The Sussexes’ lack of self-awareness is at the root of their long list of failures. But how did the couple get it so wrong?

“The thing you’re escaping is the reason you’re compelling.” The killer line comes a third of the way through Vanity Fair’s 8,000-word Meghan and Harry annihilation. It’s the only line that matters, when all is said and done – and five years on, we must be nearing that moment.

The quote is attributed only to a “former Spotify employee”. Someone who was, presumably, working at the streaming platform when the couple first moved to LA in 2020 to enjoy the anonymity they would have basked in, had there been time in between all the frenzied deal-making, the celebrity shmoozing and the self-promotion.

But when it comes to summing up exactly where things began to unravel for the Duke and Duchess of Delusion’s American dream, it would be hard to beat that single sentence.

Imagine if Taylor Swift suddenly decided to stop mining her love life for inspiration, call time on all live performances and refuse to have any further interactions with her fans. Imagine if Madonna made a vow to cover up from now on and stop the provocation, if Trump ditched the boasting, the gratuitous spreading of misinformation and the sunbeds and Cristiano Ronaldo announced that he would never again be playing or discussing football (but would from now on devote his life to needlepoint).

At the core of every successful brand is a CEO who knows exactly what the public finds so compelling about their product – and would never dream of killing the golden goose.

That lack of self-awareness is at the root of the Sussexes’ long list of failures, laid out in all their inglorious detail in the same influential US publication that once treated Meghan like Princess Diana II. It’s all there, from the couple’s embarrassing “naivety” and their seeming failure to come up with their own ideas or yield interesting content for Spotify to their widely derided Netflix series.

Although when you consider that one idea that was reportedly offered up was Harry reviewing a cup of hot chocolate with a different friend each week, you might take the view that with Polo, the streamer picked the cream of the crop. Then there are the damaging reports from underlings who have worked with Markle since she moved back to the US, some allegedly found her so difficult that they ended up quitting or “needing therapy.”

Add Vanity Fair’s U-turn to other recent takedowns by previously loyal liberal American media outlets (last month New York Magazine’s The Cut ran a piece with the headline “Harry and Meghan’s Projects Can’t Stop Flopping”, and that same month the Hollywood Reporter included the Sussexes in its list of Hollywood’s “biggest losers”) and you can see why one British newspaper ran a double page spread on Sunday with the headline: “Why America is FINALLY falling out of love with the Sussexes”.

Only here’s the thing: America fell out of love with Meghan and Harry a long time ago. And I say that as someone who lives there half the year and has watched it happen.

You would hear it in the nail salons from the start – and they’re always the best barometer of public opinion. “I don’t like the way that Meghan girl disrespected the Queen.” “I’ve always loved Kate – and what was that business with the bridesmaid’s dress?”

And maybe all that would have been forgiven if the pair produced something of note. Something of quality. They do love grafters out there. But instead, they decided to peddle their grievances. And “whiny” just doesn’t cut it in the US – a uniquely forward-facing, snap-yourself-out-of-it country. So when Spare was published, one LA girlfriend’s reaction to the book described as a “whine tour” by one US publication was: “Why would you choose to live in that space?”

If these two have decided to move someplace sunnier and leave the gripes and the blame games behind – as the launch of Meghan’s cookery show, With Love, Meghan and lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, would indicate – it may not be too late for them.

This pile-up of recent takedowns (and let us not forget their wildfire “disaster tourists” backlash too) isn’t so much a reflection of a country disappointed in love as a country baffled by how two people who could have had it all managed to get it so wrong.