British citizens speak out about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle amid Queen Elizabeth II’s death
Fox News Digital spoke with people in the U.K. about their views on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, after Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
In the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death and King Charles III's accession to the throne, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly want to delay the release of their Netflix documentary series and the duke's memoir.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex hope to make last-minute edits to portions of both projects that talk about Harry’s brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, as well as the king and his wife Camilla, the queen consort, the New York Post reported.
Both the Netflix series and Harry’s memoir were set to be released by the end of the year, the newspaper reported, but will likely now be pushed until next year.
"A lot of conversations are happening," a source told the Post. "I hear that Harry and Meghan want the series to be held until next year, they want to stall. I wonder if the show could even be dead in the water at this point; do Harry and Meghan just want to shelve this thing?"
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Queen Elizabeth II at the Queen's Young Leaders Awards Ceremony at Buckingham Palace on June 26, 2018 in London. (Photo by John Stillwell - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
However, a source within Netflix told the Post there is a "lot of pressure" on CEO Ted Sarandos to get the docuseries released.
"They may be too late!" Shannon Felton Spence, a royal expert, told Fox News Digital regarding the couple's reported plans to delay. "If the manuscript is in, and the show is in post production, Netflix and Penguin Random don’t care about the effect on the monarchy. It 100% has stuff in it that the Royal Family doesn’t want. It could be catastrophic if ‘The Crown,’ the memoir, and the Netflix show all come out bang, bang, bang like they are scheduled to. Netflix is smart. They know what they are doing. They know how to stack content releases for maximum marketability. And if any of this is true, it’s terrible for Harry and Meghan too. Those are epic deals."
Of Harry’s memoir, a source told The Sun: "The final draft has been finished and signed off and a lot of money and energy has been spent to make sure it comes out this year."
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have decided they need to make last-minute edits and delay the release of their Netflix documentary series (Karwai Tang)
Royal experts have said the king is waiting to see what the Sussexes say about the family in the projects before he is willing to bestow royal titles of prince and princess to their children Archie, 3 and Lilibet, 1.
Both of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's projects were set to be released before the end of the year (Photo by PHIL HARRIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
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The couple have had a strained relationship with the royal family since they stepped down as senior royals in 2020, settling in California, and following a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey last year in which they complained about Buckingham Palace as a whole and made accusations about members of the family, including one of racism.
However, following the Sussexes' extended stay in the U.K. during the mourning period for the queen after her death on Sept. 8, Charles is "eager for a truce," a source told the Telegraph. "But unfortunately, there are too many things in the pipeline that could jeopardize the Sussexes' relationship with the new monarch."
The "Fab 4" reunited after the Queen's death at Windsor Castle. (Chris Jackson - WPA Pool)
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The Sussexes also surprised royal watchers by making a public appearance with William and Kate during which the four greeted mourners and viewed floral displays at Windsor Castle two days after the queen died.
However, Harry and Meghan were demoted to the bottom of the page showing the royal family on royal.uk. this week. The couple had previously been in the middle of the page, but their biographies were moved down with Prince Andrew following the queen's death.
The reports follow the news of Markle's "Archetypes" Spotify podcast set to resume after being paused for a month following the Queen's death.
"I do think it’s interesting that the podcast didn’t come back at the first possible moment," Spence said.
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