Have Harry and Meghan realised the poor me brand isn’t working and been forced to ditch it?

JUST when we thought they were giving us a bit of well-deserved privacy, the King and Queen of Montecito are re-emerging from their McMansion for what sources are referring to as a “rebrand”.

Please no. Spare us.

We’ve endured the first “brand” of Harry and Meghan, the persecuted lovers who fled the wicked royal kingdom in the pursuit of a happier life — a lucrative teat that was rapidly milked dry.

Then there was misunderstood Harry whose angelic wife was his rock after his dreadful family ostracised him. That vein is now fully excavated and bloodless.

And of course, there was their main “brand” — that of eco warriors with a passion for saving the world and everyone in it via word salad preachings made from one of their lavishly appointed living rooms.

So what will Brand Sussex do now? Well, the July issue of Rolling Stone magazine might yield a clue, with the headline: “Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are in their flop era.”

Which suggests that, while preaching kindness and telling everyone else what to do with their lives might make them feel virtuous, it’s not paying the bills for the lavish lifestyle to which they would like to remain accustomed.

As Stacy Jones, founder of LA-based marketing agency Hollywood Branded, puts it: “It’s circled around ‘poor Meghan and Harry’ and that’s not a platform you can build a brand on.”

Indeed it isn’t. In addition, the money they have made from the “poor me” narrative has led to them being ridiculed by the likes of the cartoon Family Guy, where a butler gives Harry an envelope and says: “Sir, your millions from Netflix for no one knows what.” 

So what’s the betting that Harry and Meghan’s latest brand incarnation can be summed up by them hopping on the private jet of an oil tycoon for the vital mission of seeing a Katy Perry concert?

In other words, they’ve decided to drop the constant virtue signalling and embrace what we always suspected Meghan craved all along — an A-list celebrity lifestyle funded by lucrative endorsements and favours from billionaires who want to be seen with someone famous.

Only last month, they were spotted on the small Caribbean island of Canouan, described as the place “where billionaires go to escape millionaires”.

And favours or not, that kind of lifestyle needs a steady income stream to sustain it.

Not to mention the energy bills alone for their 13,000sq ft home in California.

Earlier this year, it was suggested that Meghan was about to launch “a major new commercial venture” and that a relaunch might be imminent of The Tig, the lifestyle website she shut down after meeting Harry.

She has also signed up with talent agency William Morris Endeavor, which suggests a return to acting.

The couple’s charitable work via their foundation Archewell is on-going, but it will no doubt remain a side show to the more important business of making Brand Sussex financially self-sufficient.

So Harry and Meghan’s “rebrand” looks set to be commercial.

Unless, of course, they’re booking flights.

AMSTERDAM has launched a “stay away” campaign aimed at deterring British lads who go there to drink excessively.

In the late 80s, when I worked for the now defunct Today newspaper, we launched a reader competition for a trip to the Dutch capital and printed thousands of promotional posters showing an idyllic canal scene.

Or so we thought . . . until an eagle-eyed reader pointed out that, in the background, was a young man vomiting against a tree.

Some things never change.

EWE’RE LUCKY, FIONA

A NAMELESS sheep stranded on a beach below cliffs in Scotland’s Cromarty Firth has been rescued.

Now named Fiona (nope, me neither) her plight as “Britain’s loneliest sheep” gripped the media and prompted a petition signed by 50,000 people demanding an urgent rescue.

How do we know she was “lonely?” Did she say so?

And apart from an unkempt hairdo (it never seems to bother Boris Johnson) she’s managed to keep herself in fine health with “unlimited grass to eat for two years”, so why all the sudden brouha-baaaa?

Whatever. A EweTubing (that’s enough sheep puns – Ed) farmer from Ayrshire helped save her and she’s now at her “forever home” on a farm in Dumfries.

It’s funny how we get so invested in the plight of a single animal.

Particularly when, as we speak, myriad other “Fionas” are being packed off to the abattoir to be served up on Sunday with mint sauce.

FUJIFILM says it is “struggling to keep up” with the demand for disposable cameras from Gen Z partygoers.

A company spokesman said the youngsters want a “more authentic” photography experience.

Hmmm. Not sure how long that will last.

After all, the baby-boomers among us will remember the days when we spent all night taking what we thought were hilariously candid photos of our drunken friends, paid good money for them to be developed and opened the packet to find photos of ceilings, floors and other indistinct images covered with “quality control” stickers.

I salute Rooneys for their pyjama games

THE Rooneys have posed in matching pyjamas on a “family night in” to celebrate the 14th birthday of their oldest son Kai.

One wonders what negotiation went on behind the scenes.

For as anyone with teenagers will tell you, persuading them to even stand next to you in a photo takes months of cajoling and inducements.

And to even suggest matching outfits would be parental hara-kiri.

Kai clearly drew the line at wearing the matching top, and five-year-old Cass looks mid-tantrum, but all credit to Wayne and Coleen – they’ve pulled it off.

Managing Birmingham City will seem like a doddle after this.

WAY back when, my friends and I loved going to an interactive dinner event in London (called Joni and Gina’s Wedding, I think?) where we the audience were the guests at the nuptials and the drama unfolded around us as we ate.

It was ahead of its time, brilliant fun and involved jobbing actors playing the lead roles.

One of them was a young Hannah Waddingham – now 49 and the star of Ted Lasso, Sex Education and the face of the new M&S Christmas ad.

How great to see that all her hard slog has paid off.

TRAMP TRIAL

AFTER 54 years at the heart of London’s social scene, Tramp nightclub has closed its doors.

I only went once, in the mid-Nineties, and was so deeply affected by the experience that I never returned.

Michael Flatley asked me to dance.

Too polite to say no, he led me to centre of the room where, with every fibre of my being, I prayed he wasn’t about to launch in to a manic Riverdance routine.

He didn’t. But the anticipatory trauma lives on.

HOT on the heels of coming third in I’m A Celebrity last year, Matt Hancock also reached the final of SAS: Who Dares Wins on Sunday night.

In her new book about the downfall of Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries says that, during the Covid crisis, the former health secretary was “always desperately seeking publicity and a camera”.

Perhaps he was always destined to be a reality star and merely got sidetracked by a spell in politics along the way?

FRIEND IN NEED

THE death of anyone famous always prompts an outpouring of sentiment from other celebrities who purport to be heartbroken.

But – his grief-stricken Friends co-stars aside – how many of those publicly mourning the loss of Matthew Perry bothered to regularly pick up the phone to him in private when he was still alive?

What’s the betting there wouldn’t be enough of them to fill Monica and Chandler’s bedroom?