Last Thursday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended the ESPYs and Harry received the Pat Tillman Award for Service. He made a beautiful speech and even graciously acknowledged Pat Tillman’s mother Mary, who issued a nasty statement about Harry to the Daily Mail a week prior to the ESPYs. ESPN also put together a really special package on the Invictus Games, and you could just tell that it was a major moment for Invictus and exposing the games to several new audiences. The ESPYs also got their best ratings in five years, and I think partial credit should go towards the decision to feature the Pat Tillman Award package within the first hour of the show. People really were tuning in for Harry, for Serena Williams and for women’s basketball players. Additionally, the videos online of Harry’s speech and the Invictus package have all got millions of views across many platforms.

All of this is good news, of course. The British media’s latest tantrum blew up in their faces once again. Meghan and Harry looked like glamorous humanitarians and Invictus got major exposure on network television in primetime. So of course the British media is still desperately clinging to their f–ked up storylines. The Mail’s Amanda Platell wrote a completely offensive column about how Harry had been nominated for the award for “his relatively brief war record and his role in creating The Invictus Games for injured veterans.” Two tours in Afghanistan is now a “brief war record.” And he FOUNDED the Invictus Games. Platell also claimed it was “brazen” of Harry to reference the bonds between mother and son “after he has spent so much of the past four years breaking the bond between father and son with his petulant attacks on the Royal family.” LMAO. Platell then bizarrely claims that Diana would never have “let Harry trash his own family. And, I’m also certain she’d have seen through mesmerising Meghan Markle in five minutes, recognising her for what she is, a social climbing, money-hungry minx.” In fact, Diana enjoyed trashing the Windsors herself. And the Meghan sh-t is so f–king tired, have they no shame? Jesus.

That wasn’t all – Kate Mansey at the Times wrote an exhaustive screed to prove the British media’s new hypothesis that the Sussexes are “faltering” or “flopping” in America. Because apparently they watched the clip of Harry receiving several standing ovations at the ESPYs and they thought “no, the British audience will believe us when we say that Harry and Meghan are struggling!” Mansey called the award a “publicity crisis for Prince Harry” and wondered aloud: “Yet many are beginning to wonder whether Harry’s popularity across the Atlantic is beginning to wane. If so, can he claw it back?”

An observer based in Hollywood said: “The tide has turned. People in America have been welcoming but they won’t like the way they’ve treated the late Queen and now the King. Mostly, people I speak to say they either don’t like the Sussexes, or don’t care.”

If you’re running a multi-media company, of course, the “don’t care” factor could prove to be the most damaging.

Yet Team Sussex does have reason to remain cheerful. The couple will no doubt be buoyed by some of the voices coming out of support of the couple.

Jake Wood, a US marine and previous winner of the Pat Tillman Award, came to Harry’s defence. While cautious to say that Mary Tillman was entitled to defend her son’s legacy, Wood said he found Harry to be a worthy recipient because of his service in the Army and dedication to helping veterans.

In Britain, the captain of Team UK for the Invictus Games, said that Harry’s sporting competition had “saved lives” by giving hope and purpose to veterans. Stephen Hooper, 40, told The Daily Telegraph: “We wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him being there, creating this environment for us. And I can honestly say it’s probably saved lives. It’s bettered lives, it’s saved lives. To have him there, to at least just say a thank you, it means an absolute huge amount. He doesn’t sit in the shadows, he fully injects himself, he wants to be part of it and I think that’s fantastic.”

Yet no amount of praise will counteract the icy blast directed towards the Sussexes from the Windsors back in Britain. On his last visit, the King’s aides were baffled by Harry’s claims that his father was too busy to see him. Those within the Palace have such a faint dotted line into the Sussexes’ office that it was said to be far from clear what Harry’s plans were in the first place. As for his brother, there is no longer any hope that a meeting will take place in the short term.

By the end of the month, the board of the Invictus Games is expected to decide the location of the 2027 games, choosing between bids from Birmingham and Washington DC. At the moment there’s no obvious sign which location would give Harry a better reception. After being given the cold shoulder by his father and brother the last time he was in London, it seems unlikely that either of them will rush to give the games their seal of approval. The Royal British Legion is behind the UK bid and, rightly, some previously untold stories of triumph over adversity will be heard.

And if there’s one thing Hollywood likes, it’s a plucky underdog overcoming the odds to succeed: the ultimate American dream. If the Sussexes are well advised, Harry will realise that the American dream can only be achieved through hard work. If he wants a career as a popular media personality in the US, he could do to well to start the hard graft of winning the public’s trust all over again.

[From The Times]

“An observer based in Hollywood” means a British tabloid reporter based in LA. “The tide has turned. People in America have been welcoming but they won’t like the way they’ve treated the late Queen and now the King.” These dumbf–ks still don’t understand Americans and I’m getting so sick of these awful people Britsplaining what Americans think or feel.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty, screencap courtesy of ESPN.