Fox will air one-hour special Harry & Meghan: The Royals in Crisis Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The special looks into the couple’s plan to make a break from their role in the royal family.
Telepictures is producing the special, which Fox calls a TMZ investigation. Harvey Levin, Ryan Regan and Don Nash are executive producers.
“More than a dozen people with real ties to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan Markle, as well as the rest of the royals, have the exclusive story of the tensions that led to a nearly impossible decision for the Queen,” said Fox. “The special also focuses on the quiet moves of Harry and Meghan to enter the world of entertainment.”
Levin told B&C that pinning Harry and Meghan’s royal break on Markle, as much of the British media is doing, is patently unfair. “If Prince Harry never met Meghan Markle, he still would have eventually left Great Britain,” said Levin. “He didn’t want to be a royal.”
Levin said Harry was happiest in the military, and “was destined to leave” the U.K. and the royals.
Mark Cuban, Dr. Phil, Ryan Seacrest, Piers Morgan and Lisa Vanderpump turn up in the special. Levin said the relationship between brothers Harry and William is “ruptured,” and things are not so hot between William’s wife Kate and Meghan.
Harry and Meghan are likely to throw themselves into the entertainment industry, the special posits. Cuban calls the pair “the junior Obamas” for their ambitions as producers, a nod to President Obama and wife Michelle producing a slate for Netflix.
Levin said there’s an awful lot of nonsense related to the royals to sort through. “We try to eliminate all the crap,” he said, “and get to the heart of what happened here.”
