Back in August, just after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed their plans to move back to the UK, Tina Brown started a rumor about Meghan eyeing a role in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. The Netflix show films in the Cotswolds, and the second season was just weeks away from premiering when the Meghan rumors circulated. Royalists loudly theorized that Meghan was desperate and broke and that’s why she was hellbent on getting a role on a show most people hadn’t even heard of. When really, the jig was up in a matter of days – it was clear (to me, at least) that the rumors were being circulated by Ritchie’s camp and Netflix as a way to (cynically) promote the show using Meghan’s name. And boom, a few weeks later, Netflix renewed the series for a third season, and several of the cast members gave on-the-record comments disparaging Meghan’s potential involvement. Well, according to one of Meghan’s friends, Meghan was rolling her eyes with this whole gossip storyline.

The Duchess of Sussex was “used” to promote the television series The Gentlemen, her friends have claimed. Sources close to the Duchess have accused Netflix of leaking her potential involvement in the crime drama to boost publicity.

It was reported in August that the Duchess was in advanced discussions to join the cast for the third instalment of Guy Ritchie’s show. However, in an about-turn less than 24 hours after the news was revealed, her potential role was thrown into doubt after public opposition. Talks have been abandoned and the Duchess is officially out of the running, a source close to her confirmed.

Season two of The Gentlemen, which stars Theo James as a duke who becomes a drug baron, premiered earlier this month. Friends of the Duchess believe she was “used to help promote” the second series of the show, for which viewing figures fell by 500,000.

“Some people in her camp feel she was used to help promote season two, because they knew it wasn’t as good as the first season and had already commissioned a third,” one told The Telegraph. “It’s the oldest marketing trick in the book: get a big name to read a script, then leak that you’re ‘in conversation’ with them when, in reality, nothing is particularly far along. The whole thing left a bit of a sour taste in the Sussex camp’s mouth. Needless to say, Netflix got what it wanted: huge viewing figures for season two and a lot of publicity.”

The Telegraph revealed last week that the Duchess was looking to resume her acting career properly. She is reading scripts for shows across all platforms as well as film scripts. However, one source said the Duchess had become “very cautious” about reading scripts in case news of her involvement was leaked to the press, and had been advised not to speak about scripts with her friends or wider circle.

“They’re being very cautious about which scripts they agree to read at the moment,” the source said. “Everyone knows that whatever Meghan’s first film or show turns out to be, it’s going to attract huge interest. The prospect of seeing her return to acting will drive big audiences, and ultimately, someone – whether it’s Netflix, Amazon or another studio – is going to make a lot of money from it.”

If the Duchess were to take on a role in the future series, it would be the latest project in long-standing ties between her and Netflix. The streaming giant was a commercial partner for her US-based lifestyle brand As Ever, which she plans to continue running from Britain, and was the host of her unscripted show promoting the brand called With Love, Meghan.

The recent departure from Netflix of Bela Bajaria, who had been its chief content officer and one of the couple’s biggest cheerleaders, has been described as a blow to the Duke and Duchess by some Hollywood sources. One LA-based producer and event consultant, who has worked independently with Prince Harry, said: “This Netflix shake up is very significant and of such enormity that everything within the business is being reviewed. Just look at their share price in the last year. The business is hurting and so when that happens in Hollywood there is upheaval, changes in strategy and splits from talent. There is no way Harry and Meghan’s future will be not reviewed.”

One source insisted that while the Duke and Duchess felt for Ms Bajaria, her exit would not directly affect them.

[From The Telegraph]

Re: Bela Bajaria’s exit from Netflix, it definitely crossed my mind that Harry and Meghan are losing a big ally at Netflix. Bela was one of their biggest fans at Netflix, and she was often sent out to deny all of those random “Netflix hates the Sussexes” stories. There are no guarantees that the next programming director will be Team Sussex. Not it matters to Harry and Meghan at this point – while they still have some projects in development attached to Netflix, it doesn’t look like there’s much actual development.

As for this mess with The Gentlemen, I swear, Meghan’s haters have some kind of derangement-blindness. It was clear from the start of the rumormongering that Ritchie’s team and Netflix were using Meghan’s name as engagement-bait and promotion for the second season. Those haters seem to live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, where they believe with all their heart that Meghan is broke, desperate and unemployable yet Meghan is also all-powerful and “behind” every random rumor about herself. As we’ve seen many times, people (even famous people) use Meghan’s name to get attention constantly. That’s what happened here.

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