Harry and Meghan 'Need to Go Away'—Black Lives Matter Activist

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle should "go away" and go silent after their podcasting relationship with Spotify collapsed last week, a social commentator and anti-racism activist has told British TV in a new debate.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Monday, Imarn Ayton, a prominent voice in helping to organize Black Lives Matter protests in the U.K. in 2020, reflected on Harry and Meghan's public image and criticized the couple for allegedly using race as a tool to win public support.

When asked why she no longer supported the couple, Ayton echoed the criticism launched by Spotify's head of podcast innovation and monetization last week after it was announced their multi-million-dollar relationship with the streaming giant had collapsed with both the couple and the company mutually agreeing to "part ways."

Bill Simmons, who hosts his own podcast in conjunction with being a Spotify executive, told listeners: "I wish I had been involved in the 'Meghan and Harry leave Spotify' negotiation. 'The F****** Grifters.' That's the podcast we should have launched with them."

So far, neither Spotify nor Harry and Meghan have responded to the comment.

"Number one is they're grifters," Ayton told Good Morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley before going on to cite the couple's now self-disputed claim during their 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey, that they alleged a member of the royal family made racist comments about the skin color of their future children.

"The one that irks me the most, is when they decided to use black people as a weapon, as a tool when they needed support. That is my issue," she said.

"'Let's get support from the black community. Let's talk about racism, and then three years later let's say: 'We didn't talk about racism.' They brought us on that journey with them and then just kind of dumped us at the end. They used us."

Continuing the discussion about Harry and Meghan's public image, particularly in the wake of the Spotify revelation, Newsweek's chief royal correspondent Jack Royston added that there was perhaps a way to rehabilitate if they chose a different path.

"Their projects have got a huge amount of attention and will have made money for [Spotify and Netflix] which is why it's a real shame for them that everything has disintegrated but they can pull it back," he said, speaking on the same show.

"Everything Imarn said is completely legitimate and there's been a massive dent in their popularity in America but the polls have already started swinging back towards them. The American public opinion is improving in relation to Harry and Meghan but what they need to do is ditch the negative message and stop the complaining."

When Royston suggested that the couple should return to the "old school royal playbook" by attending charity events and "looking fantastic," Ayton disagreed, emphatically saying: "No, they need to go away."

"They just need to go away. Let's be honest with ourselves here. They got themselves into this mess. 'Let's talk about ourselves for three years but then simultaneously say we want privacy.' It's that dichotomy that's got themselves in this position, they need to go away, go silent."

Despite their relationship with Spotify coming to an end after just 13 episodes of podcast content over three years, Harry and Meghan still have a major media project with a release on the horizon.

The couple's Archewell Productions, in collaboration with Netflix, will release their new docuseries Heart of Invictus this summer, focussing on Harry's Invictus Games and the athletes who competed at the 2022 event in The Netherlands.

Beyond that the couple have no further plans for content that have been made public, however, responding to the Spotify news last week, a spokesperson for Meghan told The Wall Street Journal that the duchess was looking to connect with her podcast audience "on another platform."

Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for comment via email.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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