Yesterday, I was still trying to summarize and cover all of the big moments from the Sunday night telecast of Oprah’s interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex when CBS This Morning began dropping all of these new exclusive clips. Oprah spent a good deal of time with the Sussexes in Montecito and I’ve heard that Oprah got something like three-and-a-half hours worth of footage. Which would be enough for TWO two-hour specials. Plus, I kind of want Meghan and Harry to do another interview about all of the lazy character assassinations of the past month. Anyway, my point is that I didn’t even get a chance to watch all of the new exclusive clips before now. One of the biggest headlines from the new clips is this one, where Meghan and Harry spoke at length about how the other royals simply didn’t *get* why M&H felt so attacked and vilified.
Meghan Markle thinks the scrutiny she and Kate Middleton received from the British press has one major difference. On Monday’s CBS This Morning, more clips from Meghan and Prince Harry bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview aired, including one where the Duchess of Sussex discussed her sister-in-law. Meghan compared the U.K. press’ coverage of her to the “wild, wild West,” saying that the negativity “spread like wildfire.” All of that was compounded, Meghan said, by social media, her race and her nationality, putting things at “a noise level that was very different” than that of other royal family members.
“Unfortunately, if members of his family say, ‘Well, this is what’s happened to all of us,’ or if they can compare what the experience that I went through was similar to… Kate [being] called ‘Waity Katie’ [for] waiting to marry William… While I imagine that was really hard — and I do, I can’t picture what that felt like — this is not the same. If a member of his family will comfortably say, ‘We’ve all had to deal with things that are rude,’ rude and racist are not the same.”
Additionally, Meghan noted, her husband’s family “had a press team that goes on the record to defend you, especially when they know something’s not true, and that didn’t happen for us.”
Meghan’s subtweets of Kate were pretty great. The most immediate callback is when Buckingham Palace truly issued a statement denying Kate’s use of extensions. In recent years, “never complain, never explain” always takes a backseat whenever Kate wants to deny going to a certain dermatologist for Botox, or when she throws an absolute hissy fit about a Tatler cover story which she authorized and then didn’t like the results. I also feel like there’s the other unspoken drama of the lengths with which Prince William went to shut down the Rose Hanbury stories. The point Meghan and Harry are making is pretty simple: if we were ever defended with the same enthusiasm which you defend Willy’s wandering sceptre or Kate’s hair of lies, then maybe things would be different. And yes, rude and racist are not the same thing.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
I feel like we are coming closer and closer to a point where William’s adulteries, bad character, lack of a work ethic and the weird vibes with his wife are going to be revealed to the general public.
So far, the general public has no idea of his entitlement, which I think is equal to Charles’ minus the intelligence and passion towards causes, and his rage issues. The royal rota are feeling a bit cornered and with the huge wave of sympathy that Meghan and Harry generated via this interview there will be far greater scrutiny on the rota that they simply are unable to bear (as per Piers Morgan hissy fit and Camilla Tominey’s stammering deflections).
And the royals deflecting racism is par for course in the UK.
I lived there for a year, working in a demanding position, and the tone deafness, imperial mindset and deference to class was something to see. My company had bought out a UK firm and I was there to oversee the integration of the two….there was a difference in working styles which was to be expected but I also noticed there were several public school entry level employees who were inefficient, ineffective and talked very loudly. And what surprised me was the deference that everyone else treated them with, including employees from Australia and South Africa (don’t even let me get started on them).
I disagree. The tabs will lean in harder on the dutiful son and his English rose wife as a proxy to indirectly attack Harry and Meghan.
It will get to the point someone will have to be sacrificed to deflect all this bad press. That might be Kate.
They can’t afford to lose Kate. No one else could possibly tolerate William and they know it.
Yeah, the protection of Will & Kate will simply go into overdrive. I seriously expect a deflection to the tune of a few HR employees or courtiers losing their jobs over an internal investigation but there will never be a real apology from the palace for the treatment of the Sussexes either. I could write their statement for them and save us all a waste of time: ‘we take the allegations of racism seriously’ and ‘mental health is a top priority’ as well as ‘we have launched an internal investigation’. Then a few lose their jobs…. i.e. standard deflection from handling the major issue.
My head is just exploding though over public reaction. There seems to be so little UK outrage at the obviously true claims the Sussexes have made. Even here in the US, the public comments regarding Meghan are disturbing (notably from whites!). Also public UK support of the narrative that this is a private matter that should be handled ‘in the family’ and not publicly is outrageous to me as is the free reign of the racist press without any retribution. The palace will not handle this well nor will they make they make strides in making sure this doesn’t happen again. It’s Diana all over again but MUCH WORSE. I hope that Harry and Meghan can find peace after this. They deserve to have happiness but I fear for their safety and mental health through this.
At this point they have to protect william and kate. anything else that indicates the monarchy is unstable or that William is a racist bully has to be suppressed. It would be catastrophic for them if that came out.
@NTHEMIDDLE I’m seeing enough outrage in social media. I think people are waking.
Kate denied everything that mattered to her in the Tatler article. She left the lie about Meghan making her cru when it was the other was around. Both the DM and the Telegraph expanded on it.
Kate ain’t shit. She repeatedly bullied Meghan to join in with royals and take the focus off of her.
Exactly. Kate is both rude and racist. We saw her rudeness in church. To allow a smear campaign against a woman of colour to go on, effectively making her a target of hate and eventually driving her to suicidal ideation while she was pregnant – that makes her racist.
Yes. Agreed… Kate not been only gotten protection now since marriage to will. He has gotten protection her whole life seeing being with him. Yes she was harassed by the media and he had fought back using she is a private citizen so yeah I’m some ways she was getting PR protection. At the end she wasn’t never criticized and mistreated for doing a good job. So I hope this doesn’t turn ohh poor Cathlazy the great also is a victim on being trap and media. I hope people don’t forget Poor Cathlazy the great make sure to be available for him. From the news I used to read and mostly were from outside because will had always had the invincible contract with the media too. She was known for being rude and snob. There was a video I cannot find 🤬 of her parking inside her car and fighting with the token lady or cop it was years back and you could tell her face impression kate is a pill to deal with!! So let just not go easy on Kate please this would be like gaslighting ☝️
Kate also got some kind security detail as well when she was a girlfriend (in the last few years before the engagement)! They gave William’s girlfriend security but refused to give the grandchild of the Prince of Wales security – and we all know why.
Pippa Middleton got security for her book launch. James was caught using an RPO to park his car.
I still haven’t come to terms with how awful they all were to Meghan. Those damn people.
I agree with you. Kate is resilient and she is steely. She had to be to see off all her rivals and land the prince. She also learned how to be deferential and befriended all the right people at the palace. I find women like her know how to survive by destroying any one they perceive to be a rival. Her reported cruelty to Meghan and to other royal women has been detailed. We also saw her behaviour at the CW service. She will get what she deserves.
I don’t think Kate has any control over the narrative. I think William is the one who wanted the Tatler article denied and the one who didn’t want the crying story clarified.
William is awful and very insulated. Kate is likely very prickly and so committed to only maintaining her own position she is not interested in helping anyone else, and Carole Middleton is out there talking to the telegraph and daily mail every other day to ensure her children look like heroes and will happily hurt anyone else in the way.
No. We’re not doing this shit today. Kate has a mouth. She can talk. She has more control of every narrative that pertains to her than we think. It’s not William making KP issue statements denying that she gets botox or wears hair extensions, bc William, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t give a flying fuck about Kate. It wasn’t William who finagled Kate the Catherine the Great Tatler cover either. Kate was the one who was friends with the Tatler’s editor. Her and her mother have plenty of fucking control over the narrative, given their actions to alter that narrative that we know of before today. It was Kate who pushed for William to call up the legal firm the royals use to threaten the Tatler to get their article censored and taken off the stands and down from the website. William doesn’t do a damn thing to lift a finger to make Kate look good, unless he gets to look good too.
So no. We’re not going to absolve her. White Karen kept her mouth zipped up tight for a reason, and it wasn’t because she had no control. It’s because she DID and keeping her mouth zipped up was her way of exerting it. So we can take this “Kate has no say, it’s all William/KP/Carole/Charles” and put it in the garbage, because that’s exactly what that theory is. Garbage. It’s not true.
She allowed a smear campaign to continue on without a shred of a conscience. That’s what really gets me. Even if we gave her the maximum benefit of the doubt that she could be given (and trust me, some people were really pushing that limit yesterday in the comments), the fact STILL REMAINS, that, even as an incredibly passive, entirely powerless player in the saga, she still didn’t speak up for TWO WHOLE YEARS about this. At all. EVER. She was given MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES to say a single word on the subject, to put it to rest, STILL COME OUT ON TOP (because the real story as Meghan stated it didn’t reflect poorly on her either), and she did not.
To go on that long, without even instinctually reaching for the truth? That is not how a person who has no hand in this shit behaves. That takes purpose. You need to have known, what the actual fuck you were doing, to be able to go for that long without the truth spilling out of your mouth someone, even just as a kneejerk reaction at some point. Someone who really did not play an active role in these shenanigans would have spilled the fucking beans a year ago. Someone who really played no hand in this shit would have felt irked by the existence of this lie, to the point where silence to the extent that we saw in this scenario would not have been possible.
If she really had no hand in this, really didn’t do anything, if this really was all just the work of Jason-William-Carole-Charles-fucking Mothman-the Jersey Devil, WHAT HAVE YOU, then Kate, at some point, would have spilled the beans, to someone, and it would have wormed its way out into the world. It didn’t. The lie was pretty fucking seamless. At best, most people just believed that the incident didn’t actually happen. Very very few people thought it was actually Kate making Meghan cry.
That is not the work of a passive participant. That is the work of a someone who is skilled at keeping their mouth shut. Her silence is not passive, it’s ACTIVE. Silence is NOT passivity. Silence is WORK. Silence is EFFORT. Silence is the most difficult and demanding thing in the world. Keeping your mouth shut takes an incredible amount of effort. That’s what seems to escape all the people who crawled out of the woodwork to be “compassionate” and “empathetic” to her yesterday.
Kate remaining silent while this lie raged around her, for TWO YEARS, through multiple interviews and articles trying to hype her up as the great white hope of the monarchy, shows that she DID play an active role. Silence of THIS variety, to the point where the whole lie was almost seamless and airtight? That takes skill. This is not the work of some passive doll being puppeteered by fucking William. She knew what the fuck she was doing by staying quiet, every fucking step of the way, and she put her whole back into it. So I don’t want to hear any excuses for her. Kate knew the truth. The other courtiers didn’t, the tabloids didn’t. She knew the truth, and she kept quiet in the face of a lie, because the lie benefited her. That’s fucked up. People need to call it fucked up and move on.
CLAPPING AND PUMPING MY FIST IN THE AIR. YES YES YES!
PREACH!!!!!
Agree completely. Honestly, the tatler article would have been a good place to correct the record – a source tells tatler that “well, thats not what happened” and just leaves it at that. but no. the tatler article double-downed on the story, correcting the “reason” for the crying but not WHO was crying.
PREACH IT. the way people have immediately flipped to defending Kate is whiteness in action. she is given all the benefit of the doubt for her white tears when in fact her tears and her silence continue to be violent and oppressive.
thank you for consistently calling this out, A; your perspective here is invaluable and folks like you are what keeps me coming back to CB’s comment sections.
Thanks for doing the work on this. We are not going to pretend that Kate was an innocent victim with no agency. There are years to events to confirm that she’s in control of somethings.
And how can anyone defend her actions that we all saw at the commonwealth service? That’s not the actions of someone who wanted to help Meghan but couldn’t. They are the actions of a mean and cold woman who was just fine with the smear.
I thought that was such a perfect way to put it – that rude and racist are not the same thing. Did Kate face negative press? of course she did. But it was NOT the same as what Meghan faced, both in terms of what was said, and in terms of the sheer volume of stories and negative headlines about Meghan. Also, its worth pointing out that Kate’s press changed significantly once they got married and she came under the protection of the royal family. Sure, there was still criticism of their workload (although that’s stopped), but overall its clear the press was told to behave if they wanted access. I think Meghan thought the same would happen to her – she could handle the pre-wedding mess, and the palace would protect her the way it protected Kate and other royals.
And the palace did not do that.
+1
Agreed. When one woman is protected than you would assume you would be too. I think what hurts is that she trusted them and they not only did not come through for her and hold up their end of the agreement – but they helped torch her and Harry.
For them going public like this about security. Im pretty sure they have solid information about other non working royals having securities. That’s why Meghan and Harry are talking about security and are making a big deal. Put it this way… how can gatherings on the balcony and other events other family show their faces and not worry about securities after the events finished with all the shit going in UK? I wish journalists really do their jobs about this and dig In on this. Because for Harry and Megan go on TV put security and racist together it’s a Hint of a huge story to tell. 🙏
Also, random – I want to point out that Meghan called her Kate several times. I’m taking that to mean that she DOES still go by Kate behind the scenes, and the whole “Catherine” thing isnt really working despite the best push lol. I always thought William sounded a little weird when he called her Catherine. But Meghan was saying Kate with no hesitation – and she didnt know her until the whole “she’s Catherine actually” started – so its just making me laugh that she IS still kate lol.
I imagine the older royals like Anne, Charles, HM etc etc call her Catherine but the younger royals like Meghan, Eugenie, Zara etc etc call her Kate.
William also called Kate in the engagement interview i think. When she was asked about Diana and homegirl freaked out
Right after Kate and William’s wedding a columnist who was critical actually got a visit from William’s staff who told her to be nice about Kate. The columnist actually mentioned that in a column where she then went on to describe Kate is such hyperbolic terms that it was clear that she was mocking her.
Part of the problem is that rudeness is just a very real part of a particular white woman culture. The constant demand for perfection of appearance and behavior turns into this resentment of everyone who doesn’t hold themselves to the same ridiculous standards. This ends up being expressed as a seething anger at the world. They really are also horrible to white people they don’t see as performing whiteness correctly.
We really aren’t going to be able to get a handle on racist behavior until everyone is held to the standard of polite and considerate behavior towards each other. Too often, powerful people are allowed to get away with bad behavior. This starts a vicious cycle of people behaving badly because it makes them look and feel powerful.
The “No Assholes” rule. Everywhere. Now.
I chuckled at the way she said ‘Waity Katie’ and she said it in such a sweet tone AND still was defending her for going through such name calling.
I love Meghan’s many classy shades. I call them ‘clades’
I give Meghan all the props. She can shade you with the sweetest smile and nicest tone.
Meghan said the leaking of the Kate made her cry story was the beginning of the character assassination campaign. Pair that with the thousands of derogatory comments that the Kensington Palace Instagram platform hosted and refused to delete. This was not a rude rhyming joke or two, this was a character takedown that she, the only mixed-race member of the family, was expected to smile through, and it was orchestrated by her in-laws. Even her unborn child, who wasn’t even breathing yet, was being othered by her in-laws because of his potential skin color.
Another important distinction: Kate never got insulted for anything that was untrue; she was called out on her actual behavior. Waity Katie was not nice, but not inaccurate- she truly waited around for William for over a decade. Her not having a job, which got criticism- not a lie, and her own decision to do more waiting for Wills. Her flashing folks, which also got criticism- again, something she did for real and could fix. In fact, she did fix it.
Any criticism about the Mids? Equally based on accurate information.
Nobody’s making up lies about Kate….except Carole when she tells the tabs Kate is top CEO and keen to work.
Meghan got ripped for things that were lies and double standards. Fake stories about her making someone cry that never happened. Phony protocol violations that don’t exist. Or ridiculous opinion based things like she’s “disingenuous” or is rude for sending 5am emails.
There’s not just a racist, but undeserving element to the negative stories about Meg. It’s more than racist. It’s unfair and cruel because it’s racist.
Well said. I wish I could like this 100 times. If Meghan was sending emails at 5:00 AM and they just criticized her on that, that’s something fixable too. But the fake stories and double standards were something she could never overcome.
I read somewhere that between April 2019 and April 2020, there were over 200,000 negative articles written about Meghan in the British media.
@ Rapunzel. 💯 agree. Kate was called out for the real and actual things she did. Meghan was called out for things she didn’t do. Rude vs racism.
Yup. This is it exactly. I clapped when she said that. The false equivocation of rude and racist has driven me crazy
And, let’s also point another important fact out here too–the reason Kate got called “Waity Katie” for doing nothing, while aristocratic descended women of her age and generation got away with it, is because Kate specifically branded herself as “not like the other girls.”
She was, “a breath of fresh air,” who “knew her way around the REAL world,” and “wasn’t SHELTERED and CLOISTERED like Diana,” so she, “knew what she was doing,” because you see, she, “had a REAL JOB (but she doesn’t work a trade don’t get it twisted), but she HAS A REAL JOB, so she’s JUST LIKE THE PLEBS.”
The whole purpose of her branding was to make her seem 1) as un-Diana-like as possible, 2) as far removed from the stuffy aristocratic types as possible, thereby accomplishing 3) which is give the monarchy the thin veneer of actually having “modernized” in some capacity because, “Look, we found the least Diana-like bride for William, aren’t we so much better since the whole shit with Charles and Diana?”
That’s why the press came out with the Waity-Katie stuff–because a modern woman DOESN’T wait for a prince to propose to her. A modern woman doesn’t switch her whole dang life path for the purposes of landing a prince. A modern woman doesn’t lounge around jobless for half a decade, waiting for a man to propose to her, as she patiently waits for him to exhaust all of his other available options (I’m being gracious to Kate by not insisting that she needed to work during her years at college). A modern woman doesn’t make the sole purpose and point of her life to land a prince, to the point where she will wait, in spite of the humiliations William put her through, to get the ring.
Waity-Katie was cruel, but it also served as something of a critique, that people were aware that something wasn’t adding up with Kate’s image from day one. She didn’t get that hint, and now, 20 years later, everyone and their mom has to hear about how it was just misogyny/classism. It was certainly motivated by those two things, but it also wasn’t the sole reason for the barb either.
THIS. Also another key difference: these false and damaging narratives about Meghan were picked up by “respectable” outlets and broadcasted worldwide. I highly doubt the Sunday Times ever had petty stories about “Waity Katey” blasted on the front page yet here they devote premium space to…. bridesmaid dresses FFS. Imagine the NYT doing that.
When Hillary Mantel made an accurate comparison of Kate to a mannequin, she was criticized for it and PM David Cameron stepped in to defend Kate. So miss me with Kate having endured a fraction of the same tabloid and media treatment. Even Diana was attacked more than Kate.
@Nic919, and isn’t it just awfully interesting how BoJo refused any comment saying, it’s a personal matter for the family to handle and not for him to get involved??? CURIOUS. David Cameron went in, guns blazing, about a largely poetic quip made by an author of historical novels in an essay she wrote abt her observations on the current day monarchy. But Meghan gets blatantly lied about, there is a clear and present smear campaign against her from day 1 that is backed up by facts and proof, but BoJo is suddenly not going to get involved?
So the PM can be expected to step in and fight for the white duchess abt a comment made in an essay that was largely about how the author PITIED and felt bad for Kate, but will do nothing about far more egregious and malicious behaviour directed towards a born-in, white prince, and his biracial black wife, and child? WEIRD HOW THAT WORKS.
I think the thing it’s taken me a while to understand is that the monarchy is not interested in being a successful, popular, effective organization – it’s only goals are survival and protecting it’s internal hierarchy. In the eyes of the Firm Meghan and Harry were essentially unimportant because of where they fall in the line of succession so instead of embracing and utilizing their popularity, the Firm sought to destroy it in order to prop up Will and Kate.
Yes! Well said. +1
All anyone has to do is look at the various twitter threads with the side by side comparisons of Meghan coverage to everyone else in the family to know it’s not the same.
It’s also about volume. The expresss had 50 articles on Sunday alone ahead of the interview about Meghan and Harry. 50 in 24 hours and all negative or push back. That’s a noise level that none of the rest of them have experienced (except Diana and she’s gone)
The royal reporters have no choice but to lean on the Cambridges now. There’s a post on twitter where a journalist lays out the palace mo: Kill this story on William and we’ll give you a story on Harry. The rota have been parasites feasting on the “spare” story carcass for so long that they have no idea what they will do now when this particular story ends its cycle. The tabloid beast must be fed, and Meghan and Harry have locked themselves up tight. They have how many tabloids that publish every day? I reckon they have anywhere from 1-3 months left of Harry and Meghan betrayed the queen blah blah (and this will be based on the Palace’s response). What will they do then? Who will they target? What will the rota write about when Kate works one day a month? How many rota reporters are needed now?
The tabloids need to make money, and their only target now is William and Kate or Andrew. Sophie and Edward could walk naked down Kensington High Street and the story would get 7 clicks.
The rota ratchets employment days are numbered. There are far, far too many of them now to support this monarchy. Their dreams of second homes and designer bags on the backs of the Sussexes are gone.
I saw that and I’m glad she shared this MO so that non British people especially, can understand and understand how messed up that is. A professional organization works with legitimate news corporations to publicize their corporate updates or events. That ain’t it here. This system creates a toxic symbiotic relationship and nobody thought of the current children? What kind of adults will they turn into once they learn they have to throw each other under the bus to survive? And in social media times? That is going to be brutal and something even Anne did not face in her prime. I am relieved Harry took his family out. This is generational trauma in the making.
Three months of coverage is charmingly optimistic. I think they will be reporting on this for YEARS.
I predict that we will have endless stories about possible apologies, will they/won’t they come for xyz event. We will hear in detail how each major, minor or even slight acquaintance is affected by the interview. Guesses about who said what. Which Royal is the most “woke” and which is the most racist. Which Royal is working so hard to modernize the firm. Who privately supported Meghan and Harry and how they are so disappointed that their card/smile/knife in the back was not taken the “right” way and how they did try to make her welcome that one time before her wedding. You did know that Charles walked Meghan down the aisle no?
The palace will be blindsided about every little thing Harry and Meghan do. And then Will will be incandescent with rage about something- and then bored of another societal ill. probably racism in cricket next.
The Cambridge children will be so disappointed not to see their favorite uncle Harry. I mean he was so close to “peacemaker Kate”! Harry and Kate did always have a special relationship didn’t you hear? If not, I’m sure that Carole would be happy to fabricate some charming anecdotes about how wise CEO Kate would give him advise. If only Duchess Demanding had not come along!
Then the new baby will arrive and the interview will all be re-examined in light of the new family member. And then – god forbid – this one will be born in the United States! Which means… gasp.. that she will be an American. There will be stories about how she can’t be in the line of succession because she wasn’t born on the hallowed shores of England. Surely she can’t possibly be part of the royal family! There must be some letters patent that apply. Surely now that we know that Archie is light skinned the next one will be as well. That is how it must work right?
The press corp was able to write thousands of stories about protocol breaches, nail polish, belly cupping and all sorts of imagined things. They now have a 2 hours of source material.
I’m glad that at least now we can see what Harry and Meghan actually said themselves instead of filtering it through a palace spokesperson to the tabloids. They took the blinders of glamour and mystique off of the institution. They have lit a match and that fire will hopefully blow it all up.
One of the strangest parts based on what we know now is that the *actual* story of the little bridesmaid fitting breakdown actually makes Kate sound kinda okay. We’re all stressed the week before the wedding and I would bet a majority of brides cry at some point in the final lead-up; it’s stressful even if millions of people aren’t going to be watching it live.
Meghan’s version of the story shows Kate hurting her feelings somehow and then apologizing and sending flowers or what as an apology.
That would have been a great story for the Keen Kate Campaign (or Kampaign if you prefer) but instead, the Palace decided to reverse the story to smear her pregnant sister-in-law. What kind of PR a-holes do they hire at KP? They are playing checkers while M&H play PR chess and, what’s worse, the Firm doesn’t even seem to understand that they’re losing. Badly.
My sister had a huge, shoe-throwing tantrum a few weeks before hers.. It all had to do with something involving her overly demanding future sisters in law, and something our other sister said just set her off. She was lying in bed, picking up anything within her reach and hurling it at us through the bedroom door, screaming and crying. My Dad was petrified to come upstairs.
Great observation. I didn’t even think about how this would have worked in Kate’s favor if it had been reported correctly. Instead she’ll be remembered for letting the lie stand for years.
I felt that this could have been a relatable story. Kate just had Louis and the stress of everything Meghan was going through made for escalated emotions. I would have given Kate respect for owning it and apologizing. Letting the tabloids trash Meg for her actions is despicable and says a lot about her character or lack thereof. It also negates everything she did afterward.
Meghan saying Kate was a good person after that makes me wonder if she truly believes Kate is also “silenced.” I think she desperately wants to believe that because the alternative is so much worse. Meghan thought Kate would understand the pressure. Meghan hoped for someone else to at the very least show compassion but Kate did not/could not/would not do that because it may have rocked the boat.
Yeah, wedding nerves meet post-partum hormones in a way that causes sister in law closeness to arise.
But snobbishness entwined with racism won’t let it happen.
Except it doesn’t. Kate may have sent flowers and apologised, but she also let the lie fester for years afterward. She would come out against the most asinine articles about her, but let Meghan be dragged for something KATE did. That doesn’t make her look okay. That makes her look like a selfish asshole. Meghan not calling her such is Meghan being kind and not allowing the fallout from the interview become she versus Kate – which is what the rags would have turned it into.
It makes her look bad NOW, only because the lie continued, unabated, with no pushback from Kate, for so long. If she had come out and took a stand against the lies all the way back at the beginning, she would have come of pretty admirable. She did not. And we’re here today.
We are all assuming that Kate wasn’t behind the false story going out in the first place. Camilla Tominey first reported on on it and she’s tight with Carole Middleton.
Yes, exactly! Even what Meghan said in the interview was nice about it – that Kate did what Meghan would do, that she owned it, that she apologized, and that she is a good person. Easy correction for KP – statement from Duchess of Cambridge – “The stories about me crying during a dress fitting are untrue. As it happens I was the one who was out of line and this resulted in Meghan crying. I apologized to her after the incident, when I realized how wrong I was, and she accepted my apology.” It actually makes Kate look a bit more human – that she snapped or whatever and upset Meghan but then was a good enough person to apologize for it.
There was a book about this – I think it was called a thousand pardons but I cant remember – about a woman who goes into PR and is super successful because she’s getting famous to just admit their mistakes, and it went over really well with people. This is the same idea. Just admit that you messed up, that the press got it wrong, and that you and Meghan have moved on.
But I dont think they could do that first because I think Carole leaked this, so Kate isnt going to contradict her, and also the whole “Meghan made Kate cry” was very beneficial to Kate.
Yep. Kate was behind this story that’s why she never corrected it.
This is exactly it. The part that is particularly damning about the whole lie is the fact that it’s intention was not to just prop up Kate, in which case, the original story would have sufficed–the intention was to very pointedly bring down Meghan, FOR THE PURPOSE of propping up Kate. Kate’s image in the aftermath of that story got a boost at the EXPENSE of Meghan, based off a story that was a blatant and complete lie.
This is also why I do not think Kate deserves the benefit of the doubt, as a passive player, or as someone who had no hand in this. If the original story came out, just with the part where she sent flowers and a note apologizing emphasized, I might have believed that she was hands-off about it. But Kate is the other party who knew the truth about this situation. Her silence on the truth was critical for the lie to continue propagating without a hitch. That silence is not a passive position to take on a subject. That is an active, careful, INTENTIONAL silence. She had to know what the fuck she was doing, what her story was going to be, what she was going to say, in case someone asked her about it out of the blue, in order to keep the lie airtight.
It is really silence if you are behind the false story?
@Nic919, oh it isn’t. But that’s a whole other conversation that people were completely incapable of having on the day after the interview, bc of how they were stampeding over themselves in their haste to let Kate off the hook for her behaviour. The trouble is, even in a situation where she did the least, she is still hugely culpable, purely bc she never corrected the record, and she knew the full the truth. There wasn’t a single possible read of the situation where Kate comes off as innocent in the slightest, and there still isn’t.
The fact that the palace is so white that they don’t understand the difference between rude and racist is sooooo sad, so out of touch. It’s 2021, and these ding dongs desperately need a workshop on diversity and inclusion.
An institution built on hundreds of years of divine rule and colonization is not open to self reflection. As far as they’re concerned, they are not the problem. Everyone else is.
Yeah, I think the Italians said it best. “Il Duce is always right!”
As a minority, I feel the majority still fail to understand what is racism. It is a long work in progress…let’s see in 2050. I am also learning to navigate my own potential microaggresions because I lack interaction with, for example, black people. So I have a lot to learn still.
No excuse for the Palaces.
I had no idea the Palace released a statement about something as trivial as hair extensions.SMH
Meghan is absolutely right.
Not only is Meghan on the ball, she articulated this so coherently and simply. Same with her comments on privacy. Meghan is an excellent communicator when she speaks. Gayle was saying this was Oprah’s best interview and I bet a big reason for that is also because Meghan is a great interviewee who doesn’t mumble and talk in circles. She was measured when she wanted to be but she still communicated what she wanted to voice clearly. Also, not all actors are like this. She is very good.
That top picture?
I cannot with all those BUTTONS on Kate’s dress, but what stands out to me is the look on Meghan’s face. I know that look. “Anywhere but here” look.
I’ve found myself frustrated when people say things like “but Kate got bad press too!” It’s inappropriate to compare the two. For the Kate super fans out there, this isn’t to say she didn’t get some negative press but there is no comparison when, like in this case, the attacks are rooted in racism. It’s not an attack on Kate to be able to objectively say that what Meghan got is far worse.
Kate is not a true supporter of mental health. After what she did to Meghan and Harry she’s a hypocrite to continue to advocate for mental health. Same with William. He and Kate are the big bullies of BP.
Yeah, I remember someone on autism Twitter pointing out that so much of the “mental health” campaigns seem to boil down to “get your shit together so you aren’t so fucking annoying.”
I have ADHD and the people who go on about being open and non judgmental about mental health, while also holding people with mental illness to the same or higher standards for “abusive” behavior really need to get over themselves. You can’t go on about tragically high suicide rates and also say that someone talking about killing themselves is being “emotionally abusive.”
That’s not even to mention that “oh, they’re awful to me too” is not exactly a defense.
Is she wrong? Seriously, no lies detected! Rude and racist are 100% not the same.