With its bucking broncos, yee-hawing cowboys and pitchers of cold beer, the Fort Worth Stockyards is a rowdy and testosterone-fuelled throwback to the old days of the American West.
While today tourists throng the mule and horse-barns that were once the last ‘civilised’ outpost for livestock traders on Texas’s famous Chisholm Trail, breeders compete for trophies for their longhorn cattle and prize bulls.
Last weekend, however, there was another spectacle at the first night of its championship rodeo — a Stetson-wearing Prince Harry.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex speaks at ‘Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World’ in Inglewood, California, on May 2, 2021
Prince Harry (top centre), 37, was seen attending the Stockyards Rodeo event in Fort Worth, on Saturday, where he went mostly unrecognised
Judging by the photographs posted online — before they were mysteriously deleted — the Duke of Sussex did not look entirely comfortable.
Perhaps it was the gushing posts that appeared on Instagram. ‘We get a lot of rodeo royalty but this is the first prince I’ve seen,’ enthused Cory Melton, a muscular wrangler who breeds bucking bulls.
Yet his genial observation — which also claimed that Harry was going to enter the bull-riding competition but had lost his ‘rigging bag’, an essential piece of rodeo kit — was swiftly removed.
As, too, was a message brimming with Southern hospitality from rodeo secretary Cindy Reid, in which she generously thanked Harry for his visit.
No doubt some will wonder if an event reeking of ‘toxic masculinity’ might sit uneasily with Harry’s image as the self-appointed Prince of Woke. But was there, perhaps, another explanation why he might not be pleased to see pictures of himself at the so-called ‘Cowtown coliseum’?
The visit coincided almost exactly with the first anniversary of his and Meghan’s Oprah Winfrey interview from which, we were assured, a ‘global wave of service’ would be unleashed by the couple.
An appearance at a kitsch tourist attraction can hardly be described as an illustration of their ‘shared commitment’ to a life of good works. Indeed, the embers of their incendiary claims about cruelty, neglect, snobbery and racism aimed at the heart of the Royal Family are still glowing.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, accept the President’s Award at the 53rd The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People Image Awards
More than 50 million people around the world — including 12 million in Britain and 17 million in the U.S. — tuned in to hear Meghan discuss how royal life had made her suicidal, blame sister-in-law Kate for making her cry at a bridesmaids’ dress-fitting and, infamously, allege that a member of the Royal Family had questioned what colour her son Archie’s skin would be.
The repercussions are still being felt as are the memorably damning soundbites: ‘Were you silent, or were you silenced?’; ‘My family literally cut me off financially’; and complaints that Archie ‘won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title’.
More significantly, 12 months after the so-called ‘interview of the decade’, we are entitled to ask what on earth a couple who set themselves the loftiest of standards has actually been doing since — apart from overseeing the stream of platitudes and wearily right-on slogans that are issued with monotonous regularity from the luxury of their nine-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion?
Take, for example, their attendance at last month’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Image Awards, where they accepted the President’s Award that recognises special achievement and distinguished public service.
Over the years this venerable organisation — set up in 1909 in response to violence against black people — has handed its most prestigious award to some significant individuals, who have done much to raise the aspirations of America’s black population, from boxer Muhammad Ali to preacher-turned-politician Jesse Jackson and former U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
Prince Harry was seen with a therapist doing exercises to improve his mental health on The Me You Can’t See with Oprah Winfrey
No wonder questions have been asked about the frankly modest achievements, by comparison, of the duke and duchess.
Yet according to the citation, they received this honour for ‘heeding the call to social justice’ and ‘joining the struggle for equity’ in America and around the world.
Doubtless it was merely a coincidence that the media for the awards was organised by Sunshine Sachs, the New York-based public relations outfit that has been advising Meghan since her days as an actress.
Activism, of course, is part of the identity the couple have moulded for themselves since abandoning their royal lives for California. As the website for the Archewell Foundation, their American-registered charity, grandly proclaimed: ‘Each of us can change our communities. All of us can change the world.’
But for all this and other high-minded declarations, the ‘shared purpose and global action’ has not quite materialised.
For instance on her 40th birthday last August Meghan launched her ’40 x 40′ project, a scheme which asked 40 of the duchess’s friends to give 40 minutes of their time to advise women how to get back into the workplace after the Covid-19 pandemic. In a video with actress Melissa McCarthy, Meghan promised the scheme would have a ‘ripple’ effect across the world as each person asked 40 of their friends to take part and so on.
But what has it accomplished? According to reports, the initiative has since gone rather quiet.
There is one area, of course, where there has not been silence — the various legal battles they have fought with newspapers and broadcasters including The Mail on Sunday, The Sun and the BBC, and more recently, the Home Office, which Harry is suing over the loss of their police protection in the UK, for which he has offered to pay.
It is only fair to point out that the main event in the Sussexes’ lives in this 12-month period has been the birth last June of their second child, Lilibet, and Meghan has therefore spent much of the past year on maternity leave.
The Queen has still not met the great-granddaughter given her family nickname and it is not clear when that situation will change.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey. The couple made a number of inflammatory allegations
We now know Harry and Meghan will not attend the thanksgiving service for Prince Philip later this month and their presence at June’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations — which coincides with Lilibet’s first birthday — is increasingly uncertain. In fact, relations between the Sussexes and the Royal Family have barely improved since the Oprah ‘truth-bombs’.
If anything, they have worsened. Harry’s revelation that he has collaborated with a ghostwriter on a tell-all memoir, due out this autumn, has spread a deep anxiety across the royal household.
A well-placed source this week told the Mail that the Royal Family were ‘absolutely dreading’ its publication. ‘God knows what one-eyed nonsense will be in it,’ the source said. The fear that its contents could overshadow the Queen’s anniversary is more intense than those that surrounded Prince Andrew before he settled his sex-abuse lawsuit.
We understand that recent reports that Harry and his father are in frequent contact are wide of the mark. Prince Charles is often unavailable when his son calls and, because he does not have a mobile phone, Harry relies on officials to patch him through when he does ring. And that is often not possible.
This is an extraordinary case of history repeating itself. At the height of the marital differences between Harry’s parents, Princess Diana was similarly thwarted in phone calls to both Charles and other senior royals.
And in both cases there has been an issue of trust. Thirty years ago, Charles never forgave Diana for leaking intimate family secrets to author Andrew Morton. Now, Palace aides believe Harry could damage Charles’s hopes of making his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, his queen if he raises new questions about her role in the break-up of his father and mother’s marriage.
Pointedly, Harry was silent when the Queen announced her stated wish that Camilla should be her son’s queen when the time comes — rather than a mere princess consort as was originally planned.
Meghan Markle marked her 40th birthday sharing a video message featuring Melissa McCarthy and a cameo from Prince Harry
There has been at least one phone call between Charles and his son where voices were raised.
As a friend of Charles says: ‘Simply put, the worry is how on earth will things be resolved if Harry is unkind about Camilla.’
As for Harry’s relationship with his brother, that has still not recovered from the Oprah interview — and the allegations (still being investigated) that Meghan had bullied royal staff, something that Meghan’s lawyers have denied.
Whether the Duchess of Sussex ever returns to Britain remains to be seen. She was absent from Prince Philip’s funeral because of her pregnancy and did not accompany Harry to the unveiling of his mother’s statue in Kensington Gardens in July.
Glimpses even in the U.S. have been rare. Her first post-Oprah appearance was in the trailer for The Me You Can’t See, an American documentary series on mental health featuring Harry, the singer Lady Gaga and actress Glenn Close. Then there was her toe-curling turn on the Ellen DeGeneres show where she took part in a skit, drinking from a baby’s bottle and singing a song about kittens.
Television is, of course, crucial to the Sussex brand. Their biggest commercial deal on moving to the U.S. was a £75 million contract to make shows for Netflix. And what do they have to show for that? Precious little so far.
Only two series are thought to be in the pipeline — Heart Of Invictus about Harry’s initiative for wounded warriors, the Invictus Games, and an animated show titled Pearl, the adventures of a 12-year-old girl inspired by influential women in history. Meghan and David Furnish, Sir Elton John’s husband, are producers.
So what else have they done since that Oprah spectacular? Have they achieved even one of their ambitions, or has it been a year of living aimlessly?
The answer, according to our audit, suggests accomplishments have been scant. Two weeks after Oprah, Harry was unveiled as ‘chief impact officer’ for mental ‘wellness’ app BetterUp, described as ‘a platform for coaching and mental fitness’ in the workplace.
On May 3, the duke was a participant on stage at the ‘Vax Live’ awareness concert at the SoFi stadium in California with artists such as Jennifer Lopez and the Foo Fighters and which called on world leaders to make Covid vaccines available all over the world.
A fortnight later he was happily filmed going through therapy on an Apple TV+ series that focused on the importance of mental health. Four days after the birth of their daughter, Meghan published her children’s book The Bench, with hundreds of copies given away free to schools and children’s libraries across the U.S.
Although it became a New York Times bestseller within a week of release, overall sales are said to be disappointing. Certainly, it has not been flying off shelves at the couple’s local book store, Tecolote in Montecito. A store saleswoman was reported saying: ‘Meghan has never come into the shop.’
On July 1, Harry was in London for the flying visit to unveil, alongside William, the Princess Diana statue outside Kensington Palace. Then, 18 days later, came the bombshell announcement from Penguin Random House of his autobiography with his grandiose statement: ‘I’m writing this not as the prince I was born [sic] but as the man I’ve become.’
World events rarely pass without some kind of intervention from the Sussexes. Thus, on August 17, with Kabul in crisis following the return of the Taliban, they issued a statement about the ‘many layers of pain’ in Afghanistan while also pontificating on the humanitarian disaster in Haiti following an earthquake.
So far so predictable. Making the cover of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People issue last September was surely validation for all their endeavours.
Next stop New York, where then mayor Bill de Blasio pulled out all the stops for the couple’s ‘royal’ visit. On stage at the Global Citizen Live, a 24-hour broadcast from Central Park, on September 25, they held hands.
On stage at the Global Citizen Live, a 24-hour broadcast from Central Park, on September 25, the former working royals held hands
Intriguingly, their participation came after Global Citizen was named Organisation of the Year at the 2021 American Business Awards — nominated by none other than . . . Sunshine Sachs.
Six weeks later, the couple were back in the Big Apple for the November 11 Salute to Freedom gala, which honoured military veterans and to which Harry wore his insignia as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO), a medal he received from the Queen.
That same month, Meghan was criticised for using her royal title to lobby U.S. senators on the issue of paid parental leave.
Then came the couple’s Christmas card — showing the first photo of their daughter — and its cheesy message: ‘Archie made us a Mama and Papa, and Lili made us a family.’
In February, Harry opened up to BetterUp about how he sets aside 45 minutes a day to ‘build resilience’ and meditate. He admitted to ‘burning the candle at both ends’ before he learnt how to embrace what he described as ‘inner work’.
All in all, the couple’s schedule hardly compares with the daily work of the royals they left behind.
So might this indicate they have been busier in their private lives?
The evidence does not suggest so. They have shared information about Archie’s chicken coop and in April there was footage of them playing with their new dog Pula on the beach in Montecito.
Last month, accompanied by his cousin Princess Eugenie, Harry was photographed at the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, American football’s blue riband event. And on February 22, Harry, Meghan, Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank were pictured dining out in Santa Barbara.
But sightings in their neighbourhood are rare. Harry has been spotted pootling on an electric bike while being trailed by his security team and also at the wheel of his Range Rover. He has also been seen buying groceries while Meghan was spotted in December carrying bags from the Pierre LaFond delicatessen.
They did attend the town’s July 4 parade. But according to Sharon Byrne of the Montecito Association, ‘no one knew it was them’. And they contributed as sponsors for Montecito’s Christmas parade.
Prince Harry’s last major solo outing was at the Super Bowl last month. He is pictured in the Rams’ locker room following their victory
With so few local appearances, rumours circulated that they may even have moved out — but this does not appear to be the case.
Certainly, locals are protective of their celebrity residents.
For example when reporter Richard Mineards revealed that Archie had taken his first riding lesson, he did not name the upmarket stables he attended.
But it’s always been that way in Montecito. There are no ‘maps to the stars’ or tour buses past their homes, as in Beverly Hills.
A neighbour who has lived near the Sussexes’ property said he had never clapped eyes on them. ‘I’ve only ever seen their security,’ he said.
The bodyguards who constantly patrol the couple’s perimeter fence in golf carts are far more visible.
Only Harry and Meghan can say whether a year that began with the hype and rage of their Oprah interview has turned out quite how they intended.
On the face of it, however, it doesn’t seem to have added up to much.
Prince Harry pulls out of Prince Philip’s memorial service: Duke of Sussex will not fly back to Britain at end of month amid court battle with UK government over his security, but he still ‘hopes to visit the Queen as soon as possible’
Prince Harry will not be returning to the UK later this month to attend the high-profile memorial marking the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh, it was revealed today.
A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex today confirmed he would not be leaving his Montecito mansion to attend his grandfather’s Service of Thanksgiving, which is due to be held at Westminster Abbey on March 29.
The congregation will include family, friends, dignitaries and representatives of many charities and organisations with which the Duke of Edinburgh was associated.
But shunning the event, particularly one which will honour his beloved grandfather, is likely to add further tension to his already strained relationship with his family.
The spokesperson added the Duke – who briefly visited the UK at the unveiling of Princess Diana’s memorial last July – hopes ‘to visit the Queen as soon as possible’.
Harry’s spokesperson declined to comment on Friday as to the reason behind his decision.
Speculation had mounted that Harry would not be in attendance after the Prince started a High Court battle over his taxpayer-funded security arrangements in the UK.
The Duke launched legal proceedings after he claimed he did not ‘feel safe’ in Britain without the protection of Scotland Yard officers, who he believes offer superior protection to privately hired bodyguards.
A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex today confirmed he would not be physically attending Prince Philip’s Service of Thanksgiving , which is due to be held at Westminster Abbey on March 29
The congregation at Westminster Abbey (above) will include family, friends, dignitaries and representatives of many charities and organisations with which the Duke of Edinburgh was associated
Shunning the event, particularly one which will honour his beloved grandfather, is likely to add further tension to Prince Harry’s already strained relationship with his family
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle accept the President’s Award at the 53rd NAACP awards in LA last month and today have signed a letter calling for vaccine equity and slamming the UK and EU
Britain fell silent in memory of the Duke of Edinburgh as a funeral marking his life of service, devotion and duty took place at Windsor on April 17.
The guest list was trimmed from 800 to only 30 guests amid Covid restrictions, and the Queen sat alone in mourning for her husband of 73 years.
The Queen and her family gathered to say farewell to Philip, who died peacefully and was hailed as the ‘grandfather’ of the country by his son Andrew.
Cutting a solitary figure at the front of the quire, near the altar, the Queen sat apart from her children. There was a space left beside her where Philip would have sat.
Last year, Harry returned without his wife Meghan and children Lilibet, aged eight months, and Archie, two, to attend his grandfather’s funeral, which was restricted to close family and friends at Windsor due to Covid restrictions.
The service of thanksgiving for Philip in just over two weeks’ time is a chance for family, friends, dignitaries and representatives of the charities and organisations which Philip was associated with to gather together in tribute to him.
But a source close to the Royal Family had said: ‘They don’t think it’s likely he’ll come back because it would undermine his position that it’s too much of a threat.’ It is believed to be even more unlikely that Meghan and their children would return.
When the Queen recently announced that it was her ‘sincere wish’ that Camilla would become Queen when her husband Charles is King, Harry made no publicly supportive comment to his step-mother in response to the news.
And the Royal family is braced for further Harry bombshells when he publishes his memoirs, which are said to have been pushed back to the end of this year.
Pallbearers carry Prince Philip’s coffin for his funeral service at Windsor Castle on April 17
The Queen and Prince Philip in June 2014. The Duke of Edinburgh died on April 9 aged 99
Speculation had mounted that Harry would not be in attendance after the Prince started a High Court battle over his taxpayer-funded security arrangements in the UK. Pictured: Her Majesty and Prince Philip together in Windsor
Harry – one of the Queen and Philip’s eight grandchildren – last returned to the UK to unveil the statue of his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales on July 1 with the Duke of Cambridge. The brothers have faced a long-reported rift.
The day before on June 30, Harry met seriously ill children and young people at a WellChild garden party and afternoon tea in Kew Gardens, west London, after which he was said to have been chased by the paparazzi.
Harry quit as a senior working royal in 2020 and moved to the US with Meghan for a new life of personal and financial freedom.
The Sussexes’ controversial Oprah Winfrey television interview left the monarchy facing a crisis in March 2021 amid the lingering fallout from Megxit.
Harry and Meghan accused an unnamed royal of racism against their son Archie before he was born and the institution of failing to help Meghan when she was suicidal.
The Queen, 95, who contracted Covid just over two weeks ago, has also just pulled out of attending the Commonwealth Day service at the abbey on Monday.
MailOnline understands Her Majesty made the difficult decision not to attend the service because of the monarch’s lack of comfort getting to and from Westminster, it was reported.
Monday’s service at Westminster Abbey what was to have been the 95-year-old’s first in-person public engagement since being advised to rest by her doctors following a hospital stay in October and testing positive for Covid-19 on February 20 with ‘mild symptoms’.
She has spent the last two weeks carrying out only light duties including a handful of virtual audiences. But she returned to in-person engagements this week, meeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Windsor Castle on Monday and later meeting the head of Britain’s armed forces.
Harry’s grandmother still hasn’t met the Duke and Duchess of Sussexes’ daughter, who was born last June in California and named Lilibet after the Queen’s childhood nickname.
Royal author Brian Hoey said he believes that a meeting between the Queen and the newest member of the Sussex family would heal the reported rift between Harry and the other senior royals.
He explained: ‘I have heard from people I know within the Royal Household, she really would desperately like to see the baby in this way.
‘I think she would love to, I wonder whether it is going to happen, I would love to think it could,’ he added.
Last year, Harry returned without his wife Meghan and children Lilibet, aged eight months, and Archie, two, to attend his grandfather’s funeral, which was restricted to close family and friends at Windsor due to Covid restrictions
The Duke of Sussex wants to bring his children to visit from across the Atlantic, but ‘does not feel safe’ when visiting under the current security arrangements, the court was previously told
The developments come on the same day that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle signed an open letter accusing the UK and ‘rich’ neighbours of pursuing ‘self-defeating nationalism’ to deny African and Asian countries the right to make their own Covid-19 vaccines.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are campaigning for Britain to work with pharmaceutical companies to waive intellectual property rights on the life-saving jabs in the latest flashpoint between Harry and his home country.
In an open letter published this afternoon, Meghan, Harry and other signatories warned ‘the pandemic is not over’, and blamed ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’ for the entire world not being vaccinated by now.
The UK has vowed to donate 100million coronavirus vaccine doses within the next year to low-income countries as part of at least 1billion doses due from the G7.
There have been a number of African countries, including Nigeria, where more than one million doses were destroyed last year because they expired after low uptake saw just two per cent of the population fully vaccinated in 2021.
In December experts said up to one third of Africa’s Covid vaccine deliveries remain in storage as rollouts are hindered by jab hesitancy and infrastructure problems.
The Sussexes have repeatedly called for global vaccine equity, comparing it to the HIV crisis in 1980s and 1990s, and today their Archewell Foundation joined The People’s Vaccine coalition, a group of 90 famous names and organisations demanding vaccines are ‘freely available to everyone, everywhere’.
The couple have today said that ‘world leaders’ and ‘rich nations’ now ‘have the responsibility to change the situation’ in a letter also signed by Charlize Theron and Ban Ki-Moon.
Their letter says: ‘The European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland continue to block the lifting of intellectual property rules which would enable the distribution and scale-up of Covid-19 vaccines, test and treatment facilities in the global south.
‘The transfer of largely publicly funded vaccine technology and know-how from pharmaceutical corporations would fast track production to a matter of months. Yet still today, a handful of these corporations retain the power to dictate vaccine supply, distribution and price – and the power to decide who lives and who dies’.
It comes as the Duke pursues a legal challenge against the Home Office after being told he would no longer be given the ‘same degree’ of personal protective security when visiting from the US, despite offering to pay for it himself.
The High Court heard how Harry received ‘insufficient information’ over a decision to change his tax-payer funded police protection when he is in the UK.
The Duke hopes to bring his children to visit from across the Atlantic, but ‘does not feel safe’ when visiting under the current security arrangements, the court was previously told.
He is challenging the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which has delegated powers from the Home Secretary.
Harry is arguing that his private protection team in the US does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep his family safe.
Harry (pictured with Meghan in the UK in 2019) is arguing that his private protection team in the US does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep his family safe
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