A few weeks ago, when People Magazine published the first excerpts from Omid Scobie’s Endgame, there were grumbles from both the Sussex Squad and the royalists. I wrote about it here, expressing my hope that Endgame would be a larger, coherent narrative about “the palace leaks and briefings, the poor management and decision-making within the establishment, the clownshow of it all, the fact that the ashy royals are struggling and unpopular, all of which has been thrown into sharp relief within the past four years of the Sussexit.” Having read/skimmed Endgame, I can safely say that the book is exactly what I expected and more.
What I’ve learned from covering royal gossip for years is that those of us following the daily gossip should never underestimate the fact that the overwhelming majority of casual royal-watchers are only really paying attention to the bigger headlines. It was the same with Finding Freedom – many of us die-hard Sussex people knew those stories, but the book was so successful because casual watchers began to pay attention, or they simply appreciated that at least one book was positive/neutral about the Sussexes. Same with the Duke and Duchess of Sussexes’ Netflix docuseries – while there was new information, the bulk of it was already known, but it was just repackaged in their own words. That too was a massive success, as was Harry’s memoir. What I’m saying is that Endgame will become one of those big headlines, it will be one of those bigger stories which casual fans/supporters will pick up and absorb. And that’s a good thing, because even I was surprised by some of the details and stories Scobie wrote about.
Some areas of royal coverage we’ll get into in the next few days and weeks – Scobie writes, in detail, about the alleged affair between Rose Hanbury and Prince William, but he does so through the prism of the media and Kensington Palace’s extremely ham-fisted attempts at damage control, which leads into a larger story about William’s then-press secretary Christian Jones and Dan Wootton. Scobie also has a wealth of details about William’s 2019 Flybe stunt, William’s coldness and rage, the antagonism between Charles and William’s royal courts and Charles’s refusal to simply sit down with Harry and have a real conversation.
As much sh-t as Scobie gets for being “the Sussexes’ cheerleader” or “the Sussexes’ de facto spokesperson,” Scobie knew he had to build his own story within Endgame, and he explains, in detail, how few times he’s actually met or spoken to Meghan, his conversations with some of the Sussexes’ staff, and what happened when Finding Freedom’s sourcing was brought into question during Meghan’s lawsuit against the Mail. He also explains, throughout the book, his legwork as a reporter. So much so that I found myself asking why the hell no one else in the royal rota even thought to do the same kind of source-maintenance or basic journalism. The other royal reporters seem equally stuck in a broken system, stenographers to an ever-weakened royal court. It’s shocking to me that none of them have figured out what Scobie sussed out years ago: there’s an untapped market for honest coverage of the monarchy’s death rattle.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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