Prince Harry’s biographer, Angela Levin, has claimed that the couple’s decision to hire yet another press relations expert shows that the Sussexes are becoming more and more “desperate” to fix their negative image.
“They’ve now got 12 PR people. Obviously something is wrong if 12 PR people aren’t getting it right or they’re getting them on in social media enough,” Levin stated in a recent radio talk show, per the Daily Express .
The comments came shortly after Prince Harry and Meghan announced that they had hired Silicon Valley stars Christine Schirmer as head of communications and Toya Holness as press secretary. In addition, the two also maintain the services of Hollywood PR agency Sunshine Sachs.
When asked about why she believed the duke and duchess have been plagued with negative publicity, the royal author said that it was because the pair lacked “common sense.”
“If you haven’t got common sense you’re not going to do the right things in the right way,” she explained. “They lose it because they don’t think broadly.”
The latest PR disaster for the couple occurred after the duke and duchess were accused of staging a “photo shoot” at a Los Angeles cemetery on Remembrance Sunday. The backlash was so great that a poll taken shortly after the stunt found that over 90 percent of Brits believed there was “no way” the couple should return to royal duties after their one-year trial period away from the monarchy.
“I think they’ve realized they got it wrong because they’re going down with all the ‘do you like Harry and Meghan?’” Levin added.
The biographer also pointed out the perceived hypocrisy that the Sussexes continue to rail against press intrusion while hiring a dozen employees specializing in publicity.
“But these are the people who want a quiet normal life,” she noted.
The author also claimed that the $150 million Netflix deal showed how the Sussexes were in dire need of income.
“Meghan is desperate to earn lots of money and Netflix offered them something.”
The duke and duchess’s collaboration with the streaming giant has been another source of negative press for the couple after the release of the fourth season of The Crown . The series has not portrayed members of the royal family — particularly Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, and Princess Diana — in a flattering light.
The author’s remarks echo those of an insider who has claimed that the ex-royal pair have come to realize they are no longer “the golden couple” of the monarchy, per The Inquisitr .