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So long, and thanks for all the jam. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and queen of Montecito, recently announced that she is reimagining As Ever, her raspberry spread and “flower sprinkle” business. In an interview with Fast Company, which Meghan conducted in fluent buzzword, the actor and entrepreneur said she is thinking bigger than jarred goods and partnering with Netflix to bring forth a vision in which “content and commerce meet, not in a product placement way, but rather in an ideological way”. (I think the ideology she is referencing here is capitalism). Meghan is now involved with so many different projects that she notes: “If I had to write a résumé, I don’t know what I would call myself.”
It looks as though her husband, Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor, doesn’t know what to call himself either. The big Harry news from recent days is that the Duke of Sussex had a moment where he considered changing his double-barrelled last name to “Spencer”, in a nod to his late mother and a middle finger to the rest of his family.
While the Sussexes seem to be having something of an identity crisis, they are both still generating headlines. But not quite so many as they used to: Harry-and-Meghan-mania seems to have heavily subsided since Harry’s big tell-all, Spare, came out in 2023. Which was only to be expected. We know all there is to know about Harry’s frostbitten penis and drug habits; now only dull dregs of gossip remain. Meghan’s Netflix show has been widely written off as “boring”. The US media, at least, seem to be getting a little tired of the pair.
As the Sussexes become old news, attention has been turning to Britain’s other US-based royal family: the Beckhams. Or, more accurately, the Peltz Beckhams: Brooklyn Beckham (David and Victoria’s eldest son) and Nicola Peltz (daughter of a US billionaire) combined their last names when they got married in 2022. “Not many guys take their wives’ names,” Brooklyn said at the time. “So, I was just like, ‘Why not?’” He also got about 70 tattoos in honour of Nicola, including the word “married”. Explaining the inspiration for that tattoo, Brooklyn told USA Today: “I kind of was just like, ‘Oh, we’re married, why not?’”
Despite the fact that he now owns an artisanal hot sauce business (why not?), Brooklyn is one of the blandest people on the planet. So is his wife, Nicola, who is a film-maker and actor. (Wikipedia, in a savage move, says that she was cast in a role in The Last Airbender “at the insistence of her father, who was a producer on the film”.) And yet the pair now seem to be absolutely everywhere and mired in controversy. On Tuesday they were the focus of a Glamour cover story that called them “the world’s most talked-about couple”.
The talking isn’t entirely complimentary: for months there has been rabid speculation about a feud between the Peltz Beckhams and the wider Beckhams. David and Victoria don’t like Nicola! Victoria sabotaged Nicola’s wedding! Brooklyn skipped all three of his dad’s 50th birthday celebrations! Brooklyn is feuding with his younger brother Romeo because Romeo is dating Brooklyn’s ex-girlfriend! And on it goes. I won’t go through every bit of gossip, but there are striking parallels between the Peltz-Beckham drama and the Sussexes. You’ve got the American actor wife that the famous British family seems to have a problem with. You’ve got two brothers feuding. You’ve got misogynistic speculation that a dim but affable man is being “controlled” by his ambitious wife.
The parallels don’t seem to have bypassed the foursome. Last month there were tabloid reports that the Peltz Beckhams had dinner with the Sussexes in Montecito, where they bonded over everything they had in common. “Nicola and Meghan also had a bit of a ‘deep’n’meaningful’ as obviously both women have been positioned in the media as home-wreckers,” a source told the Sun. Over the weekend it was also reported that the Peltz Beckhams have now hired a British lawyer who had previously worked with the Sussexes to help with their “reputation management”.
While Brooklyn and Nicola seem keen to model themselves on the Sussexes, I rather think Harry should brand himself like Beckham. Can you imagine how wound up all the Harry-haters would be if he got 70 Meghan-related tattoos? Even better: if he’s still keen on changing his name, he should forget Spencer and simply become Harry Markle. Far more modern of him than clinging on to his titles. As Brooklyn would say: why not?
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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