The Duke and Duchess of Sussex might have signed a series of huge deals, but that has created new problems for them. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

In the early months of King George VI’s reign in 1937, he would, reportedly, get near daily phone calls from his freshly abdicated brother King Edward VIII, now the Duke of Windsor.

At a loose end, roaming about an estate in France, the new duke, known to his family as David, was not happy with the financial deal he had hashed out with the royal family. He wanted more dosh – hence the calls.

In a bad case of déjà vu, King Charles, according to the Daily Mail, stopped taking his son Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex’s, calls, explaining to his mother the late Queen, “I am not a bank.”

The similarities between David and Harry’s situations are eerie: they both absconded from royal life to play house with an American divorcee who the rest of the royal family didn’t much like. And they both, freed from the royal cage, found themselves far away from their homeland, without any official duties and cut off from the royal coffers.

And it’s that last one that Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex should really have paid attention to.

To understand quite the predicament that the couple have gotten themselves into, then consider a new picture that emerged this week.

For nearly six months now, the producers of The Crown have been shooting the sixth and final season of Netflix’s often fact-lite royal soapie. Last year, the production was in Paris where they were seen recreating the last hours of Diana, Princess of Wales’ life. How far would they go? Producers quickly popped up to assure audiences that “the exact moment of the crash impact” wouldn’t wind up on screen. Goodo then.

Except now the Mail has published a photo taken on set at the UK’s Elstree Studios showing a replica of a horrifyingly wrecked Mercedes, suggesting that the new season might include controversial scenes leading right up until the very moment the princess was killed.

Scenes that Harry, should he wish, now finds himself unable to easily speak out against.

Say what you will about the duke, and I do, but the unthinkable toll of that evening more than 25 years ago is something he still clearly feels deeply. Read his memoir Spare and his heartbreak and trauma over the loss of his mother at only 12 years old is painfully clear.

Since then, the man might have had therapy in bulk and, hopefully, exorcised some demons writing the best-seller, but he still appears to, understandably, be suffering.

Except that the 38-year-old, a man these days known for taking more stands than a bus depot, can’t exactly take aim at The Crown, Netflix’s prized jewel.

Unfortunately, the very same company that looks like it might be about to exploit and commercialise Diana’s death is the very same one with whom Harry and Meghan have gotten into bed in a reported $140 million-ish deal.

What that shot of the Mercedes highlights is the degree to which the Sussexes have gotten themselves trapped with the most golden of handcuffs – but handcuffs nonetheless.

Yes, Harry has previously defended The Crown, saying, “They don’t pretend to be news. It’s fictional.” But will he feel the same way once it’s his mum’s haunted last moments being splashed all over screens?

To understand how we ended up here, we have to rewind to January 2020 and the events surrounding Megxit.

With the benefit of hindsight what seems clear is that, just like his lovestruck great-great uncle, Harry barrelled head first into this momentous decision without truly understanding the implications in that, you know, there might be any.

Most consequentially, Harry would not seem to have considered for a moment that he and Meghan might not get to keep their publicly-funded police protection detail once they were private citizens who lived overseas for much of the time. (I know. So weird.)

We now know, via no less of a source than the duke, that when the couple returned to the UK in January 2020, they thought they would be given the chance to lay out their proposed plan to the Queen. Instead, rebuffed by courtiers, the Sussexes unilaterally announced to the world that they were off to do some “progressive” new path-blazing only to find that Queen Elizabeth had other ideas.

Days later, after the Sandringham Summit, a meeting that sounds like it was only marginally less intense than the Good Friday accords, it was revealed that Her Majesty had gone all scorched Earth.

Harry would not seem to have quite clocked the absolutism of his situation; of what pulling the royal rip chord with that Instagram post would ultimately mean. Goodbye official position therefore goodbye Met Office specialist protection officers.

(It’s worth noting here that in 2011, Princess Beatrice, along with sister Princess Eugenie, lost her full-time protection officers at a time when, like Harry is now, she was the fifth in line to the throne).

About three months after the summit, according to court documents revealed last week as part of Harry’s case against the Daily Mail, the duke emailed the Queen’s private secretary to say that the couple “couldn’t afford” to pay for their own private security “until we were able to earn”.

And that need to find a way to foot the bill for their retinue of bodyguards thus left the Sussexes in need of a corporate fairy godmother with the deepest of deep pockets. Enter Netflix, the moustachio-twirling ostensible saviour of the piece, ready to help bankroll their West Coast lives.

What that means is that today, even if the Hollywood behemoth looks like it’s about to milk Diana’s death for all the small screen juice and Emmys it can, the couple are in no position to bite the hand that feeds them.

Their security costs aside, Harry and Meghan’s new life in California is hardly modest.

They live in a $20 million estate with 16 loos and a home cinema. They have been photographed travelling via private jet on multiple occasions. Harry plays polo, a sport that comes with an exorbitant price tag. This month Megan was photographed out and about in Los Angeles wearing $18,000 worth of designer clobber including a Chanel handbag that reportedly costs more than $10,000 and a $6000 coat.

There is a certain irony that for people who can afford to have more saunas than healthy relationships with parents, now find themselves commercially tongue-tied.

To their huge credit, they have stood up for what they believed in despite going kinda against one of their corporate spouses. In 2022 the couple, who have a reported $33 million deal with Spotify, said they had “expressed their concerns” to the company about Joe Rogan, the platform’s biggest hire’s, loony anti-vax rhetoric.

But there is a hell of a lot of difference between calling out a former UFC commentator with fringe views and criticising their biggest paymaster’s marquee show.

We will have to wait until much later this year to finally see the new season of The Crown and to see how sensitively, or not, they handle Diana’s death.

You know that old Hollywood adage, there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Turns out that there is also no such thing as a string-free content deal, even for a duke and duchess.

Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

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