Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been “enjoying” sympathy from the US public after cutting ties with the Royal Family two years ago, royal expert Victoria Arbiter has claimed. But the royal couple “did not expect” the negative criticism of Harry’s bombshell memoir. Ms Arbiter told TalkTV: “It’s very difficult to speak for Harry and Meghan in terms of what their overall objective was with the Netflix docuseries, with the book.
“I think Harry with his book in particular was very keen to get his side of the story across so mission accomplished in that regard.
“He doesn’t hold anything back as anyone who has read the book knows, he’s very willing to share every facet of his life.
“In that regard, I think yes, he has achieved his objective but I don’t think the book was received quite how he was hoping.
“There are people that remain hugely sympathetic to him but there’s been a lot of criticism so, the broader public is talking about him in a way that I think he perhaps didn’t anticipate.
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“I think they thought there would be a similar level of sympathy to that following the Oprah interview so I think they probably have been quite shocked.
“Americans in general are a sympathetic bunch and I am generalising when I say that and I think Harry and Meghan have enjoyed that level of sympathy that they perhaps weren’t given in the UK.
“But I think they will have been shocked by some of the negative pushback, I don’t think that was expected it at all.”
It comes as Harry’s popularity sunk to a record low following a number of claims about the royal family in his book, according to a new poll.
Almost two-thirds (64%) of Britons have a negative view of Harry, up from 58% in May, with just a quarter (26%) seeing him in a positive light, according to the YouGov survey.
The results come ahead of the release of Harry’s book Spare, due out on Tuesday, which has sparked a furore, following claims the Prince of Wales physically attacked him.
Harry’s net favourability among the British public is at an all-time low of minus 38, with his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, recording minus 42.
The King’s youngest son’s net favourability score among 2019 Labour voters is minus seven, while among 18-24-year-olds, the proportion of positive and negative views of him was equal (41%).
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Meghan still has a positive net favourability score of 10 among 18-24-year-olds, but this has dropped from 55 in 2017.
She holds a score of minus 11 among 2019 Labour voters and minus 30 among Remain voters, with minus 81 and minus 72 among 2016 Conservative voters and Leave voters, respectively.
Harry’s tell-all-tales in the book include how he killed 25 Taliban members during the Afghanistan war, recounting how he took cocaine and magic mushrooms, and losing his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a pub.
In television interviews, the duke has said he is “not texting” his brother, described the Queen Consort as “the villain” and criticised “family members” for a “really horrible reaction” when the Queen died.
