Oprah’s love-in would’ve once been a slam dunk for Harry and Meghan. Why weren’t they there?
There was possibly only one group absent from Oprah Winfrey's love-in with Kamala Harris that was live-streamed to millions of homes across the US on Thursday night.
Cat Ladies For Kamala and Win With Black Women were prominent backers; so too White Dudes For Harris and Queers For Kamala.
But there was no sign of Duchesses For Kamala or Sussexes For Harris.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are, The Telegraph can disclose, deliberately going out of their way to stay out of the US elections .
This goes some way to explain why the Duchess, despite her close ties to Winfrey, the queen of US television , did not add her endorsement to Thursday's event, a huge show of support for the Democratic contender in the tightest of presidential races.
Other major celebrities did, including such Hollywood royalty as Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and Bryan Cranston.
Winfrey was a prominent guest at the wedding of Meghan to Prince Harry in 2018 and hosted the devastating interview in which the Duchess accused a senior member of the Royal family of commenting on her child's skin colour, in candid comments that sealed their Californian exile and effectively declared war on the Palace.
Rumoured political ambitions
Another reason why the Duchess might have been expected to attend is that for some time there have been reports of her political ambitions, all of them denied. The rumour mill has even gone so far as to suggest that the Duchess made tentative inquiries to replace Ms Harris as senator in California when she became vice-president. The claim has been branded "implausible" and "ridiculous" by sources close to the Duchess.
Four years ago, the Duchess spent an hour on a direct call with Gavin Newsom, the golden state's charismatic governor and an ally of Ms Harris, to discuss her arrival in Montecito, the wealthy town on the fringes of Santa Barbara that is now home to the Duke and Duchess.
The call was made in mid-October, two weeks before the 2020 US election and at a particularly sensitive time. The Biden-Harris triumph left a Senate seat vacant that under convention was in the gift of Mr Newsom to fill. He was under pressure to replace Ms Harris, at the time the only black female senator, with a candidate of the same sex and ethnicity. In the end he plumped for Alex Padilla, the first Latino to represent California.
Details of the call between Mr Newsom and the Duchess of Sussex remain private but it is thought the Duchess, a former actress in the US hit show Suits , was keen to let the Democratic governor know she was supportive of him. The Duke was also on the call, The Telegraph understands. It is not clear who initiated the call and what precisely was discussed but it likely would have included discussions about security and the logistics of having a branch of the Royal family in California.
However, fast-forward to 2024 and the Duke and Duchess are keeping well out of the political fray. Their only foray in this election cycle was to issue a statement via their charity the Archewell Foundation , encouraging unregistered voters to make sure they were not disenfranchised.
The statement issued on National Voter Registration Day declared: "At the Archewell Foundation, we recognise that civic engagement, no matter one's political party, is at the heart of a more just and equitable world."
It was intriguing. First, the statement was not issued directly by the couple but by their foundation. Second, for a couple who are so often in the spotlight, there was no accompanying video. Vanity Fair, the US magazine which is considered friendly by the Duke and Duchess, even went so far as to report that the Sussexes "didn't participate in this week's activity" and that instead the letter had been organised by Archewell "staffers" who had "got together for a nonpartisan letter-writing campaign to urge people across the country to exercise their right to vote".
The contrast with four years ago is marked. In September 2020, when Donald Trump was going toe-to-toe with Joe Biden, the Duke and Duchess appeared on camera with a personal appeal to American voters to register in order to "reject hate speech, misinformation and online negativity". Trump reacted badly. "I'm not a fan," he remarked of the Duchess before wishing Prince Harry "a lot of luck". In spring this year, Trump warned that "appropriate action" should be taken if it turned out the Duke had lied on his US visa application over taking cocaine, magic mushrooms and marijuana in his youth.
The video also caused genuine outrage in the UK because members of the Royal family are not supposed to dabble in politics and are never allowed to show any kind of allegiance (at the time, the Duke and Duchess insisted they were not endorsing Joe Biden and simply railing against "hate" and "misinformation".)
The couple's reticence to enter the political fray might well be understandable in light of a possible Trump return to the White House. He is not known for being forgiving.
This time, the couple have let it be known they will "remain nonpartisan" and they had no involvement with Winfrey's "Unite for America", a live stream event billed by Ms Harris's advisers as the "big moment to try to reach a broad cross-section of persuadable voters".
The Duchess has moved on too. Four years ago, it seemed to the world that she and her Prince were taking on the Royal family, setting up an alternative to the House of Windsor on the West Coast. The couple had made a hasty "Megxit" to escape the attentions of the British press and public, feeling unloved by the rest of the Royal family.
Duchess's new jam
The Duchess now has her own business interests to pursue and the couple need to make money to pay for a lifestyle that includes hugely expensive round-the-clock security that the British taxpayer no longer funds.
Her American Riviera Orchard brand, soft-launched in the summer, will promote a "domestic idyll" through the sale of everything from jams, cutlery and nut butters to place mats and cookbooks.
It is possible that in trying to make the business venture work, the last thing the Duchess would want to do is appear divisive by backing one political party over another. Meanwhile the Duke, according to reports, is trying to patch things up with London. The last thing he wants is a further political row to muddy those waters.
And then there's the distinct possibility that the Democrats just don't want the Sussexes' support. The Duchess is a figure who is both loved and hated. In a tight election, Ms Harris cannot afford to lose voters, however unlikely that might be as a consequence of an endorsement from the Californian exiles. And then there's this from a Democratic strategist in California, who knows the governor and the party machine there. "With all due respect to Meghan Markle," said the source, "given the star power that we have in California, she's kind of in the minor ranks of them to be honest." Ouch.
