As mentioned in the previous post about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s announcement that they’ll be stepping down from their position as “senior” royals, it came with a fully functional, content-heavy updated website. Back in October, when Harry launched his Love Shield of 2019, the letter defending his wife and attacking the tabloids was posted on a new webpage with no other content. This new website has clearly been under construction for some time and independent of overall royal communications. There’s a LOT of information here and if you haven’t already, go through it because they’ve tried to address all the questions people might have about their decisions – which also means all the criticism that people might have about the way they’re going about it. 

And that criticism often comes from the media, the UK outlets that they’re suing, including the Daily Mail and The Sun. Click here to visit the media page where the concept of the “royal rota” is explained – and trashed. This is the cohort that Harry and Meghan apparently refer to hilariously as “The Cartel”. The Cartel problem is one that we’ve been discussing here at LaineyGossip for months. The reporting from members of The Cartel has been irresponsible and racist – which is why the Sussexes are suing them. But the conundrum of course is that it is standard royal procedure to include the Cartel in communications plans – this is what the Sussex website is trying to explain: basically we don’t want to keep working with people who have attacked us relentlessly and unfairly reported on us, the very people we are suing. But the other royal households don’t want to abandon this system so we’re heading off on our own. 

Harry has hated the Cartel, the royal rota, his whole life. And he spares no opportunity to drag them. Evidently though, what’s been frustrating is that other members of his family, or their staff members, continue to work with them – and, perhaps, possibly, work with them to sell him out. Sussexit, then, represents a clean break from that system. A system that Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, and Kensington Palace are still opting into. There’s the shade, right? 

Harry and Meghan have just provided official justification for why certain media outlets are irresponsible while their relatives are still engaging with them. The unspoken question here then is… 

Look at how the Cartel treated me and my wife. Why haven’t you taken a stand too? And… are you actually working with them? 

I’d heard that Harry was exploring options to detach from the Cartel as far back as a year ago. But the thing is, funding their own tour(s) will be expensive. Thinking about ways to cut out from the system, then, has been in process for a while. But the point is, this was one of the reasons behind their decision – not the entire reason, but certainly a factor. The British royal family wasn’t willing to distance itself from the royal rota or, at least, update how the system worked. Further, members of the family and the courtiers in the different households may have been actively working WITH the royal rota to sell out House Sussex.  And Harry and Meghan did not want to be part of that anymore. 

Which brings us to the money and “financial independence”. That post is coming soon.