Big names like Pedro Pascal, Jenna Ortega, and pretty much the entire supporting casts of The White Lotus and Succession were rewarded for their hard work on TV in the past year with this week’s Emmy nominations—however, 2 names were conspicuously left off of the nomination list: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The royal pair had apparently been hoping for an Emmy nomination for, at least, Best Documentary or Nonfiction Series for their Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, which dropped on the streamer in December 2022. Despite the show scoring with viewers—it has brought in a total of 81.6 million hours watched (and counting) for Netflix—the series failed to score any nominations at the illustrious television awards.
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Royal Expert: Duke And Duchess Of Sussex 'Devastated' By Emmy's Snub
Editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine and royal expert Ingrid Seward told The Mirror last week that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are "devastated" to have been left out of the Emmy's awards conversation: "But of course, [they] will not show it," she said. Seward added that the high viewership was "obviously not good enough for an Emmy nomination."
The commentator seemed to speculate that the comparatively "light" subject matter of Harry and Meghan's relationship versus weighty docuseries that were nominated in the same category, like The U.S. and the Holocaust and The 1619 Project, may have been the problem. "In the series, Harry and Meghan talk about the royal family as if they were the enemy, while they themselves are trying to save the world," Seward said. "The series is an intimate look at 'hardships' they faced in their honey-colored, rose-tinted world."
The series wasn't all for naught, though: Harry & Meghan just scored a nomination at the Hollywood Critics Awards in the Best Streaming Nonfiction category.
Harry And Meghan Face 'Run Of Bad Luck' In Professional Lives
The Emmy's snub is only the latest in a series of difficult hurdles for the royal pair. The couple's $20 million Spotify contract recently came to an end, with only one project—a single season of Meghan's podcast Archetypes—to their names. A Spotify exec came under fire soon after for publicly calling the twosome "grifters" on his own podcast, in response to the deal news.
At the very least, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Netflix deal is still up and running—it's reported that Harry will soon leave for Africa to host a solo docuseries about the continent, and his series about the Invictus Games is set to premiere soon. The Sussexes were paid a reported $100 million by the streamer to produce content for the platform through 2025.
Royal expert Ingrid Seward had more to say on how the couple viewed these disappointments, and where they might turn to next: "They are having a run of bad luck in their working life. But ironically as long as they concentrate on delivering personal stuff instead of more serious work, people will be interested." The interviewer added, "The big question is how long before Harry turns his back on the show-business life, for which he is obviously ill-suited and seems entirely uncomfortable with? In truth, Harry never really wanted to be a podcaster or a TV executive. He didn't want to be the pepper to Meghan's salt."
