Prince Harry Has 'Machine-Gunned Down His Credibility' With Americans

Prince Harry's U.S. popularity has nose-dived because Americans "can see through someone hawking a book," a PR expert has told Newsweek.

Harry and Meghan Markle's approval rating among Americans has slumped into negative numbers, and exclusive polling for Newsweek now reveals that just 27 percent believed all of Prince Harry's revelations in his 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper.

This compares to 26 percent who believed none of them and 37 who believed some but not all. The data, collected by Redfield & Wilton for Newsweek on January 16, was drawn from a cross-section of respondents who had at least read or heard reporting on the interview.

Eric Schiffer, chair of Reputation Management Consultants, told Newsweek: "In a very short period of time Harry has all but machine-gunned down his credibility with a large populous of Americans who can see through someone hawking a book.

"And had Harry not had the book he wouldn't be revealing these things. He had to get a certain number of sales and so he decided to go nuclear, far extending beyond what I think he would have wanted to do."

Harry's memoir Spare told his story in far greater depth than either the Oprah Winfrey interview or the six-hour Netflix docu-series Harry & Meghan, going into detail about conversations with family members.

The book has been a runaway commercial success, selling more than 3.2 million copies worldwide and 1.6 million in the U.S. in its first week. However, the same cannot be said about its impact on his reputation.

As recently as December 5 last year, Prince Harry had a net approval rating among Americans of +38 but this has now sunk to -7, a drop of 45 points. Meanwhile, Meghan's dropped 36 points from +23 to -13.

Not only that but 44 percent of Americans said Prince Harry should not have revealed private conversations with family members.

Schiffer said: "This has turned into a horror show for Harry and Meghan who had been so clever up to this point in creating and manicuring this elegantly attractive brand to Americans, despite the fact that in England they were looked at with somewhat pariah status.

"This won't asphyxiate them with Americans permanently. One thing about Americans, and I think British people too, is the comeback story.

"He can rebuild but he's got to stay on message on the positive side and he's going to need to let go of this anger and resentment over his father and brother and channel it through therapy not the public."

Prince Harry's 60 Minutes Interview with Anderson Cooper

During a promotional interview for his book Spare, Prince Harry told Anderson Cooper about some deeply personal moments from his life, including when he learned Princess Diana had died.

He said: "Never shed a single tear at that point. I was in shock, you know? Twelve years old. Sort of—7, 7.30 in the morning, early. Your father comes in, sits on your bed, puts his hand on your knee and tells you, 'There's been an accident.' I couldn't believe."

He also discussed some of the more damaging revelations for other royal family members, including his account of a physical altercation with Prince William in 2019 while discussing Meghan.

Harry said: "It was a build-up of frustration, I think, on his part. It was at a time where he was being told certain things by people within his office. And at the same time, he was consuming a lot of the tabloid press, a lot of the stories. And he had a few issues, which were based not on reality.

"And I was defending my wife. And he was coming for my wife. She wasn't there at the time, but through the things that he was saying. I was defending myself. And we moved from one room into the kitchen. And his frustrations were growing, and growing, and growing.

"He was shouting at me. I was shouting back at him. It wasn't nice. It wasn't pleasant at all. And he snapped. And he pushed me to the floor."

He also described Prince William telling him to pretend they did not know each other at school and described how he used psychedelic drugs as a medicine to help him cope with grief and trauma.

On Queen Camilla, he revealed that neither he nor Prince William wanted her and Charles to marry, though they accepted the relationship.

The prince said: "We didn't think it was necessary. We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good, and if he was now with his person, that—surely that's enough.

"Why go that far when you don't necessarily need to? We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was, 'OK.'"

Harry told Cooper about his scramble to get to Balmoral after Queen Elizabeth II died, saying he was not invited onto the same plane as family members including Prince William, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

The duke said: "I asked my brother. I said, 'What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?' And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together. A plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats."

Cooper asked, "You were not invited on that plane?" while Harry replied: "I was not invited."

Jack Royston is Newsweek's chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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