Prince William ‘is keen for his work to be seen & have impact outside of the UK’

Omid Scobie’s Yahoo UK column this week is “Prince William has his eyes set on the US – and here’s how he’s going to do it.” It is so shady!! As we know, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are headed to Boston this December for Earthshot. It will be their first trip to the US since 2014, when they bored everyone to tears in New York. Scobie ended up confirming something I’ve long suspected, which is that for years, William and Kate didn’t prioritize the American media or American interest in royalty. Frankly, they acted like they were too good for American media markets. Then an American actress married Prince Harry, and suddenly William and Kate were finally keen about courting America. For more than a year, the Cambridges have been telegraphing their interest in America and their desire to have a “high profile” outside of Salt Island. Some highlights from Scobie’s piece:

The Cambridges never wanted American press in the old days: As someone with a mostly American media career, one of my earliest challenges covering the royals was getting their PR teams to care about overseas coverage. When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge first got engaged in 2011, the British press was the only priority to those around the couple. Seeing the advantages of reaching US audiences took a little more time. Access did eventually become more available but, over the years, the foreign market – including Commonwealth countries such as Australia and Canada – has often been an afterthought for palace press staff.

The Meghan Markle Takeover: Though the US has long been fascinated with British royalty, interest in ‘The Firm’ was massively renewed when one of the country’s own married into the House of Windsor in 2018. The story of Meghan’s journey as a royal (and all things related to it) still accounts for the majority of royal coverage in the US. That space was once occupied by the Cambridges. In the couple’s earlier days, one couldn’t move for TV specials and magazine covers about William, Kate and their growing family. But as their life fell into a stable groove, the excitement and curiosity for the pair waned. With births and many of life’s major milestones checked off the list, they slowly became a tougher sell to audiences. It’s why there were no US media outlets on the couple’s recent tour of the Caribbean.

Careful, keen choreography: Though the Sussexes grab more headlines, a steady stream of orchestrated appearances from George, Charlotte and Louis – and William and Kate’s efforts during the pandemic –has helped the Cambridges’ popularity rise. And it seems Kensington Palace is now hoping they can do the same in the US.

Baldemort is keen for America: It’s why William sat down with People magazine, still one of the country’s most read magazines, last summer for a rare interview. “William is keen for his work to be seen and have impact outside of the UK and the royal bubble,” a source tells me. “The charitable landscape in America is huge and he wants to have a presence.”

Scobie is a shady B: Though the source made no mention of it, I wondered if a little competitiveness with his brother might be in the mix, too. Harry’s popularity in Britain may be suffering, but his rise in the US has seen the Archewell Foundation receive huge attention from an impressive list of donors, and his charitable efforts and campaigning has quickly seen him acknowledged by the likes of Forbes and TIME, who named him and Meghan two of the world’s most influential people.

The Cambridges are desperate for American money: Though rarely spoken about, William and Kate’s own UK-based foundation – which Earthshot started life at in 2020 –actually has its own US non-profit called the The American Friends of The Royal Foundation. Its board has included individuals from some of the country’s largest financial institutions and entertainment companies, including Universal Music CEO Sir Lucian Grainge. And with plans for the Cambridges’ December visit to be much more than just an appearance at William’s environmental prize, sources tell me that preliminary conversations about a fundraising event – similar to the $50,000-a-head dinner the couple hosted during eight years ago in New York – have already taken place.

The Cambridges will probably go to Washington too: Recon, I’m also told, has also been scheduled for a number of royal engagements and activities for the couple in Boston and beyond. Perhaps even a trip to Washington DC.

[From Yahoo UK]

One of the dumbest things Salt Island ever did, long-term, was pour racist abuse, hatred, misogyny and anti-Americanism on the Duchess of Sussex. The British media and the Windsors all operate like they’re in a soundproof chamber and no one outside of the UK can hear what they’re saying. They still don’t understand that the rest of the world watched as William, Kate and the British media coordinated to smear a pregnant American woman into suicidal ideation. They still don’t get that the Oprah interview was one of the most-watched television events in the past decade, and that it fundamentally changed how Americans view the Windsors. Not to mention how Commonwealth nations view the Windsors. And now Will and Kate are realizing that oh, right, they really want American media, American tourism and (most of all) American money. Should have thought of that when you spent four years performatively crying about children’s tights.

Update: Yes, we are well aware that there is a big Twitter trend right now, but we’re not going to talk about it until there’s actual reporting on it, which probably won’t happen. Please don’t threadjack.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar and Cover Images.