These are real headlines taken from real national newspapers over the last fortnight or so since maybe the most famously hated couple in the world moved back to the UK.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle dealt huge blow as Palace ‘ignores’ messages – (Daily Express)
Meghan Markle Branded ‘Icky’ for Using One Royal To ‘Relaunch’ UK Return — Expert – (Yahoo News)
Harry and Meghan’s UK move slammed as ‘beggars’ belief’ over ‘rushed’ school switch – (Daily Star)
Piers Morgan slams Prince Harry and Meghan Markle over children’s school security concerns – (Manchester Evening News)
Meghan and Harry trashed Britain for years and now they expect us to protect and pay for them – Lee Cohen – (GB News)
Former head of Royal protection says Harry and Meghan should ‘keep a low profile’ – (Sky News)
Robert Jonson: Harry and Meg school-run fiasco shows they’ll NEVER stop bleating until they get their security – paid for by YOU – (The Sun)
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The Duchess of Sussex – yes, whether you like it or not, Meghan Markle is still a Duchess – is one of the few people in this world that no matter what else is trending, will always garner thousands of clicks from professional haters who seem to know more about her than her fans.
Whether she’s making jam, walking the dog or sitting in front of a fire with her children, there is absolutely nothing this woman can do that won’t trigger a media frenzy. Even in the midst of the bomb Charles Spencer set off on the royal family with his new memoir about his late sister, Diana – the only other person who could have possibly empathised with Meghan – publications have still found a way to drag her in it.
“Oh, she must have known this was coming.”
“She must be loving this right now.”
“How could Meghan and Harry have kept that quiet all summer… what about Charles?”
Has the woman even spoke since you all tore her apart for her most recent Instagram post other than to say “Happy Birthday” to her man?
I don’t follow Meghan myself and, in fact, if I didn’t work in the news, I would have been blissfully ignorant to this latest – but all too familiar – onslaught of the famed couple. Not because I have any reason to dislike her, or to care about him (can’t stand the royal family at the best of times) but because if you take away the fact that Meghan married a Duke for a second, she’s basically a lifestyle influencer with a brand.
And like any lifestyle influencer with a brand, everything she posts is curated. Their content tells – or sells – a story that is meant to leave you feeling inspired to buy that random thing you don’t need or to spend the day baking with products that are exceedingly difficult to procure. Nothing new, nothing earth-shattering, and most importantly nothing you’d have thought twice about had she been married to anyone else – or white.
But here we have this mixed-raced menace to society who corrupted the beloved royal family, trapped Harry with two children, poisoned the UK public with her Blackness and Americanisms and who these poor onlookers of society haven’t been able to shut the f**k up about since. The papers will keep writing because you keep reading, and publication and reader alike are trapped in this twisted, obsessive love affair with a woman who will spend the rest of her life with her comments off just so she can get some peace and quiet.
So, what’s the problem?
Seven, eight years on from their wedding, five or six years on since they left the UK and people can’t seem to get the woman out of their heads. Even if they didn’t buy a place in the Cotswolds, she wouldn’t be short of places to stay since she’s living in all your heads rent free.
I don’t care if her latest Netflix offering was sh*t, most of what Netflix puts out these days is sh*t. I don’t care if her jam is expensive, you don’t have to buy it – or eat it for that fact. I don’t care if her experience of the English countryside doesn’t match your experience, you’re not the Duchess of Sussex, she doesn’t have to be relatable to you… she’s a f**king Duchess. Please point out to me the parts of Kate’s life that are relatable – seriously, explain it to me like I’m five. If you reached for the cancer card, you already lost because yes, cancer knows no class, but the kind of treatment she received certainly does.
Speaking of Kate, even the future Queen herself isn’t completely off limits when Meghan isn’t around to take it out on. I remember when she disappeared from view and the number of rumours about her before she dropped the Big C bomb on everyone were extensive – and elaborate. Everything from William’s beating her to her having an affair to her having gone missing. The disparity between the reporting of the two is obviously stark and non-comparable, but it all comes down to this country’s deeply unhealthy – and at times mentally dubious – fixation with the royal family in the first place. A centuries long institution that has never been relatable and has never been needed less has people in a chokehold that has them so invested they’ve damn near lost sight of reality – and sense for that matter. Somehow though, Meghan’s the problem.
And sure, Harry and Meghan don’t always help. Hanging out with a disgraced Ellen DeGeneres in view was, of course, going to prompt a reaction, the gross oversharing of Spare, the Oprah interview and consequent documentary; they capitalised off their ordeal but they aren’t the first to do so and they certainly won’t be the last. Without it Netflix would just be sitcom nostalgia and Harlan Coben “thrillers” with “plot twists” you either see coming a mile away or that are completely nonsensical. It’s not as if they killed anyone… depending on what corner of the internet you’re on though or what kind of boomers your parents are, some other people in the royal family might have.
Since we all know more about Meghan than we probably do some of our own relatives, you don’t need me to tell you that this is a woman, a mother, a daughter who told the whole world she wanted to commit suicide because of all the media attention and constant scrutiny. Yet here we are a few years later with the same number of headlines in her name for daring to move back to the UK – just as before when her only crime was falling in love. It’s as if the UK press shouldn’t be moving in a state of caution since its actions recently fuelled the reason behind the death of another Black public figure, Professor Jason Arday. Notice any parallels?
I’ve seen commentator after commentator speak of the sheer audacity the couple have stepping foot on UK soil and how entitled it is of them to ask for protection for their family out of the pockets of taxpayers from the country they abandoned. Yet, even the discussion is unreasonably stacked against them as media outlets pursue their well-documented adversaries in the words of Piers Morgan for example, to you know, provide fair commentary. Such an obvious attempt to refuel the fire that never really went out on the couple, and sadly it’s worked. And you wonder why they won’t drop the row over security.
As mentally exhausting as I find this situation, I find it even more exhausting to sit here and explain the racism that drives this national obsession. Meghan’s life was on course to be a modern-day fairytale and the world couldn’t take it because she’s not white. I hope Meghan is in a stronger place than ever before walking back into the lion’s den that is the British public court of opinion.
I’m not sure what it will take for the world to stop talking about Meghan Markle, but I pray to God it’s not her life.
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