How America turned its back on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: After Vanity Fair’s recent expose, we look at the previously pro-Sussex media that have now betrayed them

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s undisguised loathing for the British Press always played a role in their decision to move to the US.

Their seething anger was most visible in their Netflix docuseries in which Harry blamed his wife’s miscarriage on media-induced stress. 

In his memoir Spare, he also claimed intrusive Fleet Street coverage had caused him years of trauma.

Across the pond, however, US media companies initially gave every indication that they would support their American duchess and her prince charming.

This could be seen in US outlets treating as fact the allegations they made in their notorious 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, which included accusations of racism and conspiracy in the Royal Family. 

After this, the Royal Family were lampooned as being out of touch and riddled with unconscious bias.

The US media onslaught was so severe that Americans quickly took to social media to ‘finish what the American Revolution started’ and to ‘burn down’ Buckingham Palace and the monarchy.

But the media organisations that were once fervent cheerleaders of the Sussexes are now changing their tune. 

The recent 8,000-word expose on the front cover of the glossy magazine Vanity Fair marked a distinct change from its previous positive coverage – and was a prime example of this change in position. 

And at the Netflix season launch in Los Angeles on January 29, the comedian host made them the butt of a dismissive joke about getting paid while having no plan.

Here MailOnline looks at the media companies that were once pro-Sussex, but have now turned their backs on them. 

Vanity Fair

When the royal couple eventually decided to throw off the cloak of secrecy surrounding their relationship in October 2017 and introduce Meghan to the public for the first time, the pages of Vanity Fair seemed like the perfect place to do it.

The celebrity bible is owned by the powerful global mass media company Condé Nast, who also own other household-name brands such as Vogue, Wired, The New Yorker and GQ.

The magazine’s issue ran with a picture of a freckled Meghan and the headline ‘Wild About Harry’ on its cover. 

Although there was later a row about the interview, as Meghan had gone against royal protocol and divulged information about her relationship with the prince, the magazine continued to give them positive coverage. 

In its May 2018 edition – the month that Harry and Meghan married – it again stamped the smiling royal couple on its front cover, where it gushed that the American actress was a breath of fresh air in a horribly reactionary Royal Family and country.

It said the ‘American Princess’ – to quote the headline on a gushing profile – ‘with her Hollywood upbringing, humanitarian impulse, and strong sense of self … already shines in the spotlight’. 

Vanity Fair – a title that a former editor once told The Daily Mail’s Tom Leonard has a commercial imperative to write puffery about celebrities because it relies on them to pose for its front covers – would continue in much the same vein in subsequent years. 

It has consistently taken the Sussexes’ side under its current editor, Radhika Jones, who, similarly to Meghan in her royal role, had broken ground as the first person of colour to be given the prestigious job.  

However, on January 17, Vanity Fair royally changed its mind. 

Harry and Meghan are on the front cover again for the February 2025 issue, only this time – as the headline, ‘American Hustle’, hinted – the coverage was devastating.

An in-depth, 8,000-word piece by writer Anna Peele contained a litany of unflattering allegations, ranging from the mildly critical – they’ve annoyed the neighbours in snooty Montecito with all the attention they bring – to the devastatingly damaging, such as a claim that Meghan has discussed the potential for a possible ‘post-divorce’ book deal in the event she splits up from Prince Harry, which a source added is not on the horizon.

Researched ‘over many months’ during which Vanity Fair ‘spoke with dozens of people who have worked with and lived alongside the couple’, the article also tackled one of the abiding disputes between the Duchess and those critics who claim that she’s a bully and unbearably demanding. 

According to the magazine’s sources, some of Meghan’s underlings in her podcast venture found her so difficult that they ended up leaving early or even needing therapy.

Harry and Meghan declined to cooperate with the Vanity Fair piece and have refused to comment. But a source close to the Sussexes told The Times the couple have dismissed the allegations as ‘distressing’.  

The Cut

Prior to Vanity Fair’s betrayal of the Sussexes, the most recent American publication to turn against them was Meghan Markle’s favoured magazine, The Cut.

The Left-leaning publication – which is part of New York Magazine – features coverage of women’s lives and interests, from politics, feminism, work, money, relationships, mental health and style.

On August 29, 2022, it famously decided to publish a cover interview with the duchess in which she made controversial comments about the royals.

Titled ‘Meghan Markle on Her New Life in California’, it sent shockwaves through the Palace, as Meghan said she and Harry were ‘happy’ to leave Britain and were ‘upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy… just by existing’ before they quit as senior royals.

The article also heard from Harry, who suggested some members of the Royal Family ‘aren’t able to work and live together‘, while Meghan revealed that her husband told her he had ‘lost’ his father Prince Charles.

Meghan made a series of other apparent swipes at her British family, claiming they had been treated differently to other senior royals, and warned she could ‘say anything’ in an interview promoting her Spotify podcast.

The interview sparked incredulous backlash from readers in the US, with critics slamming the piece as ‘vanity PR’ and branding Meghan ‘shameless’. 

Meghan herself admitted a few months later that she was ‘too trusting’ and ‘too open’ in the interview, saying it was only ever meant to focus on her podcast, Archetypes, and her and Harry’s other projects. 

But in December 2024 The Cut seemed to turn. 

It published a piece titled ‘Harry and Meghan’s Projects Can’t Stop Flopping’ by pop culture and entertainment writer Danielle Cohen – marking a very different attitude. 

The piece reflects on Harry and Meghan’s latest Netflix series Polo, which followed the efforts of wealthy athletes competing in the US Open, with scant appearances from the duke and duchess themselves.

Writing in The Cut, Cohen admits she hasn’t watched Polo, but says it forms part of the couple’s ‘tortured attempts to launch a successful Stateside endeavour’.

She continues: ‘It’s called Polo, and while you might think a sport involving horses, fancy hats, and fan-cammable athletes would do well with viewers, Polo is already getting horrific reviews.

‘Seems like this one is bound for the same fate as Markle’s beleaguered jam company.’ 

The three-paragraph review was very brief – especially when compared with Meghan’s lengthy 2022 cover feature.

It seems even for Left-leaning The Cut, the couple have now had one too many self-inflicted failures.

Spotify 

When Harry and Meghan decided to leave the Royal Family and earn their own money, they thought doing a deal with Spotify would be a great earner.

Based at the New York Stock Exchange, Spotify has signed deals to publish thousands of podcasts, growing to become the dominant audio streaming and media service in the world.

The streaming giant and the Sussexes’s audio production company Archewell Audio reportedly signed a £15million ($20million) deal in late 2020.

A ‘well-placed’ royal source told The Mirror at the time: ‘Meghan was the driving force behind the deal. She was incredible in the meetings with executives and had a clear vision of what they as a couple have to offer. 

‘Spotify’s whole business plan is to acquire the world’s most talked about celebrities in one place and Harry and Meghan fit the bill entirely. It’s a win win scenario.’

The slickly scripted Spotify trailer for the podcast featured the Sussexes introducing their show.

After the deal was signed, Dawn Ostroff, Spotify’s chief content and advertising business officer, issued a gushing statement which read: ‘The Duke and Duchess of Sussex may live in California but the power of their voices rests in their status as citizens of the world.

‘That they are embracing the extraordinary capacity of podcasts on Spotify while also seeking to elevate underrepresented voices is a testament to their appreciation for the potential of audio storytelling.’

But after one season of Meghan’s podcast Archetypes, Spotify announced it was axing the deal in June 2023.

Insiders claimed at the time the royal couple did not meet the productivity benchmark required to receive the full payout.   

Sources have since claimed the couple ‘wanted a big theme that would explain the world, but they had no ideas’. 

Some of Harry’s bizarre concepts allegedly ranged from reviewing hot chocolate every week to interviewing the likes of Putin and Donald Trump about being ‘sociopaths’.

Meanwhile, Meghan allegedly found it hard to commit to a single idea before ‘backtracking’ and ‘watering them down’, meaning each episode had to be ‘completely reimagined late in production’, the article states.

Even when Meghan finally premiered her podcast Archetypes – aimed at empowering women by breaking down gender stereotypes – it failed to take off amid rumours that Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion all declined to appear on it.

It was also later claimed Spotify staff were forced into ‘taking extended breaks from work to escape scrutiny, exiting their job, or undergoing long-term therapy after working with Meghan’. 

The couple were also disparaged by podcaster Bill Simmons who worked with the Sussexes at Spotify.

In June 2023, he referred to the couple as ‘grifters’, adding: ‘I have got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.… F*** them. The grifters.’

The bottom line seems to be that Harry and Meghan did not have the appeal they thought they did – and could not pull in the numbers required to be a hit. 

Spotify seems to have made a business-led decision that the Duke and Duchess don’t have the media brand value they once had.