One of Hollywood’s most powerful agents has delivered a blunt response when quizzed about his working relationship with Meghan Markle.

“Here’s the great thing: I don’t have to think about that anymore,” Ari Emanuel, executive chairman of WME Group, told Britain’s Times newspaper this week.

Emanuel signed to represent the Duchess of Sussex in 2023 but, according to the paper, the pair “parted ways last year”.

His cutting response came when The Times asked Emanuel where he thought Meghan’s career was heading.

WME confirmed that it still represents Meghan, wife of Britain’s Prince Harry, although Emanuel no longer works with her. It gave no further clarification about his comments or why their professional relationship had ended.

The 45-year-old duchess, who recently moved back to Britain with Harry and their children, is apparently looking to return to acting. Only a month ago there was a flurry of is-she-or-isn’t-she speculation that she was poised to join the third series of Guy Ritchie’s Netflix drama The Gentlemen.

Variety first reported Meghan’s possible role, which would be her most significant since leaving the cast of TV’s Suits ahead of her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry.

Only hours later, however, royal expert and former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, Tina Brown, posted on X that the invitation had been rescinded due to “backlash”.

“I have heard that Meghan Markle’s role in Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series The Gentlemen is OFF. Public backlash was too fierce,” she wrote.

“This does not bode well for Meghan’s acting comeback in the UK.”

There has been no comment either way from Meghan or from anyone connected with the show.

Hollywood insider Rob Shuter has since claimed there was never a formal offer for The Gentlemen.

“There was never a signed, sealed acting job,” an insider told Shuter’s Naughty But Nice Substack. “Meghan wants it badly, but this was always a possibility, not a done deal.”

Meghan has not been entirely absent from screens since her marriage to the King’s younger son. She had a cooking and lifestyle show, With Love, Meghan, with Netflix and also the streamer’s 2022 hit docuseries, Harry & Meghan.

Harry and the kids fish (left) and Lilibet and Archie in their new British home. Photos: Instagram/Meghan

Sussexes condemn paparazzi near kids’ school

Elsewhere, the duke and duchess have blasted an “unacceptable intrusion into the privacy of children” after two international paparazzi were reportedly seen looking into the grounds of Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet’s new British school.

Two young men with backpacks and using a white van are understood to have been spotted by private security and school staff walking the perimeter of the school and monitoring children.

A spokesman for Harry and Meghan called the actions “an extraordinary lack of judgment”. It followed this week’s suspected terrorist plot near RAF Fairford, with some children from American families connected to the base said to attend the young royals’ school.

“The decision by photographers to conduct themselves in this way around a school is extraordinarily reckless,” a Sussex spokesman said on Wednesday (local time).

“There is a world of difference between legitimate media activity and photographers walking the perimeter of a school, stopping to look into the grounds and monitoring children as they go about their day.

“It is concerning enough that certain European paparazzi appear unwilling to respect the privacy of children at school.

“But to behave in this manner in these particular circumstances, and so soon after the incident at RAF Fairford, demonstrates an extraordinary lack of judgment.

“Whatever photographs they may have been seeking, this was not only an unacceptable intrusion into the privacy of children; it was an irresponsible and ill-considered way to conduct themselves in the vicinity of a school.”

The men were initially seen separately and then subsequently together before returning to a white van. Police later said it was a rental vehicle, and the pair were photographers working for a European press agency.

Harry and Meghan, who returned to live in Britain just over a month ago, are waiting to hear whether they will be given taxpayer-funded security.

They pulled Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, out of their first-choice British school, blaming heavy local traffic that caused security issues. The children are believed to have been at their new school for about a fortnight.

-with AAP