Harry and Meghan ‘completely underestimated’ life outside of the Royal Family, royal author claims

Tina Brown, a friend of Princess Diana’s, former editor of Vanity Fair and author of several royal books, has claimed that Harry and Meghan “completely underestimated” life outside of the Royal Family. While promoting her new book, The Palace Papers, Tina implied that the Sussexes were finding trouble leveraging their brand without the Palace PR and machine behind them.

• Nearly two years since leaving life as working royals, Harry and Meghan are struggling to leverage their brand, according to Tina Brown.
• The former Vanity Fair editor and friend to Princess Diana claims the couple “completely underestimated” life without the full force of the Palace behind them.
• In other royal news, Duchess Camilla steps out in Meghan Markle’s former role for latest engagement as fans dub her the ‘perfect choice’.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle famously quit life as working royals in 2020, deciding to relocate to Meghan’s native California for a new life.

Since then, though the pair have signed multi-million dollar deals with the likes of Netflix and Spotify, they have been slow to get projects off the ground. Indeed, Meghan’s Spotify podcast, Archetypes, which will explore how women have historically been held back, has only just recently been announced, almost two years after first signing the deal with Spotify.

Now, Tina Brown, a close friend of the late Princess Diana and royal author, has suggested that the pair “completely underestimated” life away from the royals and all that it afforded.

Speaking in a video interview with the Washington Post, Brown says they didn't know what it would be like without the Palace's advisors and PR team to help them.

She explained, "I think they both completely underestimated what it was going to be like without the Palace platform. However much they hated, and I think they really did, the constraints and the pettiness…of the Palace and the advisors—trying doing it without the Palace advisors, right?”

“Because what the Palace does, of course, it has an amazing convening power, there's no one who won't take a phone call from Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace, they've got a huge convening power.”

"Every invitation in the world comes through that conduit and private secretaries can just sift and say what about appearing this, or why don't you do this?”

"All of that is now gone and they have to have PRs do that for them and their judgment is not necessarily the best judgment.”

However, Tina does credit Meghan for giving Harry the “tools” to leave the Firm.

In her interview she added, “I really think Harry wanted out, himself… Meghan gave Harry the tools to leave. She understood the world of agents and deals… this wasn’t Harry’s world, but suddenly he had in Meghan a very worldly strategist who he decided to trust above all the other advisors.”

Tina’s book has previously made waves for suggesting that Harry is set “to go” after Charles and Camilla in his upcoming book, and that the prince “can’t stand” Camilla.

Tina Brown’s book, The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor, the Truth and the Turmoil, was published on April 26.