Peter Phillips Got Married, But the Press Could Only Talk About Harry and Meghan

You would think a royal wedding would be the star of its own coverage. Stories about the bride’s dress, the flowers, the bridesmaids, and the cake. Maybe a few heartwarming anecdotes about the happy couple. Instead, the build-up to Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling’s wedding repeatedly circled back to one topic that had nothing to do with the bride and groom: Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex.

The Daily Mail ran a lengthy piece by royal editor Rebecca English explaining exactly why Harry is “ducking” today’s ceremony. The headline says it all: “Prince Harry plans to duck cousin Peter Phillips’s second wedding today after ‘intrusive’ Hello! magazine photographers were invited to first nuptials in 2008“.

Here is what English reported:

While Harry is said to have ‘not spoken in years’ to Peter, sources say the presence of his estranged brother Prince William and his wife Kate at the Cotswolds event will inevitably have played a part.

But the Daily Mail can reveal that Harry’s strained relationship with Princess Anne’s son largely stems from an incident some 18 years ago.

The prince was furious following Peter’s first wedding, to Canadian Autumn Kelly in 2008, after he struck a deal with Hello! magazine to sell the exclusive rights for an estimated £500,000 – without telling the family.

Harry was particularly annoyed because he had taken his then girlfriend Chelsy Davy as a guest and had decided that this was the moment he would introduce her to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, for the first time – a sign that their relationship was getting increasingly serious.

Harry loudly complained later that the first he knew of the debacle was when a copy of Hello! was delivered a few days later to Highgrove, his father’s country home, and he saw it on the breakfast table.

Daily Mail

So there you have it: another convenient Harry subplot attached to a wedding that was supposed to be about Peter and Harriet. Maybe the Hello! story explains some private family tension, or maybe it is simply the latest recycled grievance being dragged out because Harry’s name still guarantees clicks. Either way, the framing is obvious. Instead of letting Peter’s wedding stand on its own, the Mail turns it into another story about Harry “ducking” the family.

Double Standards Everywhere

Can we be honest about what is really going on here? The press and the palace have been using Harry and Meghan to drum up interest in this wedding, and it is pathetic. First, they said Harry was not invited. Then they claimed Peter did not invite him out of loyalty to William. Then the story changed to Harry declining because William would be there. And then it was about Harry holding grudges from Peter’s first wedding. Make up your mind.

Why does it even matter that Harry and Meghan are not there? You would think a “royal wedding” would be the star of the show. Instead, too much of the coverage became Harry this and Meghan that.

And the hypocrisy is staggering. Look at the double standard. Meghan faced nasty commentary after royal biographers and commentators claimed the late Queen thought her white wedding dress looked “too white” for a divorced bride. We do not have the Queen on record saying that herself, but the claim has been repeated often enough to become another stick used to beat Meghan with. That is not Harriet’s fault. She looked lovely. But it does expose how selectively these so-called royal rules get applied.

The Media’s Desperate Spin

Now the media is wheeling out Grant Harrold and Richard Fitzwilliams to speculate. Grant Harrold, the former royal butler turned professional anti-Sussex commentator, told GB News: “There would have been a discussion about it. They’re close.” Fitzwilliams added: “Can you imagine what would happen if Harry and Meghan were not only asked, but actually turned up? It would become a public relations omnishambles!”

Imagine if the Sussexes had actually attended, the coverage would have been chaos and presumably to the delight of the media. But they did not go, and yet the press still cannot stop talking about them.

Try as they might, this wedding is not getting the clicks the tabloids want. So they keep dragging Harry and Meghan into it. It is desperate. And it proves that the royal reporters have nothing else to sell if they have to resort to talking about the Sussexes at someone else’s wedding.

Harriet’s dress is lovely, though. I hope she gets left alone by the media and does not get weaponised in the media wars against the Sussexes. But if the tabloids have their way, she will be dragged into the same mess.

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