Even though Prince Harry and Meghan Markle didn’t attend the Golden Globe Awards ceremony Sunday, they were on attendees’ minds, with the event seeming to provide further evidence that Hollywood has cooled on the renegade royal couple who were once set to take the entertainment industry by storm with their media mogul aspirations.
First, host Jo Koy got some laughs at their expense in his otherwise maligned monologue. He addressed the couple’s perceived struggles, sense of entitlement and lack of productivity, by saying that nominee Imelda Staunton had done such a good job playing Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s “The Crown” that Harry had called her to ask for money.
While Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was caught on camera laughing and shaking his head uncomfortably, Koy also said: “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will still get paid millions of dollars for doing absolutely nothing — and that’s just by Netflix.”
Prior to the show, one of Meghan’s former “Suits” castmates was asked to explain why Meghan wasn’t appearing as part of the Golden Globes’ reunion of the cast. Meghan’s fans would say she’s the reason that the show, which ran from 2011 to 2019, has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity after being re-run on Netflix. After all, Meghan became one of the most famous women in the world after leaving “Suits” to marry into the British royal family.
On the red carpet, Gina Torres confirmed that the “Suits” cast maintain contact via an “insane” group chat. But Torres also admitted that Meghan wasn’t included in the chat. Torres said about her former colleague, the Duchess of Sussex: “We don’t have her number. We just don’t, so…” Later, Torres, Patrick J. Adams, Sarah Rafferty and Gabriel Macht enjoyed a warm welcome by the Golden Globes audience when they came on stage to present the award for best TV drama to “Succession.”
Torres’ comment is curious because she and Meghan were once close enough for Meghan to invite her and other “Suits” castmates, including Adams, Rafferty, Macht and Rick Hoffman, to her 2018 royal wedding to Harry.
Then again, Vanity Fair also reported that Meghan’s “Suits” friends didn’t make the cut for the couple’s private evening wedding reception hosted by then-Prince Charles — unlike higher-profile stars like George and Amal Clooney, James Corden and Idris Elba.
The Clooneys admitted to another guest that they didn’t even know Harry or Meghan, prompting Tina Brown, the royal author and former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor, to write that the couple’s celebrity guests “were a portrait not of Meghan’s intimate circle but of the friends she most wanted to recruit.”
One of those apparently being recruited was Oprah Winfrey, whom Brown said Meghan had scarcely met, but who was still seated in a prime pew in Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel opposite the queen. Winfrey would later host Harry and Meghan for their famous 2021 interview, in which they aired a number of grievances against the duke’s family. On Sunday night, Winfrey enjoyed major coverage at the Golden Globes when she was asked to present the final award of the night: best motion picture to “Oppenheimer.”
The jokes and comments about Harry and Meghan at the ceremony come several weeks after the California-based couple were included in an end-of-the-year list by The Hollywood Reporter of the town’s “biggest winners and losers” in 2023.
Also on the “losers” list from THR, one of Hollywood’s leading trade publications, were Disney, Marvel and DC superhero movies, embattled actors Ezra Miller and Jonathan Majors and Elon Musk and X. The winners, on the other hand, included some notable figures who attended the Golden Globes Sunday: Taylor Swift, Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Christopher Nolan and Netflix, as represented by Sarandos.
2023 was supposed to be a triumphant year for Harry and Meghan, when the couple were expected to set in motion the course of new high-power careers in media and philanthropy, after they stepped away from royal duties in 2020. But 2023 turned out to be mostly tumultuous for the Sussexes, even after Harry became a best-selling author with his memoir, “Spare,” which People magazine said revealed “the good, the bad and everything in between” of life behind palace walls.
THR, however, had a different take on “Spare” and its impact on the Sussexes’ reputation. THR called the book “whiny,” while Harry was mocked by Jimmy Kimmel and others online for sharing details about losing his virginity, his kitchen fight with Prince William and his Elizabeth Arden treatment for a frostbitten penis.
In its summary of the couple’s bad year, THR said: “In 2020, the royal duo fled a life of ceremonial public service to cash in on their celebrity status in the States. But after a whiny Netflix documentary, a whiny biography (‘Spare’ — even the title is a pouty gripe) and an inert podcast, the Harry and Meghan brand swelled into a sanctimonious bubble just begging to be popped — and ‘South Park’ was the pin. The show’s 20-minute ‘World-Wide Privacy Tour’ takedown in March was savage, and was followed by Spotify dropping (Meghan’s podcast) ‘Archetypes,’ with a top executive labeling the duo ‘grifters.’”
THR’s list doesn’t include another of the couple’s big P.R. fails in 2023 — when the New York Police Department and New York Times challenged their account of being involved in a “catastrophic car chase” in Manhattan in June. But THR offered Meghan and Harry a silver lining of sorts: “Still, all the scorn and mockery beats otherwise having to attend 200-plus official royal family engagements a year, which sounds hellish.”
The THR list appears to have been compiled before the Nov. 28 publication of “Endgame.” As a scathing critique of the current state of the British monarchy, the book by Omid Scobie, Harry and Meghan’s friendly biographer, revived allegations that the couple are trying to undermine the institution, even as, critics say, they are trying to profit from their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles and their association with their royal relatives.
Even though Prince Harry and Meghan Markle didn’t attend the Golden Globe Awards ceremony Sunday, they were on attendees’ minds, with the event seeming to provide further evidence that Hollywood has cooled on the renegade royal couple who were once set to take the entertainment industry by storm with their media mogul aspirations.
First, host Jo Koy got some laughs at their expense in his otherwise maligned monologue. He addressed the couple’s perceived struggles, sense of entitlement and lack of productivity, by saying that nominee Imelda Staunton had done such a good job playing Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s “The Crown” that Harry had called her to ask for money.
While Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was caught on camera laughing and shaking his head uncomfortably, Koy also said: “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will still get paid millions of dollars for doing absolutely nothing — and that’s just by Netflix.”
Prior to the show, one of Meghan’s former “Suits” castmates was asked to explain why Meghan wasn’t appearing as part of the Golden Globes’ reunion of the cast. Meghan’s fans would say she’s the reason that the show, which ran from 2011 to 2019, has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity after being re-run on Netflix. After all, Meghan became one of the most famous women in the world after leaving “Suits” to marry into the British royal family.
On the red carpet, Gina Torres confirmed that the “Suits” cast maintain contact via an “insane” group chat. But Torres also admitted that Meghan wasn’t included in the chat. Torres said about her former colleague, the Duchess of Sussex: “We don’t have her number. We just don’t, so…” Later, Torres, Patrick J. Adams, Sarah Rafferty and Gabriel Macht enjoyed a warm welcome by the Golden Globes audience when they came on stage to present the award for best TV drama to “Succession.”
Torres’ comment is curious because she and Meghan were once close enough for Meghan to invite her and other “Suits” castmates, including Adams, Rafferty, Macht and Rick Hoffman, to her 2018 royal wedding to Harry.
Then again, Vanity Fair also reported that Meghan’s “Suits” friends didn’t make the cut for the couple’s private evening wedding reception hosted by then-Prince Charles — unlike higher-profile stars like George and Amal Clooney, James Corden and Idris Elba.
The Clooneys admitted to another guest that they didn’t even know Harry or Meghan, prompting Tina Brown, the royal author and former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor, to write that the couple’s celebrity guests “were a portrait not of Meghan’s intimate circle but of the friends she most wanted to recruit.”
One of those apparently being recruited was Oprah Winfrey, whom Brown said Meghan had scarcely met, but who was still seated in a prime pew in Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel opposite the queen. Winfrey would later host Harry and Meghan for their famous 2021 interview, in which they aired a number of grievances against the duke’s family. On Sunday night, Winfrey enjoyed major coverage at the Golden Globes when she was asked to present the final award of the night: best motion picture to “Oppenheimer.”
The jokes and comments about Harry and Meghan at the ceremony come several weeks after the California-based couple were included in an end-of-the-year list by The Hollywood Reporter of the town’s “biggest winners and losers” in 2023.
Also on the “losers” list from THR, one of Hollywood’s leading trade publications, were Disney, Marvel and DC superhero movies, embattled actors Ezra Miller and Jonathan Majors and Elon Musk and X. The winners, on the other hand, included some notable figures who attended the Golden Globes Sunday: Taylor Swift, Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Christopher Nolan and Netflix, as represented by Sarandos.
2023 was supposed to be a triumphant year for Harry and Meghan, when the couple were expected to set in motion the course of new high-power careers in media and philanthropy, after they stepped away from royal duties in 2020. But 2023 turned out to be mostly tumultuous for the Sussexes, even after Harry became a best-selling author with his memoir, “Spare,” which People magazine said revealed “the good, the bad and everything in between” of life behind palace walls.
THR, however, had a different take on “Spare” and its impact on the Sussexes’ reputation. THR called the book “whiny,” while Harry was mocked by Jimmy Kimmel and others online for sharing details about losing his virginity, his kitchen fight with Prince William and his Elizabeth Arden treatment for a frostbitten penis.
In its summary of the couple’s bad year, THR said: “In 2020, the royal duo fled a life of ceremonial public service to cash in on their celebrity status in the States. But after a whiny Netflix documentary, a whiny biography (‘Spare’ — even the title is a pouty gripe) and an inert podcast, the Harry and Meghan brand swelled into a sanctimonious bubble just begging to be popped — and ‘South Park’ was the pin. The show’s 20-minute ‘World-Wide Privacy Tour’ takedown in March was savage, and was followed by Spotify dropping (Meghan’s podcast) ‘Archetypes,’ with a top executive labeling the duo ‘grifters.’”
THR’s list doesn’t include another of the couple’s big P.R. fails in 2023 — when the New York Police Department and New York Times challenged their account of being involved in a “catastrophic car chase” in Manhattan in June. But THR offered Meghan and Harry a silver lining of sorts: “Still, all the scorn and mockery beats otherwise having to attend 200-plus official royal family engagements a year, which sounds hellish.”
The THR list appears to have been compiled before the Nov. 28 publication of “Endgame.” As a scathing critique of the current state of the British monarchy, the book by Omid Scobie, Harry and Meghan’s friendly biographer, revived allegations that the couple are trying to undermine the institution, even as, critics say, they are trying to profit from their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles and their association with their royal relatives.