Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Are Most Talked About Royals On Social Media, Majority Are Negative: Study

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reign as the most popular royals on social media but for not a good reason.

A recent study from YouScan — an artificial intelligence social media listening platform — revealed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ranked first and second, respectively, as the most talked about royals. However, they also had the greatest number of negative publications.

The study was analyzed by accumulating the most mentions of each current member of Great Britain's royal family across all social media platforms, including YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, from posts dated January to March 2023.

Results showed that the 38-year-old prince garnered 3.9 million mentions on social media alone. But the majority of the mentions were mostly negative, outweighing the positive with 593,000 versus 239,000.

The data comes from the release of Prince Harry's best-selling memoir, "Spare," where he divulged the royal family secrets, including the life of growing up in the limelight and dealing with the death of his mother, the late Princess Diana. It made up 21% of the mentions.

YouScan noted that at least 12,000 social media posts claimed that the Duke of Sussex had used drugs. He previously admitted to taking cocaine, cannabis, and magic mushrooms during a party at "Friends" star Courteney Cox's Los Angeles home, as well as an illegal psychedelic drug in the U.S. called ayahuasca as part of his therapy.

Some social media users seemed to believe that the prince was "selling" his family secrets for "financial gain" via his autobiography. The Sussexes reportedly no longer receive funding from the Royal Family after they relinquished their roles as senior royals in 2020 and relocated to California, according to the BBC.

The pair also received public attention, after they were parodied in the American animated comedy series "South Park's" Season 26, episode 2, titled "The Worldwide Privacy Tour."

Placing second, Markle racked up 3 million mentions on social media, making her the second most talked about British royal. The study noted that she garnered social media attention since marrying Prince Harry in 2018 and has been accused of causing a drift between her husband and the rest of his family.

The 41-year-old "Suits" alum received about 384,000 negative mentions and 98,000 thousand positive mentions. Nearly half a million publications also talked about how her image was further tarnished due to the release of "Spare" in January.

Rounding up the list: Kate Middleton ranked third with 2.2 million mentions, followed by King Charles III with one million, Prince William with 659,000 mentions, and Queen Consort Camilla with 307,000.

Prince Harry and Markle caused a stir in the media after revealing several royal secrets and claiming that an unidentified royal member made racist comments about Archie before he was born.

Aside from "Spare," they released highly publicized content about the royal family, such as the Netflix docuseries "Harry & Meghan" in December last year.

Despite the ongoing tension, Prince Harry is attending his father, King Charles' coronation on May 6 at Westminster Abbey.