In this week’s People Magazine cover story, the Duchess of Sussex tells the magazine that the Sussex surname is very important to her because “it’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognized how meaningful that would be to me until we had children. I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.” She also called “Sussex” part of “our love story.” I did not find this scandalous or notable at all – the Sussex titles were given to Harry and Meghan by QEII, and King Charles either can’t remove them or doesn’t even want to try to remove the titles. The “Sussex” title/name remains the only thing “given” to Meghan which those people haven’t taken back, and it IS Meghan’s married name. Harry and Meghan bought the sussex.com domain name and they update everyone on their work there. They ARE the Sussexes and the Sussex family. But it’s become a thing this week, especially because Meghan emphasized her married name in the Mindy Kaling episode of With Love, Meghan:
Meghan Markle says she wants to be known from now on as Meghan Sussex. Meghan delivered the naming edict in the second episode of her otherwise studiously conflict-free show, With Love, Meghan, as she is talking to her guest, Mindy Kaling, the former star of The Office, about her childhood. Meghan is explaining how she was a “latchkey” kid and ate a lot of microwaved food as a child, including Jack in the Box tacos. Kaling says: “I don’t think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack in the Box.”
The jolly upbeat music which accompanies almost every other second of the Netflix show actually stops and, in a split second, the atmosphere drops several degrees. A faux-amused Meghan stares very hard at the cucumber she is chopping and says, “It’s so funny, too, that you keep calling me Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now.”
Kaling looks genuinely worried, rather like, a Sussex staffer about to be ripped a new one by the boss, as Meghan, more in sorrow than in anger, talks Kaling through the concept of surnames, saying, “When you have kids, you go, ‘I share my name with my children and that feels so… I didn’t know how meaningful that would be to me, it just means so much, to go, ‘This is our family name, our little family name.’”
Kaling, who has three children, replies, “Well, now I know—and I love it.”
The frosty incident occurs as Meghan and Kaling prepare cucumber sandwiches for a kids party with wedges of cucumber so thick they would have made the late Queen Elizabeth II blanch if they’d been served at Windsor Castle.
This moment between Mindy and Meghan was also caught by various Daily Mail columnists too, as they all dished on how Meghan “lost her temper” with Mindy or something. This reaction to that WLM moment is actually so revealing to me. I finally “got” why Kensington Palace staffers are still weeping in closets over Meghan’s brief time in the UK. THIS is what freaks them out. Meghan gently correcting someone and/or stating a preference. That’s all it was – Mindy used Meghan’s maiden name and Meghan was like, please use my married name, I’m Sussex now. This is what all of those “bullying accusations” were about all along, this is why they’re still screaming about 5 am emails.
The whole “our family name is Sussex” thing being turned into a controversy also reminds me of the drama with Archie’s birth certificate. Remember, initially Meghan was listed on her son’s birth certificate as “Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.” Someone in Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace went behind Meghan and Harry’s backs and removed “Meghan” from the birth certificate and just left her title. It’s still mind-numbingly dehumanizing. Which is the whole goal of this “Sussex surname” controversy – to dehumanize Meghan and act as if she can’t or shouldn’t use her married name.
Photos courtesy of Netflix, Meghan’s IG.
