The Sussexes have come under fire in a German documentary which takes a closer look at the gulf between the couple’s ‘noble’ work and their luxury lifestyles

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been accused of ‘hypocrisy’ in a new documentary from Germany. The Lost Prince, by award-winning filmmaker Ulrike Grunewald, takes an inside look at the couple’s life in Montecito, California, following their departure from the Royal Family, and Harry’s future role within the monarchy.

One area of focus is the gulf between the couple’s ‘noble’ work and their luxury lifestyles. Meghan especially comes under fire for her decision to wear expensive designer clothing during high-profile visits to impoverished nations.

As the Mirror’s Russell Myers notes on the documentary: “If you’re going to places like Nigeria, like Colombia, which have huge socio-economic problems, some of the world’s poorest communities in these countries, and you’re turning up wearing tens of thousands of pounds worth of designer clothes – it really doesn’t send the right message.”

Meanwhile, Dai Davies, a former Head of Royal Protection and a Divisional Commander in the Metropolitan Police, accuses Harry of failing to mix much with ordinary people on what he describes as their ‘carefully orchestrated’ international trips. “In Colombia, although there are very rich people there, the vast majority, 85 per cent or 90 per cent, are very poor,” Dai said.

“And what I’ve noticed of these tours, he mixes with the upper classes. He doesn’t really, apart from carefree orchestrated areas where he mixes with so-called the ‘normal people’ – well they’re not.

“These are carefully orchestrated campaigns as far as I can see… I look quite dispassionately at the evidence and the evidence I’ve seen is, it’s all about Harry and Meghan. It’s very little to do with an actual alleged rationale for going there.”

Elsewhere in the documentary, Harry and Meghan are criticised for trading off their former royal roles by seeking to make money to support their lavish lifestyle. It’s also revealed that the couple allegedly spend just one hour a week working for their charity Archewell, while also noting that donations to the charity dropped from $13 million (£10.2m) in 2021 to just $2million (£1.5m) dollars in 2022.

Jack Royston, from the podcast The Royal Report, spoke about the couple’s desire to be ‘half in and half out’ of the Royal family – but the part-time return to royal life was dismissed by the late Queen. “If you have a situation where Harry and Meghan are earning huge amounts of money in Hollywood trading off their reputations, but then they’re also bolstering their reputations by working for the Queen – they’re able to present themselves on the world stage as being these working members of the royal family who are also available for a price,” he said.

“That is a huge compromise to demand off the monarchy. If they were to be perceived to be promoting their commercial projects while representing the Queen, then that’s also… starting to border on corruption there because they should never be using the monarchy as a platform.”

Royston added: “The particular way in which Harry and Meghan crashed out of the Royal Family, firing hand grenades at Harry’s relatives, caused their reputation to be significantly damaged. And that has had a major impact on their capacity to make the world a better place because a lot of people just aren’t listening to them at all.”

Another contributor to the documentary is former soldier Ben McBean who lost his left arm and had his right leg amputated above the knee after being seriously injured by a landmine blast in Afghanistan in 2008. Ben, who shared a flight home from Afghanistan with Harry, was scathing in his criticism of the Prince over his bombshell revelations about his family in his tell-all memoir Spare and in the couple’s Netflix show.

“I just thought, with him kind of whinging about his family and he was saying something about his brother pushing him over or something like that, I was just like, ‘Mate, just leave it out’,” he said. “You and your brother had a little fisticuffs…but family’s family, you know.”