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A royal commentator has claimed King Charles III has a “massive’ job on his hands to bring young people and other nations from the Commonwealth “back into the fold” after the fallout with Harry and Meghan.
Journalist and broadcaster Afua Hagan joined Omid Scobie on the ‘Future of the Monarchy’ panel.
During the podcast, Hagan and Scobie discussed the attitudes toward the Royal Family among Gen Z.
Hagan attributed the low interest in the Royal Family in the 18 to 24-year-old bracket found in a YouGov poll to the treatment of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
She said: “Younger people just don’t care about the monarchy, don’t care about the royal family, and it really was a missed opportunity, with Harry and Meghan, to bring younger people, to get them more interested in the Royal Family.”
READ MORE: Meghan ‘ducked’ the Met Gala because she wouldn’t have been the ‘big player in the room’
But, it’s not just a younger audience she claims the Royal Family has lost amid the fallout between Harry and his wife and “The Firm”.
Hagan also claims people living in the global South have been “lost” to the British monarchy as a result.
She explained: “Let’s not pretend that Meghan Markle is the bastion that we hold up for all Black women in the UK. She’s not. Right? And we shouldn’t put that amount of pressure on her.
“But there were a lot of people, myself included, who saw her and thought, OK, this is a family that’s modernizing.
“This is a family that has a person of color in it. This is a family- you know, this dynasty, I can buy into this a little bit.
“But an absolute dashed opportunity, wasted, and that will be felt throughout the realms and countries in the Commonwealth.
“And I actually think that the Royal Family is underestimating the strength of feeling that people have about the way that Meghan Markle has been treated.
“So it’s not just that you’re losing a younger audience.
“You’re also losing swathes of people from the global south, who will look at it as black and white, as, excuse the pun, there was a person of color in the royal family, and you didn’t make her feel welcome.”
