I love Lee’s take. Always spot on. The opening of the her late Majesty’s letter about the Sandringham Agreement said “as agreed’ and the Sussexes responded they were “grateful.”
Apparently recollections do vary. 😂
FFS!! People magazine you are delusional! The Sleazy Sussexes mouthpiece, has just spun a doozy: Harry and Meghan "never agreed" to the late Queen's Sandringham terms.
NEVER AGREED?!?! The Palace statement of 18 January 2020, the one that opened with the couple saying they were grateful to Her Majesty, introduced those terms with two words. "As agreed."
Published for the whole world to read.
And where did People get its scoop? A nameless "friend". Talking to a British glossy. Recycled by an American celebrity rag and slapped into a headline as if it were gospel.
The friend says the arrangement was "foisted upon them". FOISTED! By the Palace's own published account they understood they were "required to step back from Royal duties", and they kept their private patronages "with The Queen's blessing". Then came a Netflix deal and a memoir. Now the settlement they signed up to is something done TO them.
Act two. Another friend tells a London paper the couple "hate" being called "working members of the royal family”.
Really? We must repeat it as often as possible.
Let me set the record straight.
In January 2020 Queen Elizabeth said she and her family "would have preferred them to remain full-time working Members of the Royal Family". In February 2021 the Palace confirmed they would not return in that role, and Harry's honorary military appointments went back to her. The phrase they sneer at is the job description they QUIT.
With People, every whine, every grievance, every anonymous whisper from the Sussex camp gets a headline. The official record gets nothing.
Then People handed space to a source whining that the pair cannot be "private citizens" because "they are public figures". Fame is NOT a constitutional status. An audience hands out celebrity. Only the Monarchy confers a royal role. And in September, through the Lord Chamberlain, the King spelled it out: no longer working members, their charity work done "in their private capacity", their position "akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests".
PRIVATE CITIZENS. The King's words. In writing.
Read the statement. It is short. The Queen was succinct. The King has been clear. The only ones still confused are the Sussexes' friends, and the magazine that keeps taking their calls.