The Hollywood Reporter Names Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as Hollywood’s Biggest Losers
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle earned another title in addition to being the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. This time, their new names are all US-made. The couple was touted one of the biggest Tinsel Town Losers of the Year by The Hollywood Reporter.
The influential publication recently released its 2023 review which celebrated the people who triumphed in the industry and those who, unfortunately, missed the mark.
Among the 11 chosen ones who struggled greatly this year were Prince Harry and Meghan. They were mocked and criticized for their whiny Netflix documentary, their biography entitled Spare, and their sluggish podcast.
Meghan’s podcast was dropped in June by Spotify after only one season. Bill Simmons, Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetization, labeled the couple as “grifters” after their contract, which was slated to have been worth $20 million, ended.
According to the magazine, Harry and Meghan fled their royal life of ceremonial public service to monetize their “expected” celebrity status in the US—something that failed to materialize.
The authors of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, “The Harry and Meghan brand swelled into a sanctimonious bubble just begging to be popped—and South Park was the pin.”
Recall that last March, South Park joined the ridicule directed towards the couple with one of their episodes which they comically entitled “World Wide Privacy Tour.” The episode skewered the couple for all their claims about media intrusion being too intense and their constant hunger for the spotlight.
The magazine then wrote the conclusion, “Still, all the scorn and mockery beat otherwise having to attend 200-plus official royal family engagements a year, which sounds hellish.”
Harry and Meghan are joined by other losers like the Scream franchise, and the actor Ezra Miller.
Surprisingly, Disney is also listed on the same roundup with the magazine writing, “Who wants to bet Bob Iger wishes he stayed retired? Disney got pummeled in 2023.” Elon Musk was also on the list due to his tumultuous leadership of Twitter, now X, whose value plummeted from $44 billion to a meager $19 million.
The magazine didn’t mince words in its description of Elon Musk. “Call the hellscape what you want, Elon Musk’s management of the social network—one that’s long served as a critical promotional vehicle for studios and talent—has been so disastrous it’s resulted in articles speculating that the otherwise phenomenally successful businessman must be intentionally crashing the bus because nobody could be this smart and dumb at the same time,” it wrote.
The scathing article went on to say, “From alienating advertisers (U.S. revenue is down 55 percent since he took over in 2022) and turning off users to retweeting antisemites, Musk has proved you can’t be a grown-up social media boss and play the impulsive Twitter troll, you have to choose your role—and it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.”
On the other hand, the winners’ list was spot on as it included Taylor Swift, Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, and the SAG-AFTRA union chief, Fran Drescher. Christopher Nolan, the director of the hit movie Oppenheimer, was also a winner.
The magazine also hailed the 57-year-old Patrick Dempsey as the People’s Sexiest Man Alive.
