I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the changes we’ve seen from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex this year, especially with the launch of sussex.com, their all-in-one site where they basically issue press releases and descriptions of what they’re up to and what events they’ve attended. Some have even suggested that sussex.com is “their Instagram.” I still hope that they actually start a business IG, but whatever – a new communications strategy is definitely at play, and Meghan’s got a new podcasting deal and there are still lots of reports that she will be launching something big this year, perhaps a lifestyle site or something. Well, the Telegraph reports that ahead of this big, mysterious launch, Meghan and Harry have hired a UK-based public relations executive to help out with the international aspect of whatever is being launched:
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have hired a UK-based public relations executive to bolster their team, The Telegraph understands. The new hire will handle UK and European media and report to the couple’s communications team based in the US. It marks the first time the Duke and Duchess have felt the need to have a UK-based employee since moving abroad in 2020.
But the move is thought to reflect the team’s growing workload as the couple increase their profiles and independent ventures, as well as the huge international attention they command both professionally and personally. The new member of the PR team will join ahead of the launch of a new commercial venture that the Duchess has been working on for many months.
The initiative, which had been billed as a lifestyle and wellness brand, had been expected to launch last autumn, but was delayed as it evolved and “took different shapes.”
Speculation is rife that it will be a version of Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s multimillion-dollar lifestyle business, but aides insist that is not the case. They say the venture is highly personal and “genuine to who she is”. The venture is likely to expand over time. If successful, it is thought likely to become the Duchess’s primary focus in the longer term.
The rest of that Telegraph piece is gloom-and-doom, from predictions that Netflix will not renew the Sussexes’ contract next year to another mention of the Spotify mess. When reciting the Sussexes’ “need for funding,” they always conveniently leave out the massive successes the Sussexes have already racked up, from Harry’s bestselling memoir to their hit Netflix docuseries to Meghan’s investment in Clevr Blends. As for the idea that we will soon get to see Meghan’s big new project… I don’t know. Will it be more like Preserve (RIP) or Draper James ($$$)? Whatever it is, it better involve cooking and recipes! And I am interested in the fact that the Sussexes want or need a UK-based executive to handle the European aspect of whatever this is?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
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- Meghan, Duchess of Sussex helps to prepare food at the launch of a cookbook with recipes from a group of women affected by the Grenfell Tower fire at Kensington Palace in London on September 20, 2018.,Image: 534009013, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Meghan (C), Duchess of Sussex helps to prepare food at the launch of a cookbook with recipes from a group of women affected by the Grenfell Tower fire at Kensington Palace in London on September 20, 2018.,Image: 534009034, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR SEVEN DAYS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- ** RIGHTS: ONLY UNITED STATES, BRAZIL, CANADA ** London, UNITED KINGDOM – Meghan Markle attends a Women’s Empowerment reception during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at the Royal Aeronautical Society, London, UK. Pictured: Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 19 APRIL 2018 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- ** RIGHTS: ONLY UNITED STATES, CANADA ** Sydney, AUSTRALIA – The Duke of Sussex and Duchess of Sussex watch the wheelchair basketball final, the last event at the Invictus Games 2018 in Sydney. Pictured: Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 26 OCTOBER 2018 BYLINE MUST READ: Vantagenews / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Queens, NY – Meghan, Duchess of Sussex takes in the Serena Williams vs Bianca Andreescu women’s final tennis match at the US Open. Pictured: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex BACKGRID USA 7 SEPTEMBER 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- ** RIGHTS: WORLDWIDE EXCEPT IN NETHERLANDS ** Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA – Meghan Markle The Duchess of Sussex is seen during a visit to the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, part of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), of which she was announced as Patron in January 2019. Pictured: Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 1 OCTOBER 2019 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Los Angeles, CA – The Duchess of Sussex will celebrate her birthday on Aug. 4, and according to royal expert Katie Nicholl, she’s considering marking the occasion with a road trip — that could include Oprah Winfrey. Pictured: Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 3 AUGUST 2020 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Montecito, CA – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duke and Duchess of Sussex celebrate the 3-year anniversary of their marriage that took place on 19 May 2018 at Windsor Castle in London. Now they moved to the USA with their son Archie Mountbatten, where they are also expecting their second child, which makes Archie a big brother. Pictured: Prince Harry, Meghan Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 19 MAY 2021 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Do we believe that Telegraph got this scoop from H&M’s team, when they don’t know anything about their events before it gets public? I don’t know, I am not gonna start believing UK media screaming that Meghan is gonna be another GOOP since they left.
My guess is the Telegraph asked Harry and Meghan’s team a question and they were directed to the new person in the UK or the team sent an email to Telegraph that they can make all enquires to the new person instead of the team in LA.
@Amy Bee, not the PR person part, that was just stupid. The new lifestyle brand thing they are talking about. H&M’s projects don’t leak. They move between the continents without press knowing. I don’t believe Meghan’s project would leak before going public. The BM is obsessed with her starting something like GOOP brand, so they can trash her.
@sevenblue: Honestly, I didn’t pay attention to that part of the story because the Telegraph was just repeating speculation from the DM. Richard Eden, who has no contact with Harry and Meghan’s team, was pushing that story. The press doesn’t know what Harry and Meghan have planned, if they did they wouldn’t be screaming and throwing up every time a new announcement was made and their speculative stories would always turn out to be true.
Does the Torygraph know that WME have a London office?
Seems not.
I don’t believe their story, especially as they don’t name their source.
If Tominey has anything to do with this story, then absolutely don’t believe it.
I don’t believe a thing from the Telegraph. It does make sense to hire a PR firm based in the UK but yeah, it’s the Telegraph. They lie like breathing.
Just another made up narrative to insult and abuse the Sussex’s with these lies to please Peggy
The duchess is going to launch a big new commercial venture? Cool if it happens. But not sure what the Telegraph knows about anything. Don’t they say she’s reinventing herself every other month? Anyways, James Holt moved to Cali so it makes since they’d hire someone new in the UK.
Yeah, make something up so that later they can say it failed or PW blocked it somehow (because the UK belongs to him) or how H&M are so unpopular that it failed.
Right? The project that no one ever saw or heard about failed and that’s why we never saw it. That will be next month’s article in the Telegraph.
Maybe it has something to do with that other story this week about how GB would love to host Invictus Games? Which huge side eye to that anyway. Any other country please!
The Invictus Games Foundation is based in the UK. They would be handling all bids and enquires regarding the next games not Harry’s office.
^^ You don’t think Prince Harry has direct, influential input into the location selection process? 🤔 I believe Harry is closely involved in all the important decisionmaking surrounding his creation! Of course, he delegates, too. But the venue selection process is a big deal.
I need a healthy lifestyle cookbook from Duchess Meghan. I have to head back out to work and would like something I can refer to for quick lunches and dinners. Healthy fun meals to create to fit my busy schedule.
This just seems to make sense, that they would want an international “arm” to their PR strategy as they move forward. I don’t think it means they’re getting ready to move back to the UK, sorry to disappoint you Telegraph, lol.
Unless it’s coming from Variety or Hollywood Reporter, there is no way that industry news would be scooped by the Telegraph.
If it didn’t come from their spokesperson then it’s probably not true. Last I knew the Telegraph wasn’t their spokesperson.
This is Harry and Meghan just filling the the vacancy left by James Holt when he left the UK to become Archewell Foundation’s Executive Director. He was the person that the British press went to when for information after Harry and Meghan left the UK. However, the Telegraph is talking out of both sides of their mouth because on one hand Harry and Meghan have a growing portfolio and on the other they’re losing all their deals and are in dire straits. It can’t be both and they didn’t even mention Meghan’s new podcast deal and the fact that Archetypes was relaunched this week.
A lot of “it is believed”. As usual with these UK hack writers (spair me the ”this is not a tabloid”. Their RRs are royal gossipers who make sh*t up for a living).
Other than what the UK press would like the uninformed public to believe, H&M did have a UK-based representation during the whole year of 2020 and part of 2021, after they left for the USA.
It was headed by James Holt , who was a journalist and communication director for the UK Liberal Democratic for years before he joined KP as comms director for the Royal Foundation of Harry and William between 2017-2018.
When they married, he then moved to work solily for H&M as Head of their Engegement and Comms, but left the palace in September 2019 to exclusively run their private Sussex Royal Foundation. After H&M officially left per April 2020, he dismantled their UK foundation on their behalf and he took care of other of their budinesses/stuff.
James then moved to the US to head there new Archewell Foundation (which was established in Oct. 2020) in March 2021. He is still that role, with a co-director since 2022.
So in fact, what H&M are doing with a hire/ an ew PR/Comms Executive is not new at all. They have just more work/projects/endeavours going on, and with the time difference between the European continent and their LA based office, it’s understandable to now have a permanent representation again on that side of the Atlantic.
Its Victoria Ward and Telegraph is broadsheet which Sussex’s do communicate with. They have probably hired PR/marketing team for every continental region like most roll outs. Pretty standard practice so there’s really no reason to question the truth in it. Meghan’s not sitting on her home doing nothing for the whole last year, obviously she has been up to many things. I am looking forward to see her product launch whatever it may be.
Whoohoo, a commercial brand! Finally. It doesn’t have to be all philanthropy all the time.
But re: lifestyle business: isn’t this the real news? Do we trust this?
Shawna, do we trust this? I can believe they have a new communications person. That’s all I believe, because I think the rest is made up. That seems to be a given when it’s the UK media.
So it’s likely just trying to foment outage on Salt Island at a convenient moment? That seems more reasonable.
If this is true, as presented, I’m not mad. With new projects that will need to roll out in the UK, Charles’s health challenges, and a potential 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, the simple fact is that the Sussexes may, indeed, need to be in the UK more than they would ever want to be in the next few years.
The Consort Sidechick has shown the value of having your own operation within the larger operation, one that can push back on your behalf, advance your point of view, and head off the worst of the narratives and thus the worst of the bullying that comes with them.
I’m not saying anything miraculous will happen to improve things for H&M, but the truth is the spotlight is on and it is starting to ask questions, for the first time in a long time, about W&K and even C&K, and the increased prominence of Andrew alongside the myriad questions posed by the increasingly exposed as problematic “slimmed down” monarchy concept.
If there was a good time to try and rebalance the scales and slip a little truth and sensibility into the coverage and perception of H&M, this is the time to do it–if only to make the short visits they may have to make (funerals, Invictus, etc.) and the lives of their children, a little bit easier (and safer).
If Consort Sidechick gets to run her own little press operation in her own interest and protection, apart from the palace and their agenda (and we know Sophie did this for a long time, at first clumsily, but now steadily and to her own benefit), why shouldn’t H&M at least try it.
(And if people want to say it’s because they need money and have projects they need to sell (their projects do just fine in the UK, thankyouverymuch), all the better for their stealth operation to operate, as everyone will be looking in one direction while they operate in another.)
^^ A “potential 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham” is doubtful if H&M do not have the security they need while visiting the U.K.
They don’t even know what’s going on with Kate who is right up under the nose. Sure Jan, sure….
You said it.
It’s so funny how Duke & Duchess of Sussex have had a great start to 2024 and good things just keep coming their way…while the Windsor’s keep getting hit with one bad thing after another. Karma really does love drama, doesn’t she?
I just wish the BM & the RF would leave them alone.
For those who keep asking, without understanding H&M’s activism regaring the social media platforms since 4+ years: from the hourse’s mouth, Meghan on the SXSW2024 panel:
“I keep my distance from it right now for my well-being.”
So, no social media for them. Please, stop that conversation. Thank you.
* horse’s mouth