Last Friday, the Daily Mail’s Alison Boshoff published a particular crazy story about the Duchess of Sussex and how Meghan is “spiraling badly” because she wasn’t invited to the Met Gala and everyone hates her. It’s abundantly clear that the Mail is throwing every smear, every lie, every ridiculous conspiracy against the wall to see what sticks. As the New World recently pointed out, the Mail’s “dangerous obsession” with Meghan seems to be getting worse this year, likely related to Prince Harry’s lawsuit against the Mail (which went to trial a few months ago). Well, post-Met Gala, the Mail did a follow-up about Meghan’s “burned bridges” and “falling out with Hollywood power brokers.” I’ll spare you the Mail’s article because it’s basically just a bunch of British people rage-shrieking Meghan’s name. But Tom Sykes decided to pile-on with this bizarre piece, “Meghan’s Met Gala Absence Becomes a Convenient Synecdoche for Failure; We know where it all went wrong. Do they?”

It was the Met Gala on Monday night. Every major name in fashion was there. The Duchess of Sussex was not. Her absence tells you everything you need to know about where the Duchess of Sussex finds herself right now.

Alison [Boshoff]’s sources are impeccable. Her piece in this weekend’s Mail lit up the internet. And today she goes even further. The picture that emerges is of a strategy and a commercial operation in freefall.

“She’s spiralling badly,” one insider tells Alison. “They’ve lost the plot.”

The fashion deals haven’t materialised. The brand partnerships haven’t come. The big names — Balenciaga, Dior, Chanel — have not called. And the people who did try to help? Meghan has managed, with remarkable consistency, to alienate each and every one of them. Anna Wintour, the Kardashians, Ari Emanuel, Netflix…the list of burned bridges is a rollcall of the most powerful figures in fashion, social media, and Hollywood, all of whom are, as Alison puts it, simply done.

What does Meghan have left? A share in a knock-off shopmy wardrobe platform, some Netflix projects sitting on the shelf for years and an Instagram strategy that her own husband isn’t remotely happy about.

And a kitchen that, I’m told by someone who lives near them in Montecito, looks like it’s straight out of an Olive Garden circa 1994 cos they can’t afford to remodel.

It’s remarkable, really, to ponder what might have been as the King was charming presidents and filling rooms with grace and authority. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex could, had they played their cards differently, have been there. Instead they were in Montecito, watching it all on television like the rest of us.

And in the time I spent in the USA talking to people close to them, people who know them, people who work in the worlds they so desperately want to penetrate, well, a clear picture emerges, and it is not a pretty one. As “Bosh” points out. Meghan arrived in royal life as a stylish, ambitious woman with genuine influence. She wanted to be a brand ambassador for the great fashion houses. She went to the Balenciaga show in October, but in February, when Balenciaga announced eleven new ambassadors, Meghan was not among them.

The great fashion brands, Alison explains, just do not want her. The comparison Alison draws is with Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama, as First Lady, generated an estimated three billion dollars in sales for the brands she wore. She did not make a penny from any of it. And that, Alison tells me, was precisely the source of her power. You can’t have it both ways. The moment you’re seen grubbing around for a cut, the class evaporates.

Alison tells me: “Anna Wintour is the top of the tree for fashion. They’ve alienated her. The Kardashians are the top of the tree for social media. They’ve alienated them. Ari Emanuel is the top of the tree of Hollywood agents. And they’ve also alienated Ted Sarandos at Netflix — the richest streamer, which has won the streaming wars. So that’s pretty good going.”

[From The Royalist Substack]

They’ve created this faux-Meghan who is desperate for brand deals and Met Gala invitations, and this faux-Meghan has no relation to the actual Meghan. The actual Meghan Sussex lives happily in her Montecito mansion with its warm, homey kitchen (which is constantly featured on As Ever’s Instagram) and she’s invested in several fashion-and-accessories brands. She also invested in OneOff and she uses OneOff to highlight smaller, female-owned brands. Nothing about Meghan’s actual activities and moves suggests that she’s desperate to be locked into a brand ambassadorship with Balenciaga or Louis Vuitton or Dior. I’ve always believed that Meghan has had brand-ambassadorship offers and she’s turned them down, which means she’s left money on the table just so she doesn’t have to wear one label every time she steps outside. As for the Met Gala… every single year they do this with the gala and with the Oscars, and it’s just their busywork storyline. “Meghan didn’t go to the Oscars/Met Gala/Emmys, therefore everyone hates her!” Jesus wept.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.