Over the weekend, the Mail’s You Magazine published a bizarre cover story about the Duchess of Sussex’s “decade of drama.” As we all know, before July 2016, then-Meghan Markle had a stellar reputation as a lifestyle blogger and working actress on a successful cable show. She kept her nose clean, she did yoga, she traveled, she did charity work and she surrounded herself with loyal friends. Then during Wimbledon that year, she met a ginger prince and by the last few months of 2016, her life completely changed. She was being stalked by paparazzi, and they were getting in her mom’s face as well. The British media began their campaign of racism, harassment and defamation, lying about her background, her motivations, her career, her friends, her coworkers and her family. They used racist dog-whistles constantly, if not outright racist language. All of that continues to this very day. The “decade of drama” is the media’s drama, not Meghan’s. Anyway, there are a couple of BS stories from this Sarah Vine-authored mess, so let’s discuss.

Prince Harry & Meghan’s lack of emotional intelligence: The Daily Mail’s Sarah Vine said that throughout their time as a couple, the Sussexes have appeared to have a “weapons-grade sense of entitlement” but have failed to demonstrate awareness of the impact of their actions. Ms Vine said: “For two people who claim to be so in tune with their feelings and those of others, time and again they have demonstrated a complete lack of emotional intelligence, combined with a weapons-grade sense of entitlement. They are so wrapped up in their own drama, so insulated in their bubble of privilege, they fail to realise how thoroughly charmed their existence is. And that is a most unattractive trait.”

Harry weaponized his pain: “At a time when the Royal Family needed Harry most, he not only slammed the door in their face, but he also tried to burn the place down on the way out. No one is suggesting he doesn’t have a right to be hurt – but weaponising your pain as he has done only perpetuates the cycle of sadness.”

In 2015, Meghan attended the opening of a Soho House branch in Istanbul: [At] the opening of Soho House in Istanbul, Turkey, Vine said a friend who attended the event recalled waiting in the hotel lobby when a “very pretty American woman strode up to the front desk” and began complaining to staff. “She proceeded to berate the staff about some kind of problem in her room,” Vine wrote. “My friend couldn’t quite catch the details, but the general gist seemed to be that she was unhappy with the quality of her goodie bag, which she felt was insufficiently lavish in its largess. My friend remembers thinking, ‘Wow, it takes quite some chutzpah to complain about a free gift at a free weekend in a five-star hotel full of A-listers’.” Vine said her friend had “no idea who the angry American was” at the time. It was not until a year later, when photographs emerged of Prince Harry’s new girlfriend, that he allegedly “recognised her immediately” as Meghan.

Another bullying accusation, you guys: According to the columnist, a friend with contacts inside the royal household told her Meghan was interviewing prospective staff when a “young girl- a perfectly harmless and nervous Sloane in her early 20s” was “ushered into her presence”. What allegedly followed was an excruciating encounter: “Meghan was sitting at her desk, reading some papers,” Vine said. “For what seemed like an eternity, she kept her eyes down, ignoring the girl completely. She then glanced up, examined her, then went back to work. ‘You can leave,’ she said. And that was that.” Vine ended her column with a pointed observation: “One for Harry to ponder, perhaps, as he considers his future within the Royal Family.”

[From You Magazine via the Express and News24]

I’m sure both of the “never-before-told” stories are absolute crap, but the story about Meghan dismissing a nervous Sloane is so offensively stupid, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. The idea that the galloping racists within Kensington Palace would somehow set Meghan up to personally interview people is absurd – there were only a handful of staffers dedicated to working with Harry and Meghan to begin with, and most of them were basically Jason Knauf’s double-agents. The Istanbul story also sounds like yet another Deranger fan-fic, something retconned years later when fixated individuals were looking through Meghan’s Instagram and Tig archives.

The stuff about Harry “weaponizing his pain” is keeping with the British media’s twisted pop psychology. They remain furious that Harry managed to stop the Windsors’ cycles of generational trauma in one generation, his kids’ generation. Archie and Lili get to grow up free from the Windsor psychodrama, and it comes at great personal cost to Harry and Meghan.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Meghan’s Instagram.