Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Are Losing Americans' Support Amid 'Downfall': Royal Commentators

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have lost a lot of the support they initially had in the United States, royal commentators have claimed.

Kara Kennedy, a digital royal reporter for Express, and Charlotte Griffiths, an editor-at-large at Mail on Sunday, said they believe that the popularity of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has dropped significantly among Americans in recent months. International Business Times could not independently verify the claims.

"I'm in [Washington,] D.C., right now, and it's just catastrophic how much they have lost America," Kennedy claimed on GB News' "Dan Wootton Tonight." "I can't really put it into words. People who didn't care about them, people who weren't fans, like grown men in their 30s who had no opinion on Meghan and Harry, now genuinely despise them."

"When you start making people that don't care about something have an opinion, it shows how much they've absolutely lost it," she claimed. "They also lost the American press, which is important. They lost the U.K. press a long time ago. There's absolutely no going back there. The U.K. press was totally villainized, but [with] the American press, they had a symbiotic relationship that is now gone. And that is a very important part of the downfall."

Host Dan Wootton pointed out that many questioned Markle and Prince Harry's claim that they were involved in a "near catastrophic" car chase with "aggressive paparazzi" that lasted over two hours in New York City last week. He suggested that Americans may have finally seen the Duke and Duchess of Sussexes' alleged "lies" and that they "live in a fantasy world."

Griffiths agreed, adding: "I think perhaps the Americans are less cynical than us, so they cottoned on a lot later. But they've cottoned on now to their exaggerations, their 'recollections may vary.' It's like the Americans are finally waking up. ... They're waking up to Meghan and Harry."

The royal expert claimed that the February "South Park" episode that mocked Markle and Prince Harry was "the first inkling that America" realized that the couple is "bonkers."

She went on to claim that the car chase controversy also hurt the Sussexes' popularity and credibility.

According to a Newsweek poll in December 2022, two years after they stepped back from royal duties and moved to California, Markle was liked by 43% of Americans and disliked by 20% of Americans, while Prince Harry was liked by 52% of Americans and disliked by 14%.

The couple had lower net approval ratings than Prince William and Middleton in the U.S., according to the polling. While Markle had +23 and Prince Harry had +38, the Prince and Princess of Wales had +40 and +43 net approval ratings among Americans, the poll showed.

A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said last week that numerous photographers pursued the couple Tuesday night after they left the 2023 Women of Vision Awards, where Markle received an award.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed the outline of Prince Harry and Markle's account of the incident, according to CNN.

Police said photographers made the Sussexes' transport "challenging" after the couple left New York City's Ziegfeld Ballroom to return to the apartment where they were staying. But authorities said there were no reported collisions, injuries or arrests.

However, a photographer who was present during the incident told People that claiming that the pursuit was "near catastrophic" is "sensational."

"Nobody got a ticket or arrested...I don't see how it was near catastrophic other than crazy hyperbole," the unnamed photographer claimed.

The taxi driver who drove the couple for a brief period that night told The Washington Post that he wouldn't call it a chase, adding that "I never felt like I was in danger."

Whoopi Goldberg was among those who didn't buy Prince Harry and Markle's claims and insisted that a car chase wasn't possible in the Big Apple. However, her "The View" co-host Sunny Hostin defended the Sussexes, saying that the couple never said it was a "high speed" car chase and that they had the right to feel "scared" in that situation.