A personal perspective by royal correspondent SANDRO MONETTI
“The Queen’s favorite drink is a glass of gin & dubonnet. I expect she’s already on her 4th or 5th of the night trying to blot out the memory of the damaging Meghan and Harry interview.”
That’s one of the fun lines I used on live television when covering the fallout from the explosive Oprah special.
As a royal correspondent, this has been a fascinating and busy few days reporting on the “War of the Windsors,” which has so dominated global headlines.
I’ve been covering it for CNN as well as Fox 11 here in LA, Channel 4 News in the UK and various British radio stations and try to make each broadcast informative and entertaining.
It’s a tricky one though because public opinion is sharply divided and the issues raised in the bombshell interview are so troubling.
So the professional solution, at least as I see it, is to just fall back on your experience and knowledge of the royal family, who I’ve been covering on and off since the last years of Diana, to add insight about how it all got to this crisis point and where things go from here.
Full disclosure: I also represent the Queen’s charity in America as a Trustee of the California branch of the Royal Society of St George. But despite seemingly being on “Team Queen,” there’s much I admire about Harry and Meghan too and I was eager to hear what the California based couple had to say.
The Oprah interview certainly lived up the hype as they shared their personal pain while throwing verbal punches at the palace. As I said on TV, “If that was a boxing match, it would have been stopped to save the royal family from further punishment.”
Two days later, under global pressure to respond, Her Majesty issued a carefully worded statement which started by saying the family was “saddened” by the interview. I thought, “Saddened? They’re probably ready to unleash the corgis!”
By going on to say the issues raised, particularly that of race, were concerning and would be addressed privately, “The Firm” was clearly hoping to calmly shut things down for now. But this story will run and run.
It was interesting to read opinion polls after the interview showing that in Britain sympathies run largely along age lines with younger people supporting Meghan and Harry and older ones siding with the palace.
Here in the States there seems great support for the Sussexes and Meghan’s moving words tarnished and perhaps banished the princess myth, popular in America and long fueled by fairytales and classic Disney films, that marrying a prince is an automatic path to happiness. We only have to think back to Princess Diana’s tragic story to see that was a flawed narrative.
My own royal reporting back in Britain started with covering Diana, who was uniquely special and adorable, and when she died I stepped away from the royal beat for a while, switching to showbiz reporting and that ultimately prompted my move to the world entertainment capital of Los Angeles.
Being back on the royal beat in recent years and now covering this US TV special featuring one of Diana’s sons has been a real time of reflection for me and it’s sad to see the royal family so fractured.
“Time heals all wounds,” Prince Harry said to Oprah. Let’s hope he’s right about that.
And best wishes to him and Meghan for the upcoming birth of their daughter. I’ll bet you they name her Diana.
(Sandro describes his encounters with Charles and Diana in his book, Confessions of a Hollywood Insider, published by Ryff, which is now available in hardback, paperback, e-book and audio book).
