Harry & Meghan have a LOT of custom cameras to capture private moments

2022-12-08

JAN MOIR: Kiss cam, car cam… For privacy-obsessed recluses, Harry and Meghan have a LOT of custom-made kit to capture their private moments

‘Privacy-obsessed’ Harry and Meghan have dropped a six-part Netflix docuseries
The six-hour drama-doc showcases the intimate details of their ‘great love story’
The couple reveal several private moments captured with their custom cameras
The pair say they felt ‘people haven’t gotten any sense of who we are for so long’

You know who we don’t hear enough about anymore? Harry and Meghan. What the devil are these shy voles up to in California? How I wish this duo of privacy-obsessed recluses would learn to share with their public. They never phone, they never Zoom, they never think of dropping a line or a six-part Netflix docuseries that purports to tell the ‘full truth’ about their lives together to date.

‘Doesn’t it make more sense to hear our story from us?’ says the Duchess of Sussex in one of the first three episodes unleashed upon the world yesterday.

Well, it would make sense if it made sense — but, after watching 180 minutes of pure, unadulterated Sussex-a-vision, all I can say is that their narrow and self-serving version of events is unencumbered by the kind of common sense that can separate fact from fiction from fairy tale from wishful thinking and fol-de-rol.

‘You know who we don’t hear enough about anymore? Harry and Meghan,’ writes Jan Moir. ‘They never phone, they never Zoom, they never think of dropping a line or a six-part Netflix docuseries (pictured) that purports to tell the ‘full truth’ about their lives together to date’

‘This is a great love story,’ says Harry right at the start, speaking of his relationship with Meghan. ‘It is about sacrifice. She gave up everything to be in my world, then I gave up everything to be in hers’

What? Not quite everything, darling. You are still a Duke for a start. She is still a Duchess. However, if things carry on in this fractious manner, who knows for how much longer this convenient royal status quo will last.

For how many more beatings can the Royal Family take? How many calculated attempts to portray them to the world as chilly racists who failed to appreciate the power and the glory of the beauty that is Harry and Meghan can they put up with? And so far, this docuseries only makes matters worse. Much worse.

Quizzed in some grand Californian mansion, probably not their own, Meghan and Harry try and fail to strike a light tone. Underneath their brittle geniality, the throb of institutional grievance is never far away.

Despite being flatteringly lit and coddled like a pair of precious eggs by a sympathetic interviewer, the couple reveal themselves to be consumed by perceived slights, determined to settle scores and obsessed with their treatment by the media – a subject which Harry returns to again and again and again.

‘Doesn’t it make more sense to hear our story from us?’ says the Duchess of Sussex in one of the first three episodes unleashed upon the world yesterday. Meghan and Harry are pictured together in a clip from the series

Harry and Meghan reveal themselves to be consumed by perceived slights, determined to settle scores and obsessed with their treatment by the media (pictured in episode 2) – a subject which Harry returns to again and again and again

Elsewhere the focus is on their love story, relayed here as if they were the Anthony and Cleopatra of the Instagram age

It is upsetting to see a man with so many blessings turn so bitter, but surely viewers will be weary of this niche fixation? There are few sights more unedifying than the rich and famous complaining about being rich and famous – particularly when they are making sly efforts to tinker and tailor with their own heritage as they do so.

Harry tells Netflix viewers that he ‘learned a lesson’ after wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party, so that’s all right then. Meghan’s lip wobbles and she tears up when she talks of trying to contact her father before her royal wedding, but lays the blame for their continuing conflict at his door.

Elsewhere the focus is on their love story, relayed here as if they were the Anthony and Cleopatra of the Instagram age – indeed, each of them is verily ablaze with immortal longings; their determination to matter is touching.

We go back to the beginning and learn that Meghan calls him Prince Haz, and wanted to look at his feed before agreeing to go on a blind date. Older readers should note that this is not a bag of oats tied to Harry’s nose, but the posts on his Instagram account.

We go back to the beginning and learn that Meghan calls him Prince Haz, and wanted to look at his feed before agreeing to go on a blind date

Meghan says that he was ‘refreshingly fun’ and that ‘we were childlike together’. There is certainly the odd, jarring note of juvenilia.

‘Jeez, I went to war twice,’ Harry exclaims at one point.

‘I was turtling,’ says Meghan elsewhere, a psychological term used to describe a coping mechanism of retreating into one’s shell when events are overwhelming. Excuse me, but I am currently parroting. As in sick as.

Just when you think it can’t get any more ridiculous, it does. I mean, it’s insane! For a couple so keen on privacy, they seem to have invested in a lot of custom-built hardware to capture every private moment.

There appears to have been a kiss cam on hand to immortalise the moment Harry spontaneously proposed to Meghan in a candlelit garden. There is an in-car cam trained on their faces when — in scenes worthy of an episode of Scooby-Doo — the pair of them crane out of the car windows searching for the paparazzi who aren’t following them. Even the Kardashians wouldn’t stoop that low.

No one would argue that there have been difficult moments, not always of their own doing. Yet it is interesting how both Harry and Meghan casually assume a public interest in themselves — and indeed revel in it, when it is to their direct benefit.

There appears to have been a kiss cam on hand to immortalise the moment Harry spontaneously proposed to Meghan in a candlelit garden

The series sees Meghan reads out a poem she wrote when she was 12 and talks about The Tig, a blog she wrote seven years ago

‘It wasn’t exciting in the way I think people assumed it would be,’ she said at one point. In episode two, she reveals: ‘I was a big nerd growing up. This is an important part that people don’t understand about me. Like, I was not the pretty one.’

Who are these people? Why are they making these assumptions? And have they noticed how much of an old ham Meghan is, over-emoting throughout her testimony like an amdram Joan of Arc. She reads out a poem she wrote when she was 12 and talks about The Tig, a blog she wrote seven years ago.

‘I’ve never been the kind of person to do only one thing,’ she says modestly. Her blog! Her poem! Will this torture never end? And will anyone take dim bulb Harry seriously as the kind of homme sérieux who can — as he does here — insert himself into any political narrative or national tragedy, such as Brexit and the Stephen Lawrence case?

Parts four, five and six are coming next week and I simply cannot wait. For what Harry & Meghan reveals about Harry and Meghan is so much more damning than they ever could have dreamed. The Sussexes made this six-hour drama-doc — with its ominous musical soundtrack and elements of television shows such as Succession, Downtown Abbey and The Crown — because they felt that ‘people haven’t gotten any sense of who we are for so long’.

Well, we get the message now, Prince Haz and St Megs of Arc. Loud and clear.

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