Today is the one year anniversary of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s visit to Canada House in London. They’d spent several weeks at the end of 2019 on Vancouver Island and upon their return to England, they wanted to thank Canadians for their hospitality during their stay. Here are a couple of photos from that day, January 7, 2020:
Right after their Canada House appearance, Dan Wootton at the Sun reported exclusively that Harry and Meghan “could move to Canada for 2020 and ditch HRH titles after ‘feeling sidelined’ by royals” which I didn’t believe at the time and I wrote about that skepticism and being wrong about it here.
But, clearly, Dan Wootton had a very good royal source from deep within the British royal institution who leaked a major Sussex bombshell to him, a reporter for a paper that the Sussexes are suing…which tells you everything about how badly Harry and Meghan were being backstabbed from the inside.
And that’s when all the drama went next level. The next day, having been scooped and blindsided by their own family, the Sussexes announced their intention to step down as senior members of the royal family and that they wanted to be “financially independent”. From there, well, it was weeks and weeks of intense coverage.
Now, a year later, Harry and Meghan cover PEOPLE after their “huge leap of faith”. There isn’t anything all that new or noteworthy in the story – it’s more of a lookback on what 2020 represented for the Sussexes: uncertainty to start, of course, after pivoting from the plan they’d originally hoped for which was to continue contributing in some way (half-in and half-out, as critics have called it) to the royal team and then one by one a checking off of their new goals list. They have established permanent residency in Montecito and have found a home and, indeed, they are financially independent, signing deals with Netflix and Spotify to produce their own content which will, in turn, support the philanthropic work that they’re doing through Archewell. And all of this during a pandemic and social unrest.
That’s probably why members of “the Cartel” and certain royal courtiers are still so pressed about the Sussexes moves – because it was predicted that they would come to regret their decision but there is no world in which you would call what the Sussexes have done since January 7, 2020 a loss.