the likes of Lauren Sánchez Bezos, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Anne Hathaway were among the A-list audience. Anna Wintour and Baz Luhrmann were seen kissing Meghan on the cheek and even The New York Times’ fashion editor Vanessa Freidman noted that even Bezos caused less of a stir.
“Every smartphone swivelled in her wake,” she wrote of Meghan’s entrance. “Meghan photobombed the whole of Paris fashion week,” agreed American Vogue contributing editor Plum Sykes. “She took over every single Instagram, fashion feed and all anyone was talking about was Balenciaga.”
But photobombing Fashion Week comes with its risks, of course. In the hours after the show, eagle-eyed viewers of behind-the-scenes footage were quick to label Meghan’s interactions with various A-list guests “awkward”: the “cringe” moment she almost headbutted Piccioli as she tried to greet him; and the moment Slow Horses star Kristin Scott Thomas was reportedly seen turning away from the Duchess as she tried to make conversation.
The nail in the coffin came during the show itself, when Meghan was spotted allegedly “giggling” after a model reportedly tripped and fell. The PR coup of the decade quickly flopped as the Duchess was roasted online for her supposed “cruel”, “nasty mean girl” laughter (onlookers claim she “sort of covered it up” when she saw her friend Marcus Anderson sitting stoney-faced next to her). She might have reasserted her place on the A-list, but she quickly reasserted her place on certain hate-lists, too.
Double whammy in Paris
The Paris PR disasters didn’t stop at Balenciaga. Within hours of leaving the show, the Duchess had posted a late-night video to her Instagram Story showing her riding in a limo with her feet up close to the site where Princess Diana tragically died in a car crash in 1997.
“I don't understand what on earth she was thinking — well, she can't have been thinking,” said royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams, branding Meghan’s decision to share the video “strange” and “insensitive beyond belief”.
Fans jumped to Meghan’s defence, calling it a “blip” and a “human moment”; a woman in heels who just wanted to put her feet up. But for Meghan critics, it was the latest in a string of seemingly strategic PR moves gone wrong. “She couldn't possibly have intended to be disrespectful, but it's another example of the Sussexes doing something that makes no sense at all,” Fitzwilliams suggested. The so-called rebooting of the ages ended as quickly as it began.
Charity drama
The feet-up video turned out to be the beginning of a tumultuous few days for the Sussexes. On Tuesday – two days after the tunnel video and two days before the couple were due to be receiving a humanitarian award in New York – the Chadian government announced that it had terminated its 15-year agreement with African Parks, a controversial conservation organisation that counts Prince Harry among its board of directors.
In a statement announcing the end of the partnership “with immediate effect”, Chad’s environment minister said the charity had displayed a “recurring, indelicate and disrespectful attitude towards the government”. It alleged grave breaches of contract and financial irregularities and accused it of arrogance, serious financial misconduct and failing to protect wildlife – the latest in a series of scandals to plague the non-profit organisation after it admitted to human rights abuses earlier this year following an investigation into allegations of rape and torture of Indigenous people in the Republic of Congo by its rangers.
The Duke of Sussex, who was president of African Parks from 2017 to 2023, before joining its board, has not publicly commented on Chad’s announcement but the news certainly puts him under fresh scrutiny after already finding himself under pressure to distance from the organisation following the Congo scandal. It is the prince’s only official role in Africa after he stepped down from Sentebale, another of his Africa-focused charities, in March following a toxic dispute with the board of trustees chairwoman.
The timing of the Chad announcement could not have been worse. Last night, just two days after the news, Harry and Meghan attended the New York mental health gala to be recognised as humanitarians of the year. “The irony,” X users commented in a nod to this latest blow to Harry’s charity efforts, while royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams suggested the couple were “unsuitable” for the award given their very public fallouts with the royal family, who they haven’t spent Christmas with for six years.
“[The award] states that Meghan is a ‘cultural catalyst for positive change’ and lists Harry’s memoir, Spare, among his achievements. What their foundation has done in the field of mental health is, of course, to be welcomed. However, their treatment of their respective families makes them unsuitable recipients of a humanitarian award,” he claimed.
The nail in the coffin of a jam-packed week
The cherry on top of the Sussexes’ bad week went relatively unnoticed at first, given Meghan’s Paris blunders and Harry’s latest charity scandal. But it offered an easy final blow for critics already primed to make fun of the Duchess’ recent efforts to style herself as a domestic goddess and master jam-maker at home in Montecito.
Hours before the couple’s gala event kicked, social media erupted as viewers spotted a gaffe in promotional imagery for a line of new products Meghan had quietly launched on her lifestyle website As Ever over the weekend. The release included a new apricot spread and orange marmalade, with images showing the Duchess using lifting tongs to pull a jar of jam out of a large saucepan on the stove.
The site claimed both products were “inspired by the recipe [Meghan] crafted in her home kitchen”. What gave the game away, however, was that the Duchess appeared to be holding the tongs upside down. “Guys she's using the canning tongs upside down. The rubber part goes around the jars so they don't slip,” commented one social media user, while another said: “Even if you want to pretend for the camera, at least learn to get the basics right before embarrassing yourself… You don’t even know how to use a clamp”.
After the Duchess’ public claims that “jam is my jam”, the gags wrote themselves. "Maybe jam isn't really her jam after all,” critics teased, cracking jokes about plum-metting reputations and efforts to sweeten what’s left of the couple’s reputation.
Operation preserve Brand Sussex – and not just the homemade fruit variety – now begins once again.
