An expert has advised Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to take a break from the spotlight amid a box office setback. The comment comes as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex navigate life as media producers in California. The couple’s latest project failed to meet expectations, renewing questions about how their public profile impacts their work.
Kinsey Schofield urges the Sussexes to narrow their professional focus after ‘Cookie Queens’
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s latest Hollywood release is raising doubts about whether star power alone can drive audiences. Their Archewell-produced documentary Cookie Queens opened to weak box office numbers.
According to reported box-office numbers, Cookie Queens pulled in roughly $354,000 across 446 theaters. It was outperformed by CatVideoFest 2026, which took in about $569,000 from only 255 screens. The outcome is making royal analysts question whether the Sussexes still hold the same sway over the media conversation.
“Harry and Meghan remain extraordinarily effective at generating headlines, but headlines and paying customers are two very different things,” royal commentator Kinsey Schofield, host of YouTube’s Kinsey Schofield Unfiltered, revealed to Fox News Digital. “There was a period when simply attaching their names to something guaranteed enormous curiosity. I’m not convinced that’s true anymore.”
“And there’s no getting around the optics of finishing five places behind a 70-minute compilation of internet cat videos. Hollywood can forgive a lot, but being beaten by ‘CatVideoFest’ is the sort of indignity that writes its own punchline,” Schofield noted.
Royal commentator Hilary Fordwich agreed. She further highlighted that the performance suggests audiences lose interest in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle when their projects move away from royal themes.
The Sussexes inked major Hollywood contracts centered on their exit from the monarchy and their relationship with the royal family. According to royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams, speaking to Fox News Digital, those projects remain the couple’s biggest draw.
“We all know their huge hits were the three infamous betrayals of the royal family, on Oprah, the Netflix series ‘Harry & Meghan’ and Harry’s memoir ‘Spare,’” Fitzwilliams shared. “What is undoubted is the publicity that accompanies everything they do.”
Originally reported by Sibanee Gogoi on Mandatory.
