Vanity Fair has two people doing royal coverage full-time: Katie Nicholl and Erin Vanderhoof. Nicholl is there because she has an “in” with the Middletons and with Kensington Palace. Vanderhoof is more like a neutral observer, but they’re letting Vanderhoof write more royal-analysis pieces and it’s going really well. She wrote this great VF piece this week called “Why Kensington Palace Just Can’t Let Go of Meghan Markle.” Vanderhoof excellently summarizes the events of the week, and includes some great analysis of just how pathetic it is that Kensington Palace is still obsessed with Meghan. Some highlights:
The particularly nasty Saudi-gifted earrings story: “Nor does anyone seem to bring up the earrings to suggest that the royal family should be more transparent about the gifts they receive from the Saudi royal family or other accused violators of human rights. It is, like so many of the supposedly damning stories that leaked out of the palace while Meghan lived there, just a detail arranged to make her look bad.
Americans view the royals as celebrities: It seemed that [the Sussexes] wanted to move, both figuratively and literally, closer to the type of coverage that American outlets were willing to supply. But in the months after their royal exit, their desire to extricate themselves from the palace itself has become equally obvious. Meghan was reportedly “convinced there was a conspiracy against her,” and in a court document that surfaced this past July, she wrote that she felt “unprotected” by the royal family during her pregnancy. As easy as it is to imagine that Meghan was demanding of her staff, it’s hard to see the constant relitigation of that period as anything but proof that she was painfully exposed.
Living rent-free in their mind-palaces: Even if we ignore the 20th century anecdotes about palace aides cowering in fear—or The Crown’s recent depiction of the family’s alleged hazing rituals at Balmoral Castle—and decide to believe that Meghan alone made the royal household a toxic workplace, there’s the small fact that she is now gone. The traditionalists should be celebrating their victory, but instead she’s still living rent-free in their mind palaces. The frustration is understandable; somehow Meghan and Harry emerged from the whole affair apparently richer, happier, and freer, with a clearer sense of purpose. Just look at Harry, tan and satisfied, on a double-decker bus with James Corden. And soon Oprah, one of the world’s most famous broadcasters and their new neighbor, will offer a sympathetic platform for Harry and Meghan to air their complaints about the monarchy, and the media, to the world.
Meghan doesn’t need to be perfect for Americans to love her: But any American watching the story from the beginning could have predicted this exact turn of events. In fact, it’s practically our cultural heritage. In a January essay for The New York Times, the novelist Claire Messud astutely likened Meghan to Undine Spragg, the woman at the center of Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel of social climbing, The Custom of the Country. “Both women—unconquerable, conceiving of themselves as heroines—seem to confront the challenge with their own best interests firmly in view and find a positive way forward,” she wrote. “They make lemonade out of lemons; they reinvent themselves; they keep on climbing.” This is not a particularly flattering comparison, but it helps explain why pearl-clutching criticism of Meghan has long seemed bizarre to her fellow countrymen. She doesn’t need to be perfect to be fascinating or worthwhile, and it’s more honest to admit that.
All of this is dead-on. Vanderhoof even quotes some of the huffy British reporters who have been whining and crying about how the “bullying” accusations have failed to make a dent in Meghan’s popularity in America. The British reporters seem deeply concerned that we recognize Meghan as one of our own, that we find her and her husband charming, fascinating and yes, worthwhile. Americans do view the royals as celebrities as well, which, frankly, is how royals around the world should be viewed. Don’t give any of these people actual power. They are, at best, soft-power diplomats and official ribbon-cutters whose assorted melodramas and soap operas amuse the masses. We love the fact that Meghan is a self-made woman, it’s part of the American DNA, and we love that a ginger prince has come to our shores to start over and reinvent himself too.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
I don’t see Meghan as having reinvented herself. She seems actually really consistent. That’s what I have admired about her.
Absolutely. I also love this sense of worthiness and deserving that she brings to what she does. She never felt inferior to the royal family, and now she doesn’t feel inferior to Michelle Obama, Jacinda Ardern, Oprah or anyone else. She’s wonderful self-possessed and I adore it. I would love to hear about her personal journey in entertainment and even her first marriage and subsequent divorce. This is a woman who self-actualized in her 30s, before the fairytale, and it makes my heart sing.
Hear, hear!
Yesterday, I blamed everyone on this site for my new obsession, but really, it was Meghan herself who pulled me in. I’m 29, but I have to say, I want to be like her when I grow up. I’ve rarely seen a woman who is so, as Commonwealthy put it, self-possessed, and she combines that with warmth and compassion, never seeming haughty or self-righteous. And for all the reasons she’s been given for anger, she’s astonishingly cool-headed as well. I think I’d be…incandescent (haha) and screaming if I had to deal with not only her in-laws, but also her own family (except, of course, her mother, who seems like a fantastic woman in her own right, and clearly did an amazing job raising her daughter), as well as the false friends.
I’m 39 and I also want to be like her when I grow up. Seeing some of the testimonials from her friends about what she’s like make me think – “that’s the kind of friend I want to be.” And her confidence is inspiring and again makes me think, I wish I was that confident. It feels kind of weird to say that, lol, but I think most people here know what I mean. and I think that’s why she has so many die-hard fans.
YES! Hearing “self possessed” I automatically think of her calm, lovely placid face at H&M’s last appearance @ Westminster on Commonwealth Day
Everyone else was either dowdy or pinched or a thundercloud.
Harry gets a pass 😉
Girl was the calm in the storm. Radiant and SERENE.
I’m a 41-year-old black woman and the mom of 2 biracial little girls who think she’s the greatest! I can say that she is honestly one of my favorite celebrities. She’s so well rounded, poised and by all accounts good-hearted, and you just felt so proud that she was the American to represent “us” over there when she and Harry married. I just relate to her so much, and it’s weird, but I feel oddly protective of her. I hate that she is dealing with so much heartache and pain. I don’t know her of course, but I like to think I have a good instinct of people and their character and she doesn’t deserve one ounce of this vile treatment she is receiving.
She can both be consistent and reinvent herself. She could hold the same values and enter different roles. Going from actress to BRF to California duchess are reinventions and she did it flawlessly because at her core she kept her values and changed her outward roles.
That is such a perfect sentence. And what a fantastic story! There are alllllllllll these adjacent cans of worms they could be opening by bringing these things up, but they don’t even realize it. Aw, someone felt Megan “hissed” at them. But rape of underage girls? Nahhhhh.
I think the cultural difference shows here because in America we have a little more admiration for social climbing, versus pearl-clutching over it in the UK. Meghan isn’t one of those people whose entire personality has changed, she’s just moved up in the world, partially because of the person she fell in love with, but that’s just happenstance – she’s used that climb to become next-level, to benefit others.
Is there any better example of social climbing than America itself? We were a colony that told King George to f–k off, used our most charming diplomats to convince the French (who didn’t need much convincing, given their own history with the British) to help up, pulled out a victory, and over the next couple of centuries clawed our way up to the position of the most powerful country in the world. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
But yeah, of course we’re gonna respect Meghan’s hustle. Not to mention the fact that she caught a prince and seems to have changed HIM for the better (or really, just gave him the confidence to do what he’d always wanted and be his own person), instead of her being molded into some anachronistic “proper” princess.
As a British person, I totally see the cultural differences being used as a weapon rather than embraced. In most settings in the UK, I think Americans are embraced and probably it works the same in the US from Brits but for some reason the UK press and Royals/Aristocracy has lost their mind about a social climbing American joining their ranks. The crazy thing is that lots of Brits social climb too. That’s exactly what Kate did. I really think the fact she was American and not European worked against her. The establishment still holds resentment for the American independence too and you can’t call an American royalty when they didn’t want royals in the first place.
One thing I don’t agree with from the original article though is that Royals are just celebrities. I feel like thats what many of them are but many also have immense political power. Just look at the Middle East. They are not celebrities. They really do run the show.
I’m British and live in Britain and I personally don’t get this either, I don’t think it’s a cultural difference between Britain and America so much as a class difference between the royal family/aristocracy and everyone else. I’m the child of a teenage single mother and I worked hard at school and university to get qualifications, have a professional career, earn a good wage and achieve a decent standard of living. I don’t view that as social climbing, although I suppose I could be described as having climbed from the working class to the middle class. I respect and admire people who work hard and achieve results, and if they do it in a positive way while making things better for countless other people, like Meghan, so much the better. I find absolutely nothing to respect or admire or attempt to emulate in Kate, who was given every advantage in education and financial support by her parents and could have done anything yet has done nothing of substance in over ten years as a royal with an unimaginable platform.
Jane, you’re absolutely right about what the real division is. Class.
Nice to read this! Yeah, aren’t most of us trying to improve ourselves or our situation? We have old money vs. royals, I guess that would be a difference, but at least we don’t have to directly support them. Although most extreme wealth comes from some kind of exploitation…
It’s odd to realize how differently wealthy people deal with it. I’m thinking of a wonderful man I knew who recently passed away. He ran his family business and saw it as his duty to improve things in his community in so many different ways. It’s not that he didn’t live a nice life, but he did all he could for others. I wish all of our politicians were as mindful of doing good things and leaving a wonderful legacy.
@Jane, you know, I could find a great deal to admire in Kate, or at the very least Carole, bc I truly find nothing wrong with social climbing. Anyone who pooh-poohs social climbing as crass or anything else is a classist, double-chinned, insular moron. But the problem with Carole, and the problem with Kate by extension, is that they grovel at the feet of the aristocracy, and beg to be let into an institution that, at every turn, shits on them with glee. The Tatler article on Kate was a master class of that sort of snobbery, and the problem with Kate and Carole is that they both grit there teeth and bear it for the sake of their own selfish desires. They want to be in with the in-crowd, but keep everyone else after them firmly outside. But it doesn’t work that way, and to expect it to is not only foolish, but actively harmful.
Carole and Kate could be the precise sort of plucky, self-possessed heroines that people like, the sort of success story that people love to see. What we get instead is a doormat who tries too fucking hard for all of the wrong things, who expects their audience to buy into the polite fiction that Kate is just a normal little middle-class mummy who does the school run and queues for coffee, who just happened to accidentally become the wife of the FFK. If either of them owned their shit–their reality that they are social climbers, and so fucking what???–they’d have a lot more admirers than they do. The reason they don’t is because everyone sees through their flimsily crafted narrative for what it is–a poor lie that no one believes.
And what’s worse is that their reason for lying is bad enough on its own. They lie and pretend and insist that they’re devoid of any speck of ambition because they’re afraid. The pretense frankly pisses me off even more. Kate is not an innocent little middle-class mummy, she’s ambitious, ruthless, and scheming and selfish and frankly not very nice (to put it mildly). She’s Regina George complimenting you on your skirt then telling her friends how it’s fugly once you walk away. I have zero respect for that sort of two-faced dishonesty, which is exactly what it is.
You’re right @Jane but still that is what many Brits consider social climbing. I don’t think it’s wrong at all and I don’t think most British people do but the establishment is very protective over their position.
I’m a single mum too and I remember speaking to my grandmother saying that I wanted to send my son to a private school. She was very middle class and my mother went to a private school, even though I didn’t. My grandmothers response was ‘be careful people don’t think you’re aiming above your station’.
They thought that one of two things would happen, she’d stay and they’d break her. She would be driven out like Diana. What they didn’t count on was Harry packing their bags and yelling “See ya!” as they left TOGETHER.
THIS!
“Meghan and Harry emerged from the whole affair apparently richer, happier, and freer, with a clearer sense of purpose”.
They (and ESP. Willileaks) CANNOT. STAND. the fact that not only did Harry not knuckle under, and they couldn’t “break” Meghan, but that Harry gave them/him the 2-finger salute, and took his family AWAY from that abuse. AND add to that, that Harry succeeded in doing this, and beyond what ANYONE thought he’d EVER achieve, it just eats away at Will’s gut like an ulcer.
IMO, William is not only furious, excuse me: INCANDESCENT with rage over Harry leaving, he is JEALOUS AF that *he* couldn’t do the same (though frankly, even if he was the “spare”, I don’t think Willie has the b@lls to have done it; he rather likes being Lord of the Manor over everyone).
Yup. JEALOUS. That’s the word we’re looking for here.
Jealousy is at the root of all of this.
And they can not and will never stand the fact that a white prince choose a black “commoner” woman over an English Rose.
Methinks Harry only needed 1 finger for the salute…
Harry and Meghan are a walking, talking, indictment of the fact that the concept of royalty, let alone the idea of aristocracy, means fuck all in reality. They are scared because they are living proof that no one needs the trappings of those institutions to feel like they are worth something in this world. They really think that all the rest of us peasants want desperately to be like them, and cannot comprehend the notion that ONE OF THEIR OWN would happily be a peasant if he got the opportunity in a heart beat. Bc that means that the whole reason for the existence of the RF is just not something that holds any water any more.
I just keep thinking how utterly dreadful it would be for H & M to read these fabricated stories and racist smear campaigns. It makes me physically sick – I can only imagine how they feel.
I trully hope Meghan at this stage shields herself from as much crap as possible. This is a pregnant woman after all,i hope this doesnt sound low but look at the difference when Katie was pregnant and had to be hospitalised. They treated her with kid gloves,but are willing to stress Meghan until what…?
Those vultures didn’t care if she lost the pregnancy with Archie and they wouldn’t care if she did with this little one. Meghan seems to be very much into wellness and self-care — I can’t imagine she is purposely scouring the internet for this stuff. I’m sure she’s on a need-to-know basis only. Their staff tells her as much as she needs to know for them to craft statements to put out, I am sure.
I agree with pretty much all of this, especially the part about how she is living rent free in their “mind palaces.” They cant just stop thinking about her. the royal family is obsessed with her, the british press is obsessed with her – just let her live. She’s not hurting you. Just let her do her thing. But they refuse.
They feel eclipsed. Like Charles when Diana became so popular. Which must be difficult when you’re raised to believe you and your firstborn child are a representative of God.
Not just a representative of God — selected by divine right to lead a nation, a religion, and a large part of the political processes of a country. We look at Trump and how he is depicted as the second-coming by so many evangelicals, we forget how inbred this belief is that the RF has the divine right simply by birth.
And this is a huge part of all this, right? The royal family is the royal family because they have declared – and people believe – that they were selected by divine right, and that’s why they’re so blessed and so rich and so powerful and so influential – because that’s part of their divine right.
but here are Harry and Meghan saying nah, keep your divine right, we’re going to make our own money and do our own thing and we dont need your palaces and your diamonds and your parades and your “charity work.” We’re going to do our own thing and do it better.
Now Harry has the gorgeous mansion, the gorgeous wife, the multimillion dollar deals – and its an affront to the very idea of the divine right of kings.
“there’s the small fact that she is now gone. The traditionalists should be celebrating their victory, but instead she’s still living rent-free in their mind palaces.”
The above is my favorite statement from the complete Vanity Fair article.
I asked the exact same thing: What are all the Sussex haters not doing a victory dance that they are gone from and not coming back to the BRF?
Because she is still winning. They want her broken and punished. Her success, her existence, grates them.
They want her tarred, feathered and dragged through the streets which was an age-old and horrifying punishment for women back in the old days.
Yep. The Firm and the RR _have_ to win and leave their enemies destroyed. Anything else is a loss to them.
Also her reference to the “lemons to lemonade” part of the nyt/Edith Wharton quote instantly conjures up that lemon dress from the Spotify clip. Love it
Why is no one remarking upon the stunning resemblance between Meghan and police artist sketches of D.B. Cooper? Why is no one asking where Meghan was when Dag Hammarskjold’s plane went down? And WHY is NO ONE connecting the dots between Meghan and Pliny the Younger’s account of a divorced biracial actress behaving suspiciously on Mount Vesuvius before its eruption in 79 A.D.?
There was an entire thread on Twitter last night of people listing all the things Meghan must be responsible for–she was on the grassy knoll, she brought the bat to Wuhan, etc. It was hysterical!
I guessed I might be late to the party with my jokes. I’ll try to find that on twitter – was there a specific user or hashtag I should search?
Search for @davemacladd. He’s the one that started it.
😂😂😂
You must be joking right? What antivaxx conspiracy koolaid are they drinking?
Meghan Markle is the Zodiac killer, which means that Meghan Markle is secretly Ted Cruz.
Meghan and Ted are Bonnie and Clyde who unbeknownst to us are vampires and thus still alive. They continued they’re killing spree as the zodiac killers.
It grates the British tabloid media so much that the American public doesn’t give a donut about their spin on Meghan being domineering, bullying, and not knowing her place. They keep forgetting that Americans are gonna be Americans and chant “USA! USA!” and that includes our full support for our American duchess. Americans loved Diana and remember well what the media did to her. So the fact they are trying to do the same thing to one of our own means we will never side with the British tabloid media on anything when it comes to Meghan. If anything, their smearing of Meghan has elevated her to such an iconic status here in the US and they can’t seem to understand why and I love how they don’t get it at all.
I’m sure Meghan isn’t a perfect person. Maybe she is demanding, maybe she can be difficult, maybe she talks about yoga a little too much. I find her a bit cloying and saccharine and I think she could have been a little less naive about what it meant when she decided to give up her entire life to be with Harry. But I think I will always be a fan of hers and I can’t wait to see what she does with the rest of her life.
Thank you. There’s things that she’s into that I am not. I am friends with lots of yoga lovers and I do yoga, but man. The talk of peace light and all of that makes me reach for a glass of wine.
LOL I know what you mean. My sister is very much like that, and when she starts in… I KNOW I get a glazed look in my eyes, my head will nod automatically, and I’ll go to my “happy place” until she tires lol. There’s only *so*much* I can take.
I love it! It bothers them SO MUCH that we don’t see her the way they do. Social climber? I mean, that’s what Americans celebrate as social mobility. She was uppity? Yeah, we know what that means, too.
It all reads like an enormous hissy fit over the fact that they don’t exert absolute control over public perception because it extends far beyond their borders to other places…places with more purchasing power parity, haha.
SRSLY.
I also love it! She’s our princess!
Also “social climber”? How about: you’re WELCOME. AGAIN.
Just like that time we hauled cute buns across the pond to shore up dilapidated, cash poor English estates with our modern, energizing, cold hard American ingenuity.
No, she isn’t perfect. And you don’t get to be as successful as she and Harry are by just rolling over, being soft-spoken, and letting people steamroll over you. But I suspect what they are calling “bullying” and “domineering”, is being portrayed as something else than it would be if she were a white woman (and yes, I am aware that white women also get the “bitch” card pulled on them when they are in positions of power, but they ARE allowed to wield more power than black women are. It’s just a matter of fact). White men are at the top of the hierarchy, we know this. Meghan has had to walk the thin tightrope of being confident and assertive without triggering the “Angry Black Woman” trope…and that is a VERY difficult and mentally exhausting thing to do. It’s constant and it’s pervasive for any black woman who has even remotely worked towards success.
The Oprah clips of The Duchess of Sussex listening, thinking, and answering questions shows how smart, thoughtful, beautiful, competent she is.
“Superior” racists have been trying to keep women like this down forever. Misogynists have done it to women forever. The palace cannot keep such a good, dynamic person controlled. They should have worked with her magic instead of fearing her power.
That’s why the whole snobby British socialite saying they should bow down to the Queen’s aggressive shenanigans simply because she’s the Queen doesn’t work for us Americans. We don’t care that she’s the Queen. She just undermined anyone who volunteers or donates, even minimally, when she said that they can’t live a life of service anymore. It literally invalidated everyone who believes in doing good things for others. *insert middle finger*
The windsors are the kardashians without the business sense. Over glorified celebrities
I think the Palace miscalculated so badly on this. As I said, 2020 and now 2021 especially has in America become the year that black Americans are finally getting pushed front and center in terms of issues that have long been ignored. Britain had it’s own BLM protest and the Royals didn’t make a peep about it, but got really angry when Meghan dare mention people should vote. Jesus. I hope Biden just skips visiting them this summer and or just has tea and is freaking out.
Americans also recognize Meghan as a real person. Someone who can give a one minute speech, hates pantyhose, and *gasp* shuts her own car door.
I truly believe The British tabloids thought that they could further damage Meghan reputation while in America they thought because They have successfully bullied harassed her so well in England I saw the interview that Ombie did on ITV . Those hosts were Practically Unhinged when it came to Meghan they didn’t listen to one word of what Ombie had to say they already have decided that Meghan is the villain of the story . The palace was in the right when Ombie mention Andrew the host were Talking over him so that they viewers wouldn’t heard what he said about Andrew which is the true their clearly double standards when it comes to Meghan and Harry verse everyone else . the British tabloids wanted to rewrite history make it seem like they were reasonable to Meghan and she just couldn’t handle the criticism when really it was nothing but lies racist bullying and abuse directed towards her .
Vanessa – yes, absolutely. They absolutely thought their right wing crafted narrative would carry over into the United States. A number of right wing columnists suddenly wrote nastily about Meghan in January 2020. Unfortunately for them, the media here is decentralized and competitive with each other.
There were a flurry of negative articles in the US about them when they first left. Two that stood out were Caitlin Flanagan in the Atlantic writing some weird scolding takedown piece, and Vanessa Grigoriadis in NY Mag speculating on what the Sussexes might do for a living and Meghan having to prove she isn’t a brat. I think this was before they returned for their final farewell engagements. I think a lot of fans remember the great things they did as working royals but they also took a lot of day to day hits that get lost in the blur because there was so much, especially that summer after they had Archie with their travel and the frenzy over private jets,
I love Undine Spragg. Custom of the Country is a great book. But Undine Spragg is deeply flawed. Meghan Markel is actually much more likeable than Undine Spragg, because Meghan is not selfish. Meghan shows that she cares. But I agree, Meghan does not have to be perfact to be likable, lovable, all of that.
To “confront the challenge with their own best interests firmly in view and find a positive way forward,” ….I just want to be clear that women can do that without being selfish. Megan is doing that without being selfish. So I am not sure the comparison with Undine Spragg fully works.
I ran across Messud’s article when it came out, and disliked it thoroughly. IMO, she was so enamored of what she thought was her clever idea to compare Meghan with Wharton’s character, her smugness practically wafted off the page. Granted, I’m sure I know more about Meghan Markle from reading the articles and commentary on this site, but it still seemed to me Messud cherry picked details of Meghan’s history (e.g., her first marriage) to fit her into her narrative, as a gold digger. It put me off wanting to read anything by Messud in future.
I came across it as well and was thoroughly turned off by it, because it had too many broad strokes and seemed to have an agenda. I thought it was an nasty swipe at someone who she inserted in her article to try to get more traction. Someone in the comments section called it out as a takedown.
I love Wharton’s novels and am APPALLED anyone compares Meghan to Undine Spragg, who is an awful person.
This whole mess may impact the Biden meeting this summer and it’s KP’s fault. You know Bojo is going to watch this interview. If the fallout leads to dicey UK/US relations it’s going to be ugly.
And it will be entirely the fault of the gutter press. I couldn’t believe the Daily Mail today releasing a story bewailing that the Sussexes couldn’t resolve this in private, when they’re having to pay out gazillions in damages for grossly invading her privacy.
I think both the British media and the Royal underestimated the support that Harry and Meghan get outside of the UK. Most people don’t believe the bullying story and are eager to hear what they have to say.
I’m still astounded that anyone here in the UK believes any of this bullshit. I’m ashamed to my core of how this country has treated her.
Don’t beat yourself up. It’s ultimately the royal family’s fault. Americans can’t relate to the majority of the country’s news sources being nakedly partisan and right wing.
The Royal family had an opportunity this past year to reset and move on. They could have left the Sussexes alone and made them a footnote since they left the country. Instead, they kept them on the front pages, considered every decision the Sussexes made as a direct affront to them, whether it was buying a house, signing their business deals, or making a Zoom appearance. Not only that, they kept up the attacks, such as the wreath and birth certificate incident. They really thought Harry would return alone. Winning their lawsuits and the pregnancy announcement just was the nail in that coffin. The interview is definitely a risk because they have the biggest platform in the world and it may not go well. There is a risk of it looking like a grievance fest, but at the same time, the past several years of continuous attacks on them have been out there, and people want to know. The Sussexes themselves made mistakes because they are humans and have their flaws and weaknesses like the rest of us, especially in such a pressured environment, so they hopefully will address those. But the outsize reaction to everything they did is something I’ve never seen before. Even when Michelle Obama was criticized, she had a fully supportive staff and the White House behind her. Also, regarding the staff, there is always turnover, but theirs is the only one reported on. No matter what they say, anything slightly critical will be pounced on and dissected. When she said on the Teenager Therapy podcast that what she went thought was almost unsurvivable and she was the most trolled person in 2019, look at the reaction in the UK. When they first filed the lawsuit over the letter, the reaction the press was they couldn’t wait to get her on the stand so they could “tear chunks out of her”. There is so much documentation of this type of press coverage of her.
I agree. And now if Meghan does release a grievance fest, everyone will see that she is completely justified in having done so. This campaign is so stupid that it will be studied in PR classes for years to come about what not to do.
THey also had a year to make one or two supportive statements but they passed every opportunity. They all also passed on expressing sympathy when Meghan wrote about her miscarriage. If I were Meghan that is when I would have started talking with Oprah about an interview.
The royals have validated every negative thing Meghan could possibly say about them. I don’t think Meghan is perfect but I can’t believe she is the only or the worst bully in the royal family. I’m sure Philip, Charles and Andrew are way worse and Anne is certainly not warm and fuzzy. And the Saudi earrings- all the royal women wear Saudi jewels. The BRF has long ignored their complicity in 9/11 which killed dozens, if not hundreds, of UK and commonwealth citizens, their treatment of women, the bombing of Yemen, etc. Neither side looks great but the BRF double standards look far worse, especially as they continue to coddle Andrew. Love Patrick Adams tweet calling them out for being toxic.
That was a fantastic article! It was nice to hear someone calling out the BRF and RR on their nonsense.
They placed a continent between them and Britain to escape the British Media and the BRF obviously using them as a shield and that wasn’t enough. Anyone watching this for even a fraction of the time Meghan has been a royal could clearly see that what she had to endure was beyond beyond. It just became untenable for her to continue in that role since all her engagements became controversial and she was forever being picked apart. The interview had to be done because even with a continent between them, the headlines wouldn’t stop, the calls for reprisals didn’t stop (title/patronage/honors stripping). They repaid Frogmore and there was outrage over that, they got jobs so they could live independently and pay for their extensive security and upkeep, there was outrage over that. They let their cousin live in their empty cottage where they planned to share when in the UK, there was outrage about that. Meghan, an American said, vote, there was outrage over that. Everything, they did was reported on and picked a part with the most negative narrative possible no matter how innocuous the thing they were doing. What were they to do when the media wouldn’t stop and the BRF wouldn’t stop condoning and assisting said media in their attacks?
Anyone reading all this media coverage about this interview-Knows Harry and Meghan made the right decision for themselves and their family-There is so much tension among the royal family about an interview that is going to be more tame than any thing Princess Di said in that interview about her marriage and the royal family-I have not seen any positive articles since they left from the UK-This big Goliath called the royal family are acting like white supremtists over a biracial woman with black heritage-They did not embrace Meghan in the first place-If they had put a stop to negative coverage of her in the beginning they would not be sitting on Oprah’s couch-If the royal family is so concerned about how they look to the broader public-Imagine what they have allowed to happen to Meghan and Harry for the past 5 years-Harry absolutely did the right thing to get his family and himself out of the UK-A predator of underage girls is great for the royals-but a young royal family striking out on their own to make their lives more livable is the worst sin known to man-This cannot be squared with a thinking public-Let Prince Andrew off but demean and smear the Sussexes 24/7-Let see the royals talk about women’s progressing all the while trying to destroy Meghan. Please God keep the Sussex family safe and in your hands.