Last Sunday, the Queen’s
Platinum Jubilee Celebrations in honor of her 70 years on the British throne
came to an end. There was pomp. There was circumstance. There were many moving
tributes to her decades of service to her country.
What wasn’t there? For the
most part, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, aka the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
They attended only one event — and didn’t even attend the reception afterward
with other members of the royal family.
Nonetheless, the most hotly
debated topic by online royal watchers and some members of the British media of
the four-day Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend was this: When appearing in
public at a royal event for the first time since stepping back from royal life
two years ago, were Harry and Meghan booed?
That depends on who you ask —
or how you feel about Harry and Meghan. For the couple’s legions of online
fans, many of whom call themselves the #SussexSquad, the answer is an
unequivocal no. For those who heartily dislike the couple, the answer is a yes
(and totally supersedes whether there were also cheers in the crowd).
Nonetheless, because Friday’s
appearance was the last time we’re going to see the Sussexes in the UK for a
royal event for the foreseeable future, why don’t we at least attempt to find
an answer by examining the empirical evidence?
On Friday, members of the
British royal family gathered at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London for a National
Service of Remembrance in honor of the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.
At big events like the Service
of Remembrance, it’s rare that you’ll only have one news outlet or agency
filming — cameras will be set up so that the area of interest is recorded from
multiple angles.
And therein lies the problem
with trying to find an answer to Royal Boogate: The location of the camera
makes a big difference in the sounds from the crowd that you hear, because the
bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral were tolling and those things were really
loud.
Below are video clips I pulled
from the official Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) feeds, and I’m
including links to where those same feeds are posted on YouTube so you can
verify them yourselves.
No, I didn’t doctor them in
any way. Yes, this is the kind of disclaimer you have to make when you write
about Harry and Meghan.
Why? A narrative has emerged
online that videos that seemingly show the Sussexes being booed are in fact
edited videos of their entrance that have been dubbed with the crowd reaction
to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie Johnson, as they entered
the cathedral. (Note: The prime minister was booed. Coming and going. This is a
statement of fact.)
