Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

There are platforms—and then there is the audience available to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Their May 2018 wedding, for example, garnered nearly 50 million television viewers in the U.K. and U.S. alone. The couple may project picture-perfect personas, but they use the global stage to promote causes that might be considered taboo even in non-royal households.   Harry has spoken out about struggles with mental illness, prompting overdue discourse about how the condition plagues men, who are less likely to seek help for it. Meghan, having brought new diversity of ethnicity and economic class to the House of Windsor, has taken up women’s empowerment as a signature issue, even declaring herself a “proud” feminist in her official royal biography.