At the British-themed Tea and Sympathy cafe in New York’s West Village, patrons sipped high tea and discussed Harry and Meghan’s new Netflix series. For these tourists from Texas, the Megxit saga was a classic fairytale with a contemporary twist, fitting for America’s era of reflection.
The documentary confirmed what many Americans already believed: the couple faced rejection due to rigid traditions and a strict class and racial hierarchy. While some viewers may find the family drama uncomfortable, they argue that Harry and Meghan deserve to share their side of the story.
Interestingly, American sentiment toward the couple differs significantly from that in Britain. Meghan is viewed favorably by 43 percent of Americans but only 28 percent of Britons. Prince Harry, on the other hand, enjoys greater popularity in the US.
Skylar Baker-Jordan, an American commentator, attributes this divergence to the contrasting class systems and social mobility between the two countries. Meghan’s ambition, seen as positive in the US, may be perceived as arrogance by the British.
“To the British, that would read as arrogance,” Baker-Jordan writes for The Watercooler. “To Americans, it reads as ambition – and ambition is encouraged in this country. Meghan is, in many regards, the epitome of the American dream. She was a middle-class child of a single mom who attended one of the most prestigious universities in the country – Northwestern – and made it big, first in television and then… working with the United Nations to advocate for the rights of women. Then she meets and falls in love with a prince.”
Yet there are others in America who have come to grow weary of the couple. Caroline Russo, 52, said that her affection for Prince Harry’s late mother Diana had made her largely sympathetic to them both at first, but that changed recently. “There’s a faux naivety that you see with Meghan in the documentary,” she says. “All this pretending that she didn’t know what she was signing up for, that she didn’t know anything about how the Royal family operates.
“If Meghan really wanted freedom, she would reject her titles and all the privileges,” she adds. “But it is clear now that she probably had this all planned out from day one.”
The transatlantic gap is evident in Meghan’s account of her first curtsy at Buckingham Palace. While some Brits interpreted it as mockery, American viewers saw a humbled young woman navigating tradition.