A Sussex insider has unleashed on Prince Harry amid reports the Duke of Sussex will receive a major humanitarian award and claimed the public increasingly “sees through” the former working royal.
SkyNews.com.au Digital Reporter Reilly Sullivan says Meghan’s father Thomas Markle, in a tell-all interview, said that he was sad.
Mr Markle has spoken out this week and publicly begged the Duchess of Sussex to allow him to meet his grandchildren.
“He’s in failing health, he’s about to turn 80 and he’s never met his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet,” Mr Sullivan told Sky News Digital Presenter Gabriella Power.
“It was sort of one last kinda ditch effort in the media to beg Meghan to see him.”
Harry, 39, will receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service at this year’s ESPY Sports Awards in recognition of his Invictus Games foundation, but the decision has raised eyebrows among media commentators.
The prestigious ESPY award is named in honour of legendary NFL player and U.S. Army Ranger, Pat Tillman and Harry is one of three recipients receiving the gong this year, which is handed out by sports cable broadcaster ESPN.
Mr Tillman joined the military after the 9/11 attacks and was tragically killed in action in Afghanistan in 2004.
Prince Harry is set to be honoured with the award next week. Picture: Chris Jackson / Getty Images for Invictus Games Foundation.
Los Angeles-based royal expert Kinsey Schofield slammed Harry and Meghan for their obsession with “collecting trophies” and claimed the American public “sees through the decision” by ESPN to give Harry the award.
“I see Prince Harry and Meghan Markle accepting more trophies for awards that I don’t understand what they’re for, than this life of service that they promised us,” she told TalkTV on Monday.
“I guess they’re trying to buy the public’s respect, they’re trying to buy good PR through networking and creating these opportunities to collect trophies for their mantle, but I think the public sees through these individuals.”
Ms Schofield’s dig was likely in reference to the Sussexes’ initial statement upon leaving the royal family in 2020 in which they strove to devote much of their time to charity.
Winter Olympian Eileen Gu with her ESPY at the 2022 ceremony. Picture: Getty.
The insider also took aim at the Duchess of Sussex and slammed Meghan for accepting awards for her cancelled podcast Archetypes despite the series being axed by Spotify after just 12 episodes.
“How many awards did Meghan accept for her podcast that was cancelled and slammed by her own network,” she said.
“This is all a game to them (Harry and Meghan).”
The Sussexes have pick up an array of tropies over the past four years. Picture by Emmanuel Osodi/Anadolu via Getty Images.
The Sussexes have amassed an impressive trophy case over the past four years despite largely devoting their time to commercial ventures with Netflix and Spotify and Harry’s memoir Spare.
Among the honours, Harry and Meghan have received a “President’s Award” by Black civil rights organisation NAACP and a “Ripple of Hope Award” from the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organisation.
SkyNews.com.au is not suggesting that Prince Harry paid ESPN to receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service.