Yet it’s why Harry and Meghan may face unforeseen challenges when they find a ­permanent home in North America, where palace life is reported as if torn from the pages of a lurid soap opera script. 

The “hen-pecked” Duke and “gold-digger” Duchess of Sussex are ­routinely depicted as ­characters in a sordid drama with all the ingredients of a TV bodice-ripper: wealth, privilege, sex, scandal and lavish costumes. 

It sounds like the sort of nonsense that could get you locked in the Tower, and it is patently outrageous to ­discerning British audiences. 

But such stories still shape the North American view of this undeniably dysfunctional family. 

Harry has said he and Meghan hope to find peace and a respite from what they perceive as unfair British media coverage in North America. But if that’s the plan – they appear set on spending much of their time in Canada, with a holiday home in Malibu eventually – then they could be in for a rude awakening. 

Media commentator Dominic Ponsford, editor-in-chief of UK Press Gazette, said: “It may turn out the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were better placed to protect their privacy in Windsor than they are on Vancouver Island. There are far stronger privacy protections enshrined in English and Welsh law than there are in Canadian law.” 

Far from the measured and comparatively respectful way in which the British media cover the royals, using well-placed sources and self-imposed restraint, over the pond it’s as if reporters are reporting on an entirely different family. 

“Meghan demands $90million payout!” screams the cover of this week’s National Enquirer, detailing the “Royal Family’s new nightmare”.

The Duchess of Sussex is allegedly threatening to sit down for “a no-holds-barred TV interview,” it claims, and may “demand a stunning $90million ­settlement in return for keeping silent about the shocking details of her relationship with her blue-blood in-laws”. It hardly matters that Meghan isn’t planning to shake down the Queen – that’s the version of “Mean Meghan” that North Americans are getting to know.

Prince Harry’s private meeting ­earlier this month with the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William to discuss his future was portrayed to North American audiences like a scene from TV’s classic soap Dynasty. 

When Harry said he wanted to be financially independent, “Charles laughed in his face!”, according to the National Enquirer. Prince William, who appears to have developed an unlikely taste for American slang, allegedly called his sister-in-law “a two-bit actress with no class”. 

Yet “diva Duchess” Meghan got her way and split from the Royal Family after she “promised Harry she’d have a second baby by the end of the year”. 

You couldn’t make this stuff up – though, apparently, someone has. 

Age and seniority are no ­protection from the worst excesses of the supermarket magazines. 

The 93-year-old monarch is invariably described as “the dying Queen” who allegedly ordered the murder of US billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to protect scandal-plagued Prince Andrew, while Charles has been given “just months to live”, according to recent US tabloids. 

“Evil Camilla” is perpetually scheming to steal Charles’ fortune, while “Dying Charles cuts Camilla from $1.3billion will” as the Globe breathlessly reported this month. “Payback for making his life hell”. 

The Enquirer recently revealed Prince Philip’s “Deathbed Advice to Queen… banish their scandal-scarred son Andrew for ever!” 

It must have come as a blow to them when Philip roused himself from his deathbed and went home from hospital. 

“Andrew’s Drunken Brawl With William & Kate” made headlines in the Enquirer last month. You’d be hard-pressed to find a report of it in the UK as it never happened. 

But according to these mags, there are more drunken brawls at the Palace than in an EastEnders Christmas special. 

After the Epstein scandal, Charles reportedly threw Andrew out of a Palace party and put him under “house arrest” in the Tower of London where he was “on suicide watch.” The Queen has bypassed Charles to give the Crown to William, according to reports, despite the Settlement Act of 1701 making that impossible. 

The Enquirer said: “William Seizes Throne From Charles! Declares Own Father Unfit to Rule!” And who can forget “Drunken Camilla’s Brawl With Queen!” that left Her Majesty with a “bloody eye wound”? Again, it never happened. But it’s Harry and Meghan who are the undisputed stars of North American imaginings and who may suffer the most by moving there. They are a blank canvas on which the unregulated US media feel free to paint whatever scandals they care to invent. 

“Why Harry gave up $88billion fortune,” proclaimed a cover of People magazine, promising to reveal Harry’s story “Inside the battle for the throne”, clearly mistaking Royal doings with an episode of Game of Thrones and little caring sixth-in-line Harry’s departure has no impact on Royal succession. It’s clear that Harry and Meghan are spending time abroad to gain their freedom, but the US perspective is somewhat different. 

“Harry and Meghan Exiled to Canada!” proclaimed the Globe, claiming the Queen had banned them “on a permanent basis”. 

The couple have also allegedly been “exiled” over the past year to Malta, Africa and America. 

Harry’s thinning pate prompted a Globe story: “Meghan to Harry: Get Hair Plus Or I’m Gone!” 

Meghan allegedly sparked an “all-out family war” when she dared to walk out of the Queen’s screening of the EastEnders Christmas special in 2018, claimed a Globe report published days before the TV episode aired. 

And while the Sussexes may have loathed the strictures of the Royal Rota system which limits access to royal events to select media outlets, by abandoning the protections of their Royal status it now looks like open season on the duo. North American paparazzi are unlikely to exercise the same self-restraint shown by the British ones Harry and Meghan detest so much. 

The Duke and Duchess this week threatened to sue any UK media publishing unauthorised photos of them, after pictures of Meghan, with baby Archie strapped in a sling, were taken in a park. 

But that ultimatum is possibly unenforceable in America where First Amendment press freedoms are cherished, or Canada where there is a reduced expectation of privacy in public areas. 

As Mr Ponsford said this week: “British Columbia has a ­privacy act, but it is reportedly untested.” 

Harry called their move “a leap of faith”. He had better hope that it doesn’t turn out to be a plunge into the supermarket tabloid abyss.

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