The Duke and Duchess are at the centre of a new documentary about their life in the States, with one expert revealing why ‘Hollywood is falling out of love with Meghan and Harry’

There was much fanfare when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle first set up home in the States. The couple were welcomed with open arms and seemed to have found their ‘happy ever after’ in Montecito, California.

But fast forward five years, and much has changed. Initially, the Sussexes enjoyed huge popularity, but their constant criticisms of the royal family saw the tide start to turn. Then came claims of bullying members of their staff – which Meghan has always denied – and criticism of their work projects, with a Spotify exec famously describing them as ‘grifters’

Their work with Netflix has also proven to be lacklustre with their latest offerings, Polo and With Love, Meghan, failing to make the grade. Furthermore, they have been labelled ‘disaster tourists’, and criticised for making political statements, not to mention the ongoing row over Harry’s visa application.

Now a PR expert has claimed to have an explanation as to why America seems to have turned its back on the Sussexes. Speaking on the Channel 5 show Harry and Meghan’s American Nightmare, Nick Ede revealed: “Hollywood is falling out of love with Meghan and Harry because over there you have to earn your stripes – and it really feels like they haven’t earned those stripes.

“If you are a George Clooney or an Arnold Schwarzenegger, you can get to a level where you can be a little bit political, where you can use your gravitas to really make a change. What I feel about Meghan and Harry is, they haven’t earned that so people are beginning to stop listening.”

Certainly, it’s been a brutal start to the year for Meghan and Harry. The Duchess’s lifestyle series, With Love, Meghan, has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. And at the start of 2025, Vanity Fair – which once favoured the couple – published a scathing 8,000 word article about the Sussexes.

The cover piece, titled ‘American Hustle’, set out what life was like ­’Inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Big Business Ambitions, 5 Years After Their Royal Exit’. It contained troubling claims about what it’s allegedly like to work for the Sussexes, complaints from their neighbours in Montecito, and the bombshell allegation that a member of Meghan’s team had reached out to a publishing house to “gauge interest” in a post-divorce book.

The article also quoted sources claiming Meghan could be “really, really awful” when things did not go her way at work and that projects often went poorly due to the couple’s ‘demands’. Other claims include the suggestion that Harry underestimated the impact his explosive memoir Spare would have on relations with his family, that Meghan has ‘re-parented’ Harry, and that the couple lacked ideas when it came to their Netflix and Spotify deals.

The Sussexes were reportedly upset by the claims made in Vanity Fair ‘s explosive cover story. According to The Times, the couple dismissed the allegations, with a source close to them describing them at the time as ‘distressing’.