A week ago, we were knee-deep in the story about Archie Mountbatten-Windsor’s birth certificate and why changes were made to it. Nearly a month after Archie’s birth, *someone* changed his birth certificate to remove Meghan’s name (“Rachel Meghan”) and only leave her title. Meghan issued a rare statement where she said that the Palace “dictated” the change and she has the receipts. Then Buckingham Palace freaked out and tried to push like four different versions of why they didn’t, but they did, but they had a good reason, and it wasn’t really them and Meghan shouldn’t have said “dictated.” At some point, the Palace seemed to drop it and they stopped trying to explain it. Which is weird, because we literally have no f–king idea what happened and why. You would think that if the Palace did have a good excuse, they would have hit back at Meghan swiftly. Instead, we got a flurry of vague, contradictory denials. Well, allow Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast to try to shed more light on what exactly happened:
The changes to Archie’s birth certificate were made without Meghan’s approval: While U.K. law specifies that changes to a birth certificate can only be made by a parent of the child, it does appear that in this case the changes were made by members of Meghan’s staff without Meghan’s literal sign-off. Meghan is said by sources to have been completely shocked and blindsided when presented with images of the amended birth certificate over the weekend.
Who changed the birth certificate? One source told The Daily Beast they believed that one of Meghan’s senior staffers at the time, an individual who was close to Buckingham Palace, was told by high-ups there that a “clerical error” had been made on the birth certificate by including Meghan’s names and that it needed to be amended so it matched her new passport. The palace hasn’t however been willing to explain why the given names needed to be removed—especially puzzling as Kate Middleton has her names on her kids’ birth certificates.
Why Meghan issued a statement: Waking on Sunday morning, it appears that Meghan became hugely angered by this story. Within a couple of hours, a furious statement had been issued (the statement came to the attention of much of the world via Omid Scobie’s Twitter account because the Sussexes are off social media right now).
Meghan still chafes at Palace “control”: As the royal author Christopher Andersen, whose study of the dynamic between Harry, William and his mother, Diana’s Boys, has been a perennial best seller since its publication 20 years ago, told The Daily Beast: “By firing back that any changes were ‘dictated by the Palace,’ Meghan made it painfully clear that she still chafes at any reminder that the Palace still exerts some control over her life—right down to what’s listed on her child’s birth certificate. The mere fact that this minor clerical change could ignite such a firestorm of controversy is further proof that tensions, distrust, and resentments still exist between the Sussexes and the powers-that-be at Buckingham Palace.”
Sykes blames the Sussexes for refusing to comment for The Sun: It is perhaps instructive to consider what shape a PR response to the Sun’s initial inquiry a smoothly functioning family business would have taken. Maybe, rather than ignoring the inquiry over a matter of principle and then desperately trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube the next day, someone in California could have had a chat with the Sun’s reporter, then had a chat with their counterpart at the palace, then both sides could have signed off on a joint anodyne statement along the lines of, “Clerical error. Nothing to see here.”…Aggrieved as Meghan and Harry may be with the palace, picking every fight with them is counterproductive. And aggrieved as they may be with Britain’s tabloid media, simply wishing them into non-existence by ignoring them is the original sin of this cautionary tale. The fault was then compounded by ignoring the first rule of external communications, which is that your internal communications need to be smooth, so that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
Sykes is full of it when it comes to blaming Harry and Meghan for not giving a comment to the Sun, the outlet which broke the story. The Sun has been one of the main outlets, along with the Mail, to play a major role in the years-long smear campaign against them. Plus, Sykes presupposes that the goal of both Buckingham Palace and House Sussex was to AVOID controversy, when that was not the case. Someone sent Lady Colin Campbell on the hunt for Archie’s birth certificate and it clearly wasn’t the Sussexes. And the point of Meghan’s statement was to draw attention to yet another factor for why she got the hell out: they erased her name from her son’s birth certificate, and she wanted to raise a fuss about it. She earned that f–king right.
Besides, blaming Meghan for refusing to tow the line with BP is particularly asinine when Sykes’ own sources are telling him that the whole thing is fishy as hell, that Meghan never signed off on the birth certificate changes, that there was no real reason to erase Meghan’s name anyway.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Harry and Meghan said they were not going to interact with the tabloids and The Sun is a tabloid. And even if they did comment to the Sun on the story I’m sure they would have twisted what they said or not print it at all. It’s not their fault.
What kills me about this is the fact that H&M were not the ones who even brought this to light. The BM are the ones who brought this out in the open! If you people can’t handle the worms, why the f*** did you even open the can to begin with? They are dim as hell.
They’re stuck in a headspace were they expect total deference and people willfully accepting whatever nonsense they say. That’s the only explanation for how bad they are at issuing denials, and all the spluttering and fumbling around in the dark for excuses anybody with a brain can pick apart.
Lies work. the Republican party has been doing it in the United States for a while and it works like a charm. When you tell why after lie, it poisons the well with so much toxicity even rational people start to question the truth (see the Affordable Care Act – as a medical social worker, my clients absolutely loved the ACA, but would tell me they “didn’t want that Obamacare crap” and had some irrational belief that was going to drive their Medicare costs from less than $100 a month up to $5,000… or they would blame the ACA for the fact that they couldn’t qualify for Medicaid despite our states Republican legislature refusing to expand Medicaid or accept Federal money for the program). Basically, it’s gas lighting at a political level. It seems like the palace goes by the same playbook sometimes.
Exactly, L84Tea. I love how Sykes and the rest of the ‘carnival of so-called Royal experts’ would react if they found out through the press that someone had erased their name from their child’s birth certificate? Would any of them then agree it was a minor issue? A simple clerical error? I hope Meghan insists the birth certificate is changed back to how it originally was as it seems it was illegally tampered with, without the permission or knowledge of either of Archie’s parents. Sykes is amazing in how he can twist his story in to such a tale that he starts off saying Meghan was screwed by the palace and then finish it off by making it her fault that she found out by press release that she was betrayed and was upset! Meghan doesn’t owe the Sun (or any of those F***ing Royal reporters) anything. She is absolutely within her rights to release a personal statement by whatever method she chooses and Sykes knows that.
I don’t know what is happening in the Sussex household, but let me tell you how waking up to the news that my name has been stripped from my son’s birth certificate without my permission and it being at my request (a lie) would have seen me go ballistic, including unfairly losing my shit on my husband (just bc he was there and the rage would have sent me off to the deep end) for being related to the people those courtiers responsible serve. MY God. This would be something I demand being fixed RIGHT AWAY now that it’s public. And if they elect not to, a full story about the illegal and cruel act of them having done this would be a story being released from multiple high profile American publications.
Nah, Meghan must fight back over things like this, now it’s in the public domain. I don’t even see why this wasn’t done earlier. But now since they started this bullshit, she might as well use it to her advantage to have her son’s birth certificate updated accordingly.
Tom Sykes is toxic.
Imagine being as wilfully obtuse as Christopher Andersen, acting as if it’s petty of Meghan to be angry that the palace changed her child’s birth certificate to remove her name without her consent or knowledge!!
I’m so furious on her behalf. This whole story is revealing SO much.
Belli- Meg never said it was without her consent or knowledge. In fact, she implied the opposite by saying it was dictated to her and she had proof.
It was done with her knowledge and consent because it was forced on her and she had to comply.
Indeed – in the its illegal to change a birth certificate without parental consent. Both H&M would have had to have signed off on it and likely had to sign documents requesting the change.
Illegal or not, I’m still not convinced they have them sign off on it. Even if they did “sign off”, it was no doubt under immense pressure to do so.
That alone would make me want to leave. I’m sure we only know the tip of the iceberg of how much crap they -Meghan, especially, being treated like nothing – went through, but I have no doubt there are dozens of stories like that lurking behind the walls of the palace.
That’s what I thought too, but Tom Sykes seems to be implying saying otherwise in his article? That while only can make changes, in this case that didn’t happen.
Not having kids, I have no idea about how this all works, but would H&M be able to go NOW and change Archie’s BC back to what it was, with M’s full name on it?
This story just doesn’t make a great deal of sense. In fact there is something really not right about it all.
They have to have signed off on it, as most people are saying. They can’t have a birth certificate changed without both parents consent. I’m sure that somewhere along the way, someone suggested that it had to be done for whatever weird reason but are we really meant to believe that the Sussex’s, who went to so much trouble to keep the birth details and location a secret and stand their ground against just about every other aspect of what the palace threw at them, agreed to this under pressure? They have been under pressure from so many other things and it hasn’t stopped them. I have my doubts that Harry would have been confused about any protocol. I feel like neither side is telling the whole truth here.
Interesting – I’m stuck on the word consent here, as if Meghan was told she “had to” change the documents and misled, I would still consider that as without her consent because it wasn’t informed consent.
But this article paints the picture of a rogue staffer changing official documents on behalf of the palace! Is it possible that someone was so stupid as to have applied in for changes in Meghan’s name? That has a sinister tone.
@Grace B. Meghan is not telling any story to not tell the whole story. She was accused of snubbing a family member by erasing her name off her child’s BC and she responded by denying that she intended to snub anyone and the removal was dictated, she has proof and the carnival of so-called experts are ridiculous. That was pretty much her RESPONSE, got it, RESPONSE so a) she didn’t bring this crap up, b) we are not entitled to any further information from her other than what she choose to share, because as in “a” she didn’t bring this crap up. c) no one can deny the substance of her RESPONSE only take issue with her responding at all and complaining about how impolite the word dictated is. Meghan is at home in Montecieto CA, USA minding her own business and the BM keeps writing stories about her and insisting she respond to those stories.
I think maybe her staff would have a stamp of her signature. There’s probably a lot of things that royals have to “sign” all the time and their staff can just fill out basic paperwork and use the stamp. The issue here is that changing a baby’s BC without even asking the parents first is not just “basic paperwork.” But maybe the staffers assumed it wasn’t a big deal at all and Harry and Meghan either wouldn’t ever really find out or care if they did find out. But… where was the updated BC sent? I’ve updated my son’s BC to change his last name from my maiden name to my son’s father’s name. They sent me a new BC. Did the new BC just go to their office and then their staff opened their mail and filed it away? I think there’s probably a lot of that kind of stuff going on—staffers who deal with the mail, file things, sort them into piles of what the royal needs to see and what they don’t, etc.
The article seems to make it very clear that a Sussex staff person who was working closely with BP, requested changes to the BC because BP told them to fix the “clerical errors,” and the staff person just did it. Maybe there’s a way to request these changes online where your “signature” is just you typing your name into the box that says signature? Otherwise, I do think there’s probably a signature stamp that they use.
Amy Too, I doubt it’s a stamp. More likely that it’s a digital signature, surely even the royals use technology?
Deleted …comment i was responding to was deleted
Thx CB
LOL at Tom Sykes acting as if all Meghan had to do was work with The Scum to give them a statement and all would have been well. It’s not the first time the Sussexes have been asked to give comment on a story that was put to them in advance, only for the trash rag to print the BS anyway, even when told it was inaccurate. It’s just more of the usual blame being thrown her way, when we all know they would have blown this up out of proportion regardless, like they do everything that involves Meghan. The bottom line is her child’s birth certificate was altered without her permission and she has receipts on where the orders came from. Buckingham Palace are jumping around from one explanation to the next for a reason.
When The Palace receives bad press, it’s always “Meghan should have gone about it this way… she should have coordinated her response…There was a communication failure.” When Meghan receives bad press, it’s always “Meghan mean… Meghan bad… Meghan gauche..”
Her PR handled this correctly. They only had to issue one statement, then went about their day as if nothing had happened.
The funny thing is Meghan actually did what she was told to, after they forced her. Then the palace makes it public and uses it against her. She literally couldn’t do anything right in their eyes. The palace disgust me, but what’s even more shocking is keen stans are still trying to lay blame with Meghan.
Tom Skyes can go F off! Yeah, sure Meghan just had to ignore it and take it, and it would’ve been better if they were all singing from the same hymn sheet?? Are you kidding me? Why would she want that when they are clearly NOT on the same page? They keep f*cking with her and she’s supposed to stay quiet? and accept that they did it to ‘snub’ Kate? I’m so glad Harry and Meghan are pushing back now. The Sun achieved it’s goal though, most people in the comments believed that Meghan lied (again, as she does) because of the Royals coming back with their statements, only very few caught on that Meghan responded through her spokesperson, so no lies, while the palace actually only responded through ‘sources’.
ITA. Remember it was the Sun that published the “Not in Meg Backyard” article which was lies. They contacted Meghan’s team and were told it was untrue and PUBLISHED THE STORY ANYWAY!
They eventually printed a retraction but it was as usual a teeny tiny blurb buried where no one would notice. This was after rivers of ink, cyberspace debate and panel discussions had already poisoned the well.
It was genius of Harry and Meghan to not respond to The Sun and give their own statement that went worldwide and not on the bottom of the back page of a tabloid. The British press are so pissed they can’t push their nasty narratives on Meghan anymore.
Sorry but when has the Sun accepted Harry and Meghan’s side of any story. When have they allowed a rebuttal to change anything?
They wanted a certain narrative about the birth certificate and they were going with it – no matter what Harry and Meghan had said.
Tom can go F himself. Why the hell should she answer anything that rag of shit has to ask her ? When all they have been doing for years is smearing and lying about her? The Palace doesn’t want to sing from the Same page as Harry and definitely not Meghan. They all want her to go away like she never existed hence the removal of her name from her child birth certificate. That’s right people, Archie fell from the skies into Harry’s waiting arms. Jesus give me mercy I want to bitch slap those f—-up people in that palace and all these royal reporters and Tom i swear right now balls removal for him is looking good . When ads are these white racist assholes going to leave Meghan and Harry alone to live their lives. They left to get away from you f—-era get a clue and let go.
ha ha, I wrote something quite similar to your comment!
Lol you did . We must be equally angry
What he is saying makes no sense whatsoever. What is his thinking, that she calls The Sun Reporter back, says she never requested the change, and we are all supposed to believe they would then just move on from their obvious hit piece?
The Daily Beast is constantly criticizing Meghan (and even when they ostensibly aren’t, seemingly finding some way to both-sides her), why am I not surprised at this bullshit take.
Ridiculous. The royal reporters are:
A) stubbornly insisting it was a change to match her new passport. That is bull. No way Meg’s US passport does have her name on it. And if it’s some other diplomatic passport thing, then why does Kate have her name on her kids’ certificate? Wouldn’t her passport be the same and the birth certificates of her kids need to match?
B) stupidly insisting Meg was blindsided when her own statement said she was dictated to and had evidence? Clearly, by her own words, she didn’t just see the amended birth certificate when that story leaked.
C) conviently ignoring BP’s contradictory statement that the birth certificate was a civil document with no protocok even though it had to be changed to match other documents for…protocol? That whole excuse was nonsense.
The more this story is harped on, the more desperate and awful the BRF and RRs look.
A) Will and Kate have never had to answer to BP. So, BP had no say in what they put on their birth certificate. There is a difference between something that should match and something that has to match. It could also be that Kate’s diplomatic passport was handled by KP and includes her name.
B) Meghan’s statement was that it was dictated by the palace. She never mentioned that it was directly dictated to her. It‘s purely speculation that she has receipts because her statement was so strongly worded. She never mentioned having receipts.
C) I agree, it’s all nonsense. It should never have been changed.
Will and Kate are obviously KP and funded by Charles, so not under BP, no, but this is still a firm dictated by hierarchy and if, in fact, the future king’s birth certificate (George’s) was filled out incorrectly, I cannot imagine that BP and the queen would shrug and say “what can we do? They’re not under BP.” The line we’ve been getting for years now is that they all answer to the queen, she’s in charge, she’s the actual CEO (sorry Kate). And again, George is third in line. If his BC was actually wrong, it would have been fixed.
So then we can assume it wasn’t wrong, just not in the preferred manner, and no one corrected it because no one wanted to go up against William. I can’t decide which is a worse look for the royals – they let William do whatever he wants, or they fixed Archie’s BC even though it wasn’t a big deal and no one actually cared.
Ainsley-
Meg’s statement said, “The change of name on public documents in 2019 was dictated by The Palace, as confirmed by documents from senior Palace officials” No she doesn’t say specifically dictated to her, but if it had been without her consent, I’m sure she’d have made that important point. And saying “confirmed by documents” is saying there are receipts. As for Kate and her documents, IDK, but the difference should have people doing something to make them equivalent. It’s only fair. The palaces should be on the same page. And yes, there’s a difference between should match and must match, but BP’s statement ends by saying there are no protocols for civil documents like birth certificates, so there is clearly, by their admission, no should or must.
If I was Meg, I’d change it back.
Agree with Becks1 here. If this is a protocol issue or whatever, KP would be required to make any changes that BP demands on W&K’s kids birth certificates. Both Clarence and KP are ultimately accountable to BP.
They aren’t changing Kate’s name on her three children’s birth certificates because the convention of naming the spouse of a royal peer without using her given names isn’t a legal requirement and the palace admitted there is no protocol for this document. Therefore there was never a need to remove Meghan’s name from her own child’s birth certificate. Someone specifically decided to be an asshole here and they either hoped people would forget about what was done for Kate’s children, as late as 2018, or they forgot themselves, which is doubtful.
In any case this only proves that Meghan was specifically targeted for made up protocol breaches that only apply to her and not the white duchess. They cannot spin this any other way and they either restore Meghan’s given names or remove Kate’s name.
It is weird that this story is now entering week 2 — I would have expected the press to try to bury it in embarrassment at what a mess they have made.
All they wanted was another “Meghan the terrible” story, and it exploded in their face. They spent all of last week running in circles, trying desperately to clean up the story and failing spectacularly. Why sign up for even more? I wonder if royal sources are now all pushing their own explanations behind the scenes, and just making it worse, Streisand style.
You’d think they’d be somewhat tired of stepping on the same pile of rakes again and again, but I suppose that kind of shameless obliviousness is an asset if you work for the tabloids.
The press have attempted to bury it. Sykes just wanted his chance to bash Harry and Meghan. The Daily Mail is now brushing it off as a trivial non-story. The Sun has moved on to the Harry and Meghan meeting Gavin Newsome non-story. I think not expecting Meghan to response and to implicate the Palace in this whole mess put press on the defensive and after failing to get the Palace’s revisions of the story to trend or to be picked up by others, they have dropped it. The same thing happened with the proposed exiling of Harry and Meghan to Africa story blew up in the Palace’s face and the story about Harry being hoaxed by Russian pranksters didn’t go anywhere.
Jay
They need to nitpick anything with H and M to deflect from all the bs w and k do. Harry left royal duties and moved to a separate continent, but the toxic BM and incompetent BRF will always attack him and his family.
But on the bright side that’s all they can do. From their bubble of England/Wales. The rest of the world is getting a more full picture.
The monarchy is low on the list of being abolished, but they keep up this racist, erratic nonsense they’ll lose popularity and all the extra funding they beg for each year.
So I’m confused – did she not realize the BC had been changed until last week?? Sykes recap is a little unclear about that.
Regardless – to me the two big points about this are STILL:
1) there is no reason to change Archie’s BC if you aren’t changing the Cambridge kids’ BCs, and at least Sykes alludes to that here. But any argument – clerical error, matching passports, etc – falls flat when you consider Kate’s full name is on her kids BCs.
2) how did lady colin Campbell find this change? Someone had to tip her off. I know the original BC was a huge deal, but I don’t think RRs or gossips etc are usually in the business of checking up in a birth certificate 18 months later, unless someone tells them there is a reason to do so. And that to me is a big part of this story. Who told LCC this was something worth looking up??
I’m confused too. It sounds to me like she didn’t even KNOW it happened, thus the “waking up Sunday morning and being livid” thing. Which, who wouldn’t be?? I know I’ve said this in other threads, but this whole birth certificate thing TERRIFIES me. What the actual f^&* is the goal of doing this?? There HAD to be a reason, and as much as they are racist a holes, there is more to this than being a racist A hole. Seriously.
And normally it has to be signed off on by the parents but not this time?? What the F????
Who has the most to gain from more bad PR for Meghan – someone(s) who have been getting a lot of stick lately in the press about their ‘work’!
Lady C explained in her YouTube podcast how she came about the birth certificate it was sent to her from a non fan of meghan trying to prove Meghan was not the birth mother and this was proof of it.
Here’s hoping this comes back to bite that racist Meghan hater in the a$$. If W&K are required to end up changing their kids certificates as well, the Meghan haters and Kate stans will all be incensed. And will have caused the entire problem themselves.
WHY does anyone keep giving Lady C the time of day, especially now that she’s known to be colluding/taking tips from racist birthers?
well, The Sun always has time for Lady C, unfortunately. A lot of Meghan haters think she used a surrogate and a fake bump… Scary that they use their spare time to actually become detectives and try to hunt things down.
This is just like when the Harry and Meghan haters tried to imply that there was corruption in them receiving funds from the Royal Foundation when they split to establish Sussex Royal. (The funds they received were brought in by Harry for his projects). They tagged the group Republic in their tweets but the whole thing backfired because instead of Republic just reporting Harry and Meghan, he reported the Royal Foundation as well and Harry issued a legal letter on Republic. It was very funny to witness the haters try to back track and blame Republic for getting William involved.
So Campbell was so stupid and desperate to have something on Meghan that she just accepted the loony hater’s info and didn’t bother checking the birth certificates for the York girls and the Wales boys to see that Diana and Fergie didn’t have their names on those either?
ITA nota about hoping it comes to bite that clown in the butt.
If lady C is such a royalist she should have been aware of Kate’s name being on George’s birth certificate. It was made public at the time and not a secret. And she should have known about Diana not having her name on the ones for William and Harry. So she must be really dumb to think that the absence of a mother’s given names means anything when it comes to who gave birth to the child.
Lainey’s take on why LCC was on the hunt was that she was probably investigating a racist birther conspiracy, and sadly I’m inclined to believe that.
That makes sense. And now that I think about it, wasn’t there a whole big internet movement about this being a fake pregnancy? (For the record, I am sure there ARE fake pregnancies among the famous, but Meghan’s WAS CLEARLY NOT. And I say that not even as a fan, but as a woman, a human, that knows what real pregnancy and postpartum looks like!?)
There were fake pregnancy rumours when Kate was pregnant with George as well. Those tended to get shut down on most royal blogs, but of course the racists let the ones for Meghan gain more volume.
I saw some chatter on Twitter when this awful story first came out about Lady Colin Campbell pushing out a surrogate narrative, that M isn’t Archi’s real mother or som3 sick nonsense. Angela Levin is another one, it’s the digital version of the warming pan myth. This was all before Meghan issued her statement, which shut these clowns up. I think the so- called experts were actually pushing the snub Kate angle to get another crying story, an they never once considered how racist it looks to erase a black woman’s name from her child’s birth certificate. Thats why they were scrambling so much for a plausible explanation that wouldn’t make them look like the vindictive, incompetent racists they really are. There is real ugly history behind this erasure of her name. Also, regarding consent, the Duchesses statement clearly said neither she nor Harry requested this change to the birth certificate, which means someone in the palace told them it had to be done. If something is changed under duress, or not full willing consent, that could bring up a whole legal mess.
“The fault was then compounded by ignoring the first rule of external communications, which is that your internal communications need to be smooth, so that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.” Mr. Sykes, I suggest you direct your perhaps instructive advice to the Palace that came up with several different versions of the birth certificate story and then proceeded to throw several people under the big red British bus.
And look at his language here while discussing Meghan: hugely angered, furious statement, still chafes. Shaping the negative narrative against everything Meghan does.
@Harper, Sykes is another white man indulging in the “angry black woman ” tropes, are you surprised? Also, to him the white royals are never wrong, its always the black woman’s (and by extention her race traitor husband) fault.
No, I’m not surprised. Journalism is supposed to be objective and I consider it a public service to draw attention to the word choice when it is not. The British media has used selective words to drive H&M out of the country and I think we should never stop calling them out on their tactics.
And how he expects Harry Meghan and BP to be working together as if they were still a smoothly operating family business. Harry and Meghan LEFT the family business. They don’t need to coordinate statements with them especially a “Nothing to see here,” statement as there is obviously something to see here. As he tells it, Meghan woke up Sunday to see that her son’s BC had been changed, illegally, without her signature or consent, to erase her name, and he wants her to calmly call the people who made the change without her consent and ask them what would be the best, most convenient statement for them!? Hell no!
It’s interesting that they now concede the change was made without Meghan’s (or Harry’s, I assume) express consent – that alone is an eyebrow raiser, because previous stories were trying to frame it as all Meghan’s doing. And since when can anyone but the parents change a birth certificate?
Also, as others here have pointed out, Harry and Meghan’s staff were under the auspices of BP at the time, so nice try.
Tom also mentioned that Kate’s name is on her kids bc, which is the first time I’ve seen that point made in the British press.
Also what will happen to the birth certificate if they get stripped of the Sussex title?
Unless they commit high treason, they’re never going to get stripped off the title no matter how many petitions or polls out there
Nothing, It’s not a legal birth certificate if it wasn’t done by the parents. So, the original would be used instead.
Buckingham Palace replied quickly about the Queen getting lawmakers to Change the law, so she don’t have to reveal how much money she have, what happened to the never explain, never complain.
The birth certificate story would be funny if it was not so sad, with the amount lying from BP.
Why can’t reporters get it through their brains, that Harry and Meghan are on their own, and don’t have to run anything pass the Royal family.
Pray tell why would M&H work with any of the palaces, after the way they have been treated.
Harry and Meghan tried to work with the Sun. They denied many stories when they were approached for a comment and the Sun still published the untrue stories as fact. Sometimes, when printing a defamatory story, they would conclude with a denial from the Sussexes which covers the paper but still carried out the agenda of smearing them. Meghan even said in the South African documentary that they would say that a story was untrue but the paper would still print it. So, I don’t agree that the Sun or any other tabloid that smeared them should get access. It is obvious with this story the Palace wanted to undermine Meghan but they didn’t expect her to respond. Hence the backtracking and revision of the story by the Palace. Meghan response was necessary because it stopped the Sun and the Palace from pushing the story for weeks and it placed the burden of proof on the Palace which it failed to provide. At the end of last week, the Daily Mail was trying to brush off the story as a small and trivial tidbit but the erasure of a black woman from her child’s birth certificate is not a minor issue and had Meghan not responded they would have continued to malign her for weeks.
It sounds like to me that Meghan and Harry literally had no idea that Archie’s birth certificate was changed and only found out at the same time the rest of the world did. Am I reading that right? Anyone else get that?
So, if that’s the case, I don’t think an “anodyne” joint statement was possible because Meghan and Harry were probably trying to find out what the fuck happened themselves and why.
And maybe they weren’t happy with BPs response and excuse. And HOW was this LEGAL!? How could they change it without Meghan’s consent?
If this was just a correction of a clerical error, then why not discuss it with Meghan and Harry first? Or go through them?
This whole thing stinks to high heaven and it screams of them trying to erase Meghan as Archie’s mother either to be petty or for more sinister reasons (like trying to make a case that Archie is a ward of the Queen or the King when Charles ascends).
No, Meghan herself said she had receipts that this request to change came from the palace, so she knew about it. Do not believe anything in the Beast or the Scum.
She said she had documents that verify that this was dictated by BP. But maybe she called them up AFTER the story dropped and asked them “WTF happened with my son’s birth certificate?” and they sent her copies of the request to update it or something. Or she may have contacted her old staffer who made the change (because it seems like Meghan gets along/got along with her staff and she has a history of continuing to keep in touch with people after she’s done working with them), and asked what happened and the staffer emailed her back saying that BP requested the change and made it seem like it was not a big deal at all and that H and M would be/were fine with it, so she just made the change. We don’t know how long ago or how recently the documentation she has was given to her.
the scenario you describe seems highly unlikely. I don’t believe that at all. how would Sykes know. i doubt that Meghan was calling up the palace and exchanging correspondence the day the news dropped. she walked out of there and would not have had any contact with the palace since March 2020 leaving Harry to deal with the trash over there.
No, that’s Sykes trying to muddy the waters. Meghan says in her statement that the Palace told her the birth certificate had to be changed and that she has the documents to prove it.
“The mere fact that this minor clerical change” I can’t, I’m sorry. It is not a minor change! they erased her name from her son’s birth certificate why is it so hard for them to understand. It’s infuriating and illegal.
She can’t open her car door but they can change Archie’s birth certificate, right.
And people still wonder why she and Harry left.
Seriously. They erased her name and then added one to Harry’s. How is that a simple clerical error? That was deliberate.
Agreed. And again…WHY THE CHANGE??
I’m so tired of people acting like if they’d respond to the tabloids directly they won’t publish false stories when we all know tbis isnt true.
Exhibit A; back when Meghan was pregnant with Archie the Sun ran a front page story called :Meg’s Commandments claiming that Meghan sent a llst demanding folks in Windsor not look at her or interact with her dog even though there was a denial in the story from the palafe that this happened. A few weeks later another papaer revealed in s little story inside(no frontpage) that it was a hoax; no front page apology from the Sun was written. Similarly the fake story Roya at The Times wrote claiming an Invictus fundraiser was dashed because of Harry’s Netflix deal included a direct denial from the Invictus Foundation on the recore yet she still ran the story with a headline purporting her false claim was true Harry had to have his lawyers send her a legal threat to get it taken down but the story was still picked up by major outlets.
I think the way they handled this by going to a North American based publication(i think etcanada had it before Omid) so that the stand alone story everyone saw was hee denial NOT the fake story from the Sun with a their statement tucked in somewhere was the right call. It seemed to stop the story as i havent seen an article about all of the palaces revisions of this story outside of the UK(and here).
Also Tom is overlooking something huge here which is that Meghan was probably not only pissed that the palace changed her son’s birth certificate without her consent but that she was being attacked over it to cover for Kate’s gaffe by accusing her of doing ths deliberately as a snub. She’s done being their sacrificial lamb; those days are over.
Perhaps I’m being obtuse but I have two questions: (1) Why would Archie’s birth certificate need to be altered to match Meghan’s alleged new passport? And (2) When did Meghan become aware of the change to the birth certificate? The Daily Beast article makes it sound like she only recently learned of the change.
Harry must be livid.
The glaring thing is, Meghan would NOT HAVE a “new passport” until she became a British Citizen. She was in year 3 of a 5 yr. wait. So, she would be using her AMERICAN passport, which WOULD have her legal name: Rachel Meghan Markle. Or perhaps she got a new AMERICAN passport issued with her *married* name: Rachel Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor (or whichever order they do it.. to lazy to look it up lol). Meg couldn’t be on Diplomatic Passports either as she was NOT a citizen yet.
If the BC should match Mom’s passport, it’d DEFINITELY have her name on it.
Also someone mentioned that Kate’s passport has her given names on them and the title is the last name.
So it doesn’t work at any angle.
What are the current odds given that Meghan has lost all interest in becoming a British citizen after all this nonsense? She can easily just fail any residency requirement now, yes?
Some one pointed out that American passports carry names not tittles, so Meghan passport will not have the duchess of Sussex on it.
I really feel like they’re trying to invoke the “angry black woman” trope in that article, thereby attempting to negate Megan’s very legitimate concerns. As usual.
It’s time for all black women and people of color to be angry on her behalf and that of our ancestors who had no identity of their own because we were slaves , belonging to our masters . They got to decide everything about us . This can’t happen again.We are humans too. Archie has a mother, and she has a name Rachel Meghan, use it for her son .
I’m thinking Meghan was livid because she was already angry that she had to change her name on the BC, she said that the Palace dictated this change and she obviously has proof of this. When she saw this story in the paper that SHE made the change for the purpose of snubbing Kate, that must have really rubbed salt in the wound. No wonder she hit the ceiling and fired off that statement.
this. Of course she had known, and stayed quiet about it, just one more reason for them to stop working for the RF, add to that that the RRota keeps harping on them.
they absolutely made the correct decision on leaving after they were told they could not be in a similar situation as the Kents, for example. double standards all around, and better for them in the long run.
Sykes is either being obtuse on purpose or he’s innocently obtuse. Let’s not act like Meghan denying the story would have stopped it from running. All the Sun would have done is buried the denial somewhere else.
So he’s blaming them for two things. For not 1) giving The Sun a response and then 2) not working with BP on a response that aligned?
He’s blaming them for BP and KP for getting caught with their pants down? That is some wonderful blame shifting.
Also BP and KP not responding should make some of them catch a clue that the Duchess was correct in this was dictated to her and this was not done in order to make Kate look bad.
That is what gets me really annoyed honestly. They tried to use this as a way to make it that Meghan was making Kate look bad. Lady whatever has fallen in with those nuts who think that Archie isn’t real and Meghan wasn’t really pregnant. That was why she was nosing around the birth certificate and I wish the rest of the media would pick up on that and start slamming her for trying a birtherism BS campaign.
He says Meghan and Harry need to stop “picking fights” with the palace over every little thing! The nerve! SHE didn’t pick this fight. SHE didn’t bring this up. She would probably have loved to never have to think about this again. Or, if what the article says is true and she DIDN’T EVEN KNOW the change had been made, then how on earth could she have decided to pick a fight with the palace over it? And she wasn’t picking a fight with the palace with her response. She responded truthfully. She wasn’t sycophantic with her response and she didn’t lie to cover up for the palace, but she wasn’t “picking a fight” with them either. And the “every little thing” bit! How many stupid, idiotic stories have been written each and every week from “palace sources” claiming all sorts of crap about Harry and Meghan that they DON’T respond to? Hundreds. They RARELY respond. They respond so rarely that the palace was shocked that they even responded to this story! They were left scrambling to get out a response that made any sort of sense or justified their behavior in even the smallest way because the palace assumed this would be just another story in the huge pile of anti-Sussex stories that they regularly send out that wouldn’t generate a response or denial from Harry and Meghan. The fact that everyone is so shook that she actually responded proves that she does not, in fact, pick fights with the palace over every little thing.
No, Meghan does not have to appease/respond to her abusers. The absolute nerve.
He is still pushing the M&H vs the palace story when Meghan’s statement didn’t direct her anger toward BP but toward the RRs who claim to be experts. It is Meghan’s fault they made up a BS story about snubbing Kate? Why didn’t they ask the BP? Did BP refuse to comment before the story was printed? He doesn’t seem angry about that. Or is that telling on them and the Palace was pushing the false narrative from the beginning?
So they can change it again. Let’s move on.
I disagree, @Severine: the idea of moving on and allowing this story to simply sit is wrong-headed, tom sykes like thinking.
THEY ERASED THE BABY’S MUM FROM THE CHILD’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE and left a title only. There are some HUGE, UGLY implications in that action. Done whilst still a member of the “family”. Done whilst they still were living in England and trying to “fit in”. Erasing a black woman’s name from her child’s BC, then invoking the “angry black woman” trope when she responds.
No, We don’t move on till this is publicly fixed, a proper explanation is given, responsibility for the whole mess is taken.
Only once resolved fully and completely do we move on. Women, especially black women, are done being erased from history/herstory. Her story remains real. No gaslighting. No moving on. Not till sunshine and daylight exposes the full and uncompromising truth.
Agree
I agree too. I think once BP decided they could not control her, they pulled out all the stops to get rid of her and this was part of their plan. Erasing Meghan from her own child’s birth certificate would serve two purposes- 1) aggravate Meghan and 2) when she’s gone her name will be erased from Archie’s lineage. I can’t imagine what else they did to make her go that we don’t know about. But, being the shortsighted people that they are, BP never factored in that Harry would go with her. Kudos to the Celebitches for seeing what was really going on. Y’all are awesome.
Absolutely!
The Welfare Royals and their propaganda peons are still centering the white gaze when it comes to the Duchess of Sussex. They STILL can’t believe she is not adhering to their myopic vision of the world. If you know, you will remember how this was gaze was applied to Michelle Obama AND how it will be applied by some when covering Vice-President Kamala Harris. These are people who think their perspective on the world is the only one that matters and are heated to find out just how wrong they are.
“The white gaze is the assumption that the default reader or observer is coming from a perspective of someone who identifies as white, or that people of color sometimes feel need to take into account the white reader or observer’s reaction.”
Sykes is a palace mouthpiece who routinely disparages the Sussexes particularly Meghan. The Sussexes issued one statement and have stuck by it. He is trying to make it seem like they are changing their story in order to make them seem as unreliable as the palace. The Emily Andrews story last week was the same BS. All of these stories from the palace and the only definitive thing that has been said is that they objected to the wording of the statement.
I wouldn’t call Sykes a “palace” mouthpiece. He seems to have some disdain for the Cambridges too but perhaps not as much as for the Sussexes (I don’t know I really don’t keep up with him).
He’s more of an aristo mouthpiece if anything.
@sofia – I think “aristo mouthpiece” is a good way to describe him. I think of him as the typical British aristocrat – who probably doesn’t like Meghan or Kate but for very different reasons.
I also still consider his weird article a few months ago (about his sources and pedigree) as a warning shot to the Cambridge’s (the one where he specifically brought up the Rose rumors and the fact that the story was being passed around posh dinner parties). He’s not loyal to either side IMO.
@Becks1 exactly. He may not like the Sussexes but he also doesn’t like the Cambridges either (he wasn’t afraid to boldly say that a daughter of an Earl was where he first heard the affair like you mentioned) which doesn’t make him a place mouthpiece as those are practically pro Cambridge.
Typical aristo is also how I would describe him. The only team/side he’s on is his own aka aristo side.
This is straight up gaslighting.
Has Meghan been in a direct confrontation with the Palace before like this? I don’t recall Meghan personally confronting the courtiers in the media, maybe I’m mistaken. So that’s why it must be a big deal for the courtiers.
Tom Sykes is showing his ass on this one. The fact that he is trying to frame this as something about the Sussexes not talking to the tabloids and should have signed off with Buckingham palace with is pure BS. The palace used the Sun to blame and shame Meghan with this article in order to throw her under the bus and deflect from their screw ups. She wasn’t having it and was right to speak out strongly about it. There was no putting out a joint statement because it was an ambush and came from someone inside the palace to attack her. This wasn’t a clerical error but deliberate erasure.They took her name off her child’s birth certificate! No one is buying that stupid line about wanting to match the birth certificate to her passport. That doesn’t even make any sense and your name has to be on your US passport. Notice how he slips in that only parents can change birth certificates, and this clearly wasn’t the case and is shady as hell. I hope they sue over this.
Meghan challenged the palace to explain their actions and they could not. Try four bad versions then the story disappeared.
I won’t hold my breath for the palace to correct the “clerical errors” on the Cambridge kids birth certificates and remove Kate’s name. As for the passport, would Meghan get a special passport since she married into the Royal family even if she wasn’t yet a British citizen? Because she can’t change her U.S. passport to just a title without her full legal name.
Which is why none of this makes sense. They’re straight up trying to erase her from history.
They’re straight up gaslighting her. As if the Sun would have dropped the story if she’d clarified!! Disgusting.
Okay, now I’m super curious what the BC will look like if they have an American born child.
Just Google California birth certificates. They all basically look the same. Lists the county, baby’s name,sex, time of birth and where birth took place, parents names and their date and place of birth, and official attendants and registrar.I hope she gets her name put back on Archie’s British birth certificate and that she also got Archie a US certificate of foreign birth abroad to get him an American passport. Also, to register your child in school, you need to provide the birth certificate, not a passport, so the mothers name missing is a huge problem. Don’t think the title alone would cut it.
“It was therefore declared in the Privy Council that The Queen’s descendants, other than those with the style of Royal Highness and the title of Prince/Princess, or female descendants who marry, would carry the name of Mountbatten-Windsor.” (from the royal.uk site)
I find the fact that Philip was given the concession of using his last name for his heirs not in direct line to inherit, along with Windsor, but Meghan’s name was entirely erased, the absolute height of hypocrisy. There is no way to interpret that they TOOK AWAY the full name of a black woman, but a white man….This family is buckets of crazy.
I do believe this is one of the reason why meghan and harry didn’t bring back archie to the uk.
The firm was preparing for harry and meghan to got divorce by erasing meghan.
Can you imagine when she wanted to get back to canada and the immigration got hold on archie because he doesnt have meghan’s name on his bc/passport.
Tom Sykes: one of the many clowns in a carnival of so-called experts.
Tom Sykes is wrong here. Meghan wasn’t picking a fight with anyone. He and the rest of the carnival royal experts and courtiers are picking a fight with her. Good thing she’s brave, smart, and did not back off. She dropped them a bombshell with that killer statement. Now they’re fuming mad. They know they lost this round to Meghan.
https://www.celebitchy.com/596759/button_war_duchess_meghan_is_here_to_snatch_all_of_kates_large_decorative_buttons/
Totally unrelated to this subject but I was reading some of your old articles, new to me and I couldn’t finish two words without chocking on laughter. I had tears. How did you get through writing this ? It’s hilarious. Thanks Kaiser.your the absolute best. Never stop.
When will the UK leave these two alone?!