They are, as she famously tells it, like conjoined palm trees in a Montecito garden, deeply “connected”.
Indeed, much of the mythology and “branding” of Harry and Meghan’s new charitable, post-royal life is built on this one central image: H&M, an inseparable intertwined unity, depicting their unique, rock-solid bond as existing on a higher emotional level than that occupied by it. Most humans.
Yet while Harry has embarked on his most significant project yet, the record-breaking and bestselling memoir Spur, he has done so mostly solo. Megan is nowhere to be seen.
Not once did the former actress accompany him on his extensive tour of TV studios and interviews to promote the book, despite her undoubtedly outperforming life in the spotlight.
While Harry embarked on his most significant project yet, the record-breaking and bestselling memoir Spur, he did it mostly alone.
Megan is nowhere to be seen. The former actress not once accompanied Harry on his extensive tour of television studios and interviews to promote his book
When one thinks of how nervous Harry must have been about public speaking – as he explains himself in Speer – and given the extremely high stakes of what he had to say, on difficult topics such as being physically attacked by his brother to frostbite. In manhood, it seems unusual that his usually always-on wife should remain behind the scenes.
He even wrote a tribute to Megan N. Spear, saying, “This book would have been impossible, logistically, physically, emotionally, spiritually without you.”
Most things would be impossible without you. Surely, then, at this point of all points, he’d need Meghan on his side?
So where is she? The couple has not been seen together in public since Dec. 7, in New York, where they received the Robert F. Kennedy Rebel of Hope Award for their work on racial justice and mental health.
Harry was grimacing and smiling in a lounge suit, while Meghan dazzled in white, wearing an aquamarine ring that once belonged to Princess Diana.
Some believe that Penguin Random House, Harry’s publishers, were expecting Meghan to be more visible of late, to help drive sales of the book.
“What most people conclude is that Penguin would have told it from the start that Harry needs to be front and center during his writing tour — it’s his trip — and that he needs to shine,” one senior media executive told me.
Meghan Markle has been seen less frequently following the release of Spear
“However, most people also know that the two of them together generate more headlines — all famous couples do — and I can’t imagine Penguin would have wanted her to be so absent.”
Since they were last seen in public, of course, the six-hour Netflix series featured them on the small screen sitting side by side, hands linked, inseparable from each other.
But Meghan wasn’t present, on or off camera, during his interviews with ITV’s Tom Bradby and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. These two crippled, seated chats are actually filmed the week before Christmas in Churchill’s £5,700-a-night San Ysidro farmhouse cottage, in Montecito, California.
We know Meghan loves it there — it was the place to meet her and take pictures with Hollywood Variety writers in October. However, sources said she was nowhere on the property when Harry gave his heart out in those two lengthy TV interviews.
The couple has not been seen in public together since December 7, in New York
Meghan was not present, on or off camera, during his interviews with ITV’s Tom Bradby and CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Likewise, when Harry confronted Stephen Colbert’s quick wit on The Late Show on the eve of Spear’s publication in New York, he was without his wife, who wasn’t there to groom him beforehand, or to hone his experience afterwards.
In this void a variety of theories have emerged. The Internet, as one would expect, is full of unfounded, callous, and hysterical suggestions as to reasons for Meghan’s whereabouts.
Others in the mainstream media put forward ideas as well. Victoria Ward of The Daily Telegraph suggested last weekend that “the media-savvy Meghan has been more circumspect about the concept of the diary, perhaps even raising gentle concerns about whether the move was the right one.”
However, I can reveal that Meghan’s public absence is something more strategic, and not stemming from vague ‘concerns’ – least of all any sort of rift in their relationship.
In fact, they’ve been together as always in secret, and seem to be spending the holiday season – having sacrificed the royal family’s reputation – enjoying family time in Baker Bay in the Bahamas.
No, Meghan’s withdrawal from the public eye, well sources say, is part of a carefully considered three-pronged public relations approach to neutralize some critics – as well as clear the way for profitable ventures ahead.
Meghan’s public absence is something more strategic, rather than stemming from vague ‘concerns’ – least of all any sort of rift in their relationship.
First and foremost, I’m told, Meghan’s absence was planned to escape the immediate problem of the toxic narrative that surrounds them, suggesting that Harry is being manipulated by his wife.
It is understandable that the couple deplores this reasoning, seeing it as nothing less than baseless racist trolling and misogyny.
Perhaps the best way to sum up this school of thought, which is common in some online circles, is to talk about the “claw,” the phrase Meghan’s detractors use to describe the hand she used to rest on her back, presumably to reassure him on public outings.
The couple is keen to stop this toxic theorizing, a friend of the couple told me, adding, “They usually leave each other out to promote their individual projects, so I don’t really see Spear as being different from, say, the podcast that Meghan has done magazine covers for etc. But we haven’t really heard anything from Harry.
Plus, they did a Netflix series four weeks before the book came out, so she was already telling part of the story.
He adds, “I know she’s always been supportive of Speer, so I don’t think there’s a bigger story there — there’s definitely no ‘difference.'”
Another source, who knows the couple via broadcast, suggests that Meghan’s absence is part of a long-term approach to being a star in her own right. And her model for this?
Well, their theory is that Harry and Meghan follow the “Obama playbook” of former US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.
It requires them to make public-facing engagements separately, so that women can burnish their own reputations and escape the shadow cast by the established male figure.
This may explain why Meghan laid flowers after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, alone, while Harry laid a wreath in Pearl Harbor without her last year.
The source added: ‘Harry’s book deal does not include Meghan. If she had been involved in promoting the book, he would have called out the usual misogynist heap, especially on social media. In the circumstances, you can understand why she would want to walk away.
But will she remain silent for long?
Which brings us to another part of his long-term PR plan. This suggests that her absence on the Spare Tour was in part to keep her powder dry for her own diary. What an unusual – and lucrative – story it promises to be.
Meghan also has projects in development with Spotify and Netflix — though the size and financing of them remain a matter of dispute.
In short: it is worth keeping silent now, focusing on her plans for the future. All of these would inevitably involve her telling her once again how impossible she found life within the royal family. It’s the story you have to tell and the currency you have to sell.
There will, of course, be select public events that Harry and Meghan will attend together. The big focus for them as a couple this year is the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany, in September.
But Spear’s publication appears to represent a more subtle phase of their public activities—one not always seen to embody the now-infamous Palm Trees, and where the “claw” image of the satire is not available online.
Anyone who’s made it to the end of Harry’s book, where he recounts what Meghan wrote in her diary after he helped deliver Lily, can have no doubts how powerful he is.
The climax of the memoir was when she told him, “That was it. This is a man. This is not a back-up. This is the validation he says he has spent his life failing to get from his family.”
And it is this strength that drives them to win the world—and, more importantly, more well-paying deals—as a power couple and as distinct individual characters.