What Bill Maher Said About 'Ridiculous' Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are complaining about their "hard life" despite being "so privileged," according to Bill Maher.

The comedian joined a growing list of U.S. comics to take a swipe at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex over their narrative about their exit from royal life.

Piers Morgan asked the host of HBO's Real Talk With Bill Maher whether he was friends with the couple now they live in California during an interview on his own show, Piers Morgan Uncensored on Talk TV.

"No, no, I don't know them," Maher said. "I admire Harry for going to Afghanistan, anybody who's had military service I can only criticize so much because I haven't and there's nothing that compares to military service. But they're ridiculous after that. They want it both ways.

"You can't be, 'these people were so mean to us and poor us, and we don't want all this attention,' and then 'let me write a book about how much we don't want attention'."

"They just strike me as creatures of that generation, you know," he continued. "You're just fragile, you know. Take a hint from the Queen, the recently departed. You're complaining about your hard life and you're so privileged. It's just so weird."

Americans were largely supportive of Harry and Meghan until January 2022 and the publication of Prince Harry's book Spare, which dealt a significant blow to their popularity.

Polling for Newsweek at the time showed their net approval ratings sank into minus numbers for the first time, with more people holding a negative view of them than a positive one.

At the same time, they became targets for U.S. comedians in a way not seen after their Oprah Winfrey interview.

Jokes by Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon in the aftermath of the memoir were among early examples, though Chris Rock, South Park and Saturday Night Live also took aim at the couple.

Morgan referenced South Park's "The Worldwide Privacy Tour" episode during his interview with Maher: "I thought South Park doing the 'we want our privacy' summed it up really."

Harry and Meghan have provoked criticism from the start of their time in America, but initially dissenting U.S. voices were mostly confined to Republicans, including Donald Trump as well as media personalities like Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

However, the aftermath of Spare and their Netflix series Harry & Meghan has seen criticism of the Sussexes become more mainstream within the center ground of U.S. politics.

Maher, for example, told Morgan: "I mostly vote for Democrats, I can't remember the last time I voted for a Republican."

And there are also signs Harry and Meghan may have alienated some of their more radical supporters, who perceive the monarchy as a fundamentally harmful institution.

In February, Cate Young, a podcast producer and culture critic, said she had been a "pretty big fan" of the couple, but was becoming frustrated during an episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour.

"I'm definitely starting to kind of see or at least understand why people are feeling a little burnt out on them," Young told presenter Aisha Harris.

"Their grievances are valid. I'm starting to get a little frustrated with their apparent lack of any real self-reflection and their place within this institution because I think that with Harry specifically there seems to be an inability to recognize that it's not just about family members being mean.

"There is a historical harm being perpetuated by the existence of the royal family that he can't seem to quite get to," she said. "He just wants them to be nice to him but I don't think that he seems to understands that the reason they can't be nice to him is because they have to keep upholding this harmful institution."

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.