Back to Square One: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Strategy to Reshape Their Image Was 'Blown Out of the Water' by 'Endgame'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were slowly but surely revamping their public image until Omid Scobie's Endgame put an abrupt stop to it.

"I thought they were doing really well keeping out of negative headlines... but Endgame blew that all out of the water, and then all the negative headlines went back on to them," royal journalist Matt Wilkinson dished on "The Royal Beat" podcast.

Although most of the media coverage of the book had nothing much nice to say about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Wilkinson thinks "they are going in the right direction" in their silent response to it.

"They are trying to market Meghan as a California girl, and I think they just need to carry on down that kinder, gentler route, not having rows with the royal family and just enjoying their life in California. They were on their way to doing that until the two names came out in Endgame, and that blew things apart," he added.

Royal author Katie Nicholl chimed in and shared: "Whatever you think about [Harry], he is a remarkable philanthropist, and he has an incredible and unique platform, and he uses that. And I think that is when he comes into his own and does his very best work."

She continued: "But when you weigh up what [the Sussexes] have done with Archewell against what they’ve done in terms of commercial projects, there's a real imbalance there. If they leveled it out a bit more so they were doing more of this philanthropic work, then I think you'll see Archewell do better, and I think you'll see [Harry and Meghan] do better in the popularity polls because that's what people want to see."

These insights come after Harry and Meghan, along with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet Diana, spent a week vacationing in Costa Rica ahead of the holidays. It is unknown if King Charles III invited the Sussex family to spend Christmas at Sandringham, but it is not believed the royal rebels would accept an invitation. They have not spent the holiday with the royal family since 2018.

Among the most controversial elements of Scobie's tome was the supposed "translation error" that occurred with the Dutch version of the book. Although the translators deny there was an error, the author claims that he had nothing to do with any kind of planned gimmick of the edition. The King and Kate, Princess of Wales, were named as two senior royals that allegedly questioned Archie's potential complexion.

The Endgame scandal did not even factor into a major Hollywood publication's naming Harry and Meghan as two of the year's "biggest losers." Perhaps the image makeover wasn't as effective as what some analysts initially thought.

The Daily Mirror reported on the expert opinions.