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Vanity Fair’s exposé covered all the usual bases. In the article, marking Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first five years since leaving their jobs as senior royals and moving to the U.S., friends and coworkers dissected the Sussexes’ multiple failed or abandoned business endeavors, Harry’s naiveté about the effect his tell-all, Spare, would have on his relationship with his family, their “villain” status among Montecito, California, locals and their allegedly poor treatment of staffers. But buried deep in the 8,000-word cover story is a bombshell: A source told the magazine about whispers that had circulated “a few years ago” that Meghan’s team had engaged in talks with a publishing house for a tell-all the duchess would write. “The concept, for which there was no written or formal proposal, was post-divorce,” the source explained, clarifying that it wasn’t meant to be about Meghan’s past experience following her split from first husband, Trevor Engleson, in 2014. “This book might center of a post-Harry divorce.”
The shocking report, which comes as Harry and Meghan have been rocked by rumors their marriage is all but over, left royal watchers reeling. And they weren’t the only ones. “Those close to the couple believe Harry was blindsided by the divorce book claim,” an insider exclusively tells In Touch. “It’s completely out of left field.” Now, says the insider, “fans are left wondering: What’s real and what’s not?”
Truth vs. Fiction in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Marriage
The alleged book was never written, obviously. Despite the negative implications, the discussions about dumping Harry, 40, were all “theoretical,” the source told Vanity Fair, while another insisted that if there was any kernel of truth to the rumor, Meghan, 43, “would have been approached and not vice versa.”
Other royal watchers have been quick to point out that a split would actually be quite bad for business. “They are worth more together,” a publishing insider told Page Six. “It doesn’t benefit them to be apart — they have all their deals together.”
As Vanity Fair also pointed out, “interest in the couple was unslakable” when they made their multimillion-dollar production deals with Netflix and Spotify, but the fact that they had “escaped” the royal family was the most interesting thing about them.
Regardless, their professional paths have definitely begun to diverge. “Harry was never really comfortable pitching ideas,” an insider told In Touch in November. And multiple sources told Vanity Fair about the difficulties in coming up with ideas for podcasts and docuseries, with one Spotify employee describing how it was “challenging to engage Harry.” And a prospective employee added, “I just felt like he kind of didn’t want to be there doing that at this time.”
It’s not what he was raised to do. As insiders have repeatedly told In Touch, “Harry’s heart just isn’t in this kind of work — the only thing he’s really trained to do is be a working member of the royal family,” explains the insider. “That means shaking hands, spotlighting charities and acting as an ambassador overseas. That’s what his mother, Princess Diana, did best, and that’s where he’s always shined.”
His former-actress wife, on the other hand, is quite comfortable in the spotlight. “She’s very focused on her lifestyle brand,” the insider says of American Riviera Orchard. “And embracing her Hollywood roots with her lifestyle show, With Love, Meghan, which features a few of her celebrity friends.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Were Leading Separate Lives
To that end, she began hitting red carpets in and around L.A., while Harry traveled the world promoting his charities and battling British tabloids in court. After a string of solo events in which the pair weren’t photographed together for nearly three months, sources told In Touch in November that the Sussexes were effectively leading separate lives, in what some branded a “twin-track” approach to their public work, or a “professional separation.”
Privately, sources told Vanity Fair, they remain “hot for each other” and very much in love. “Harry is definitely obsessed with Meghan,” says the insider, but these rumors “would give any husband cause to worry. The constant questions about the state of their marriage are bound to take a toll.”
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