I never understood people believing Harry’s PR back then. He went on more holidays than Bea in 2014. Yet his fans were cheering him as the best thing since sliced bread. I think they must have despised W&K so much that they deliberately turned a blind eye to all of Harry’s missteps. Who he is now is who he’s always been. I don’t get why anyone’s surprised. That like some Trump voters complaining about Trump now. I mean, Hello!, Trump’s tomfoolery has been there all along.
This is what we (I’m using the first person plural because I wasn’t a hard core Harry fan but I was still taken in by his pr) were smoking. I’m going to go in rough chronological order from May 2015 through December 2015
Yes, he left the army in 2015, but first they gave him a massive send-off with a big Australia tour and haka dances and crap.
Yes, this sounds ridiculous now that we know that he was actually romancing Soho House z-listers on these Africa trips, but at the tie this didn’t sound so far-fetched. After all, he had just left the Army supposedly because he loved the front lines but not the desks. It kind of made sense when they framed it that way.
No, I am not kidding when I say over the top. He was supposedly shooting poachers and maybe flying helicopters. They were uncertain about the helicopters part.
Then on his return to England he got the WWII veterans flypast, and that cute pic with the elderly pilot that he “gave up” his plane for. I remember a rumor going around that he had been grounded for goofing around on the planes and that he wasn’t actually able to fly, but the story was so cute, I wanted to believe it. Now I’m thinking he really was grounded, which would explain why they were so unclear about the helicopters in Africa part.
There were cracks in the facade, of course. He was flirting with Jenna Coleman at the Audi polo in June, and he got drunk after England was defeated in the rugby cup (disappointing a whole bunch of Aussies who were convinced after his down under tour that Australia was “the country he never had.”) The reunion with Chelsy never happened and neither did the volunteer work with the Recovery Capability Program (I think maybe he showed up once?). He also missed Charlotte’s birth and christening.
But it was all buried under elephant pics and pilot jumpsuits and kid hugs. he even released “personal photos” on the KP instagram in December to cap off the drive.
It was a looooooooong pr campaign (nine months!) and it was masterfully done. Yeah, now we can look back on it and laugh our heads off because this Hero Harry person is nothing like 2018 Harry. Would this person hang out at Soho House? Would this person fall for Meghan Markle? Would this person now look as if he can’t take a step without a pat and a burp from Mummy 2.0? Aren’t the elephant and crocodile pics suspiciously similar to the James Bond pics after the wedding? Isn’t the whole thing eerily similar to Meghan’s current “savior” press?
I’m not surprised we were all fooled.
BTW, remember this “running into an old teacher” scene in New Zealand? It was redone with Meghan during the carriage drive.
House of Brat 