PRINCE Harry and Meghan were physically miles apart this week – doing what they do best.
He was in court in London moaning about his lack of security and later supporting war-wounded Ukrainian veterans.
Meanwhile, with perfect timing, his wife back home in California dropped her new podcast, Confessions Of A Female Founder, introducing herself simply as “Meghan”.
And it also seems the couple are miles apart on another issue.
For the public to see or not to see their “royal” kids? That is the question for the Duke and Duchess of Montecito.
Earlier this week, Meghan shared her most personal glimpse of Archie, five, and Lilibet, three, in years as she teased the launch of her new food brand, As Ever.
The children are shown clinging to her in the garden and also running across the grass.
While their faces can’t be seen, it feels as though the former actress is desperate to show off her future generation — something that Harry will not be happy about.
Having grown up in the spotlight, it’s clear Harry detests the idea of his own children being under public scrutiny as he was.
And for a couple hungry for a fistful of dollars, it’s a dilemma that cuts to the heart of their carefully crafted brand.
Once again, the stakes are high, commercial and deeply personal.
On one side stands mummy Meghan — Markle, Sussex, Mountbatten-Windsor, or whichever version best suits the day.
The duchess-turned-digital entrepreneur understands the algorithm, the angle, the art of the tease. For her, fame was earned, not inherited.
Her instincts are pure California — image-led, brand-driven and always camera-ready.
Her children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, are not just heirs to legacy — they’re assets, characters in a rolling narrative crafted for maximum emotional impact.
Because there’s one thing all the true influencing queens in America have in common — they march their children out into the world as part of the “brand”.
Some of the most powerful women in Hollywood, including Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and J-Lo proudly parade their offspring — even getting them fashion deals or film cameos.
But on the other side of this stands daddy Harry — wounded by his past, wary of the present and world-weary from a lifetime in the lens.
No one knows better than he the cost of visibility.
His mother, the late Princess Diana, was the most photographed woman on Earth; pursued to the bitter end.
For Harry, the camera is not an opportunity, but a threat.
That said, when the price is right, he’s hardly camera-shy himself.
It seems they are not on the same page — not really.
Meghan plays from the modern fame manual. Harry, from a trauma-soaked cautionary tale.
The result? Tension.
Not just in the home, but in their whole media strategy — particularly when it comes to their children.
Which makes it more perplexing that the couple, despite stepping away from royal duties, demanded full royal titles for their children.
The moment Charles III became king, those titles — Prince and Princess — were claimed.
Publicly adopted by the Sussexes in March 2023, just in time for the christening of Lilibet Diana.
They walked away from the system — one they seem to despise — yet cling to its symbols.
Gravitas without the grind.
Their children, based in California, now carry titles imbued with the full weight of the British Crown — and undoubtedly, adding future commercial value to the Sussex portfolio.
It’s in sharp contrast to the approach of Princess Anne, the Princess Royal; ever the no-fuss royal.
She declined titles for her children, Peter and Zara. And her former husband, Mark Phillips — offered an earldom — turned it down, too.
No pomp, no drama.
The result? Two grounded, successful adults who have navigated commercial and public lives on their own terms, not trapped in the royal fishbowl.
Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, by contrast, are already pawns in a publicity paradox.
The public is shown a toddler’s back here, a grainy birthday snapshot there — enough to spark curiosity, but never enough to satisfy it.
Their rare appearances are choreographed, airbrushed and timed to trend.
A Netflix cameo is treated like a state appearance.
Privacy, but always with a hashtag.
Let’s not pretend this is accidental. It’s a strategy. It’s performance. And it’s profitable.
The Sussexes say they want privacy for themselves and their kids.
They decry media intrusion. Fair enough.
Yet they drip-feed their children’s image, monetising the mystery.
But Meghan’s lifestyle brand customers will only wait so long to see the children she supposedly packs picnic baskets for and names jam after. And she knows it.
One of her close friends, tennis legend Serena Williams, has launched her own children’s clothing range using her own daughters, Olympia, seven and Adira, 18 months, as models in the advertising campaign.
Billboards show Williams with the adorable children she had with internet entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian.
The wealthy and powerful couple do not need to make stars of their children, but the expectation in America is that if you have a family, you show them off.
They can become powerful and influential in their own right.
One of the world’s most famous wellness and lifestyle brand owners, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, has long let her Goop followers into her real home and shown off her children.
Meanwhile, Meghan is filming her new Netflix show, ‘With Love, Meghan’ in a hired mansion and all that is revealed of Archie and Lilibet is the backs of their heads.
That might be acceptable in the UK, where the likes of Holly Willoughby does the same.
But in the States, there’s much more competition and a hunger to see the American Dream play out in real life.
And make no mistake, these are not ordinary children.
They are the grandchildren of the King, the “American” descendants of Queen Elizabeth II, and, yes, Princess Diana’s grandkids, too.
That lineage carries weight, whether they like it or not. Public curiosity is not a bug — it’s the cost of the platform their parents are trading on.
Isn’t this precisely why Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth urged the Sussexes to rethink their plans before “Megxit”?
So when Meghan launches a lifestyle brand and names a dessert after Lilibet, it’s not homage. Of course it’s marketing.
Everything in Montecito is planned to within an inch of its life — from the family snaps to the product drops.
The children are central to that Sussex strategy, whether they are fully visible or not — something that might make Harry, who is desperate to protect the children’s anonymity, feel very uneasy indeed.
There is a deeper clash at play here, too — anonymity versus ambition; trauma versus aspiration.
A modern royal fairy tale with no easy ending.
Yes, royal children have always been used to humanise the institution and prop up the brand.
Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret — the original Lilibet and Bud — romped in staged photos at 145 Piccadilly, snapped by celebrity photographer Marcus Adams on the orders of their grandfather, King George V.
The young Princess Elizabeth — the future Queen — even appeared on Canadian currency when she was a little girl.
The girls promised continuity, warming the public’s heart; a distraction from the future Edward VIII’s antics that ultimately led to his abdication, after his PR-conscious father died in 1936.
Princess Diana too posed with her sons on the ski slopes to show the Crown had a heart.
Even William and Catherine, masters of the modern monarchy, release polished portraits of their children that toe the line between sincerity and savvy.
But the Sussex version feels different, monetised — and frankly, sometimes a touch daft.
They dangle access without granting it.
They court attention while condemning it. It’s not just selective. It’s transactional.
And what of the children? Born into all this fuss. They didn’t choose the spotlight.
But they cannot escape it, either — not when their images, or lack thereof, are used to drive clicks, sell brands and build a narrative of noble independence.
You can’t weaponise privacy and monetise mystique.
Not when your titles still carry royal weight.
Archie and Lilibet are Windsor by blood.
This isn’t just a family drama. It’s a royal reckoning — a test of how far modern royalty can stretch before it snaps.
