AMANDA PLATELL: Why it's Meghan - not Harry - we should really pity

Now they’ve been humiliated by the Hollywood showbiz bible Variety, which effectively declared the Sussexes have gone from heroes to zeros since they left the Royal Family, doesn’t there come a moment when you actually feel a bit sorry for them?

Not so much for Harry, who seems to spend most of his time feeding their organic chooks, looking after the kids Archie and Lilibet and surfing on the local LA beaches.

More for Meghan, who has been trying to salvage the couple’s plummeting reputation and more importantly their finances.

And boy, does she need to. ­Variety reports that Netflix, which gave the Sussexes a £45million five-year deal, are now ‘done’ with the ‘one-trick’ duo. Their ‘perceived pattern of selling repackaged versions of the same story about their exit from royal life has exhausted Netflix,’ it reports.

Meanwhile, their £15million Spotify deal has also gone, with bosses saying they were a couple of ‘grifters’. And yet, though I’ve been one of her harshest critics, I’d suggest Megs is in many ways a grafter rather than a grifter.

She’s the one who’s been trying to salvage the Sussexes’ ­reputation and fortunes with her TV show, lifestyle brands and jam empire. Harry has an occasional forlorn walk-on part, contributing little other than his royal name to the millions required to sustain their jaw-droppingly expensive lifestyle.

My fear is that if the couple can’t continue to support themselves in LA, they might return to Britain to monetise their brand.

Yes, I feel a little sorry for the almost venally ambitious Meghan. But not sorry enough to welcome her back to the country and monarchy she shunned with such disdain.

Be kind to Bruce 

On Bruce Willis’s 71st birthday, his wife Emma Heming posted a picture of him as she launched The Emma & Bruce Willis Fund to raise awareness of frontotemporal dementia, which he was diagnosed with four years ago.

She asked us to support it even with ‘small acts of kindness’. Jolly good, but was it so kind to move him out of the $10million LA mansion he bought before she met him and into a bungalow, where he is cared for 24/7, away from his family? Without them and tended by paid help? That’s what I call Dying Hard.

Prue Leith says the real reason she retired from The Great British Bake-Off at 86 was that she was starting to feel ‘unsure on her pins’. Also fellow judge Paul Hollywood, 60, had been saying things to her such as ‘come along deary, upsy daisy’, ‘time for your nap’ so often that the running joke hit her hard. Shame on you Paul! Prue has more charm and baking nous in her little finger than you ever will. 

Baffling Baywatch

A sinking moment for the billion of us who are fans of the original 1989 Baywatch TV series – with pneumatically enhanced Pamela Anderson –when we saw the cast for the new version.

Yes, the high-cut red swimsuits are there but, perhaps catering for a timid Gen Z audience, the latest Pammies are modestly endowed while the boys have huge pecs.

Crikey! What kind of world is it when the boys have bigger boobies than the girls?

All tattoo much for Camilla

Unsurprising that after the self-styled ‘Eyebrow Queen’ Suzanne Martin revealed she had tattooed Queen Camilla’s brows and posted a picture of them, Her Majesty was furious at the indiscretion and Suzanne’s post has been removed, along with her services.

I just hope Camilla’s brows don’t end up like most of my not-50-anymore girlfriends who had theirs done – they faded within months from a flattering soft brown to a regal shade of purple.

TV ordeal for Huw’s family

Channel 5 bosses insist that, following the conviction of the BBC’s Huw Edwards for sex offences in 2024, it isn’t too early to run their series starring Martin Clunes about his sordid downfall. Perhaps not, but it’s certainly too soon for his wife Vicky Flind, who’s divorcing him, and for their five grown-up children. 

Heartening to hear the snobby Chelsea Flower Show has lifted its ban on garden gnomes, which were once sniffily considered tacky. Even King Charles has one. My own family of six – all called Bruce – who once had pride of place in my front garden has been reduced to three thanks to what I hope is loving adoption rather than theft. 

The Academy Awards wars

After his mini-lookalike Timothee Chalamet’s Oscars flop, it is reported Leonardo DiCaprio took the star, who’s dating Kylie Jenner, under his wing to offer him career advice. One of his rules? ‘Don’t let your love life be the story!’ This from Leo, who has already had 12 much younger high-profile girlfriends and counting!

Kieran Culkin mocked best supporting actor winner Sean Penn from One Battle After Another for not turning up to the awards ceremony. No, he was in Ukraine visiting President Zelensky. No prizes for who wins the golden raspberry of the night, eh Kieran?

What a terrifying thought. If Angela Rayner succeeds in her manoeuvres to replace Keir Starmer, we’ll end up with two mediocre, haranguing, angry, finger-pointing warrior women – Ange and Kemi – across the Despatch Box. If we wanted to see two testosterone-fuelled ladies fighting it out, we could just watch Gladiators. 

Actress Zendaya taunts her fans, neither confirming nor denying rumours she and Spider-Man fiancé Tom Holland have wed. One moment she’s wearing a wedding ring with her five-carat diamond engagement ring, then she’s pictured without it. Next she appears in a Vivienne Westwood wedding dress at the premiere of her movie The Drama in which she plays – you got there before me – a bride-to-be. Cynical or what? 

A court decrees convicted criminal and failed asylum seeker Klevis Disha can stay in Britain because his son couldn’t live in Albania. Why? The child won’t eat Albanian chicken nuggets, only British ones. A judgment that sticks in the gullet. 

Hartlepool council is so overwhelmed with memorial benches it has stopped them, which is a shame. My favourite is in a park near me with the message engraved: ‘One for sorrow, one for joy, one for a girl, one for a boy…’ All for a lad who died aged six months long ago. And each year, on the date of his death in mid-spring, hand-picked forget-me-nots tied with blue ribbon are left on the bench.