As the Queen said, “You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation.” Queen Beyonce, that is, who did you think I was referencing? Obviously, people are still talking about the Duchess of Sussex and her new Netflix show, With Love, Meghan. Bitter people have thoughts, Daily Mail columnists have thoughts, random comedians have thoughts, British chefs have thoughts, trade paper “critics” have thoughts and on and on. Who would have thought that a gentle little food/lifestyle show would become one of the biggest cultural conversations of the year?
One big discourse from WLM is about Meghan’s name. There’s a scene in the Mindy Kaling episode where Mindy called her “Meghan Markle” and Meghan corrects her, saying “I’m Sussex now.” You would have thought Meghan slapped QEII’s surviving corgi, the ink that’s been spilled over analyzing that one brief moment. Meghan was “rude” to Mindy (nope), Meghan was wrong to use her title as a surname (nope), Meghan is breaking every royal protocol out there (lol). Well, Vogue and USA Today have already run “explainers” for the “Meghan Sussex” controversy, but I wasn’t expecting the g–damn New York Times to join in with their own piece: “Wait, What Is Meghan’s Last Name? The Duchess of Sussex caused a stir on “With Love, Meghan” when she said Sussex was her last name. But does that break from royal tradition?” An excerpt from the NYT:
It’s understandable that Meghan, whose representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment, insists on usage of what she feels is the correct form of her name. But as with most Meghan-related news, the clip quickly made waves online as people took to social media to criticize her. Some commenters thought she was being pretentious, and others called her out for seemingly having confused her royal house with the family’s surname.
Two days after the new series premiered, during an appearance on “The View,” Ms. Kaling said that she had “a great time” on the show, despite critics who felt like Meghan had behaved in a passive aggressive way toward her.
There is still some debate, however, on Meghan’s last name.
“She’s either totally oblivious to what her actual name is, she doesn’t understand it or she’s lying,” Hilary Fordwich, a royal family expert, said in a phone interview. Ms. Fordwich explained that while it isn’t new for a member of the royal family to choose to go by their birth titles (Prince Harry went by Harry Wales during his time in the British army), that doesn’t make it their family name.
“By established protocol, he can use Harry Sussex, which I’ve never heard him use,” she said. “She could choose to use Meghan Sussex, but it’s not their surname. This was the issue in that Netflix clip.”
However, Rachel Bowie, the royals editor for the lifestyle website PureWow, didn’t think what Meghan said was problematic at all, adding that it’s “totally within royal protocol” and she didn’t see it as a formal change.
“Even though Archie and Lili were christened ‘Mountbatten-Windsor,’ Harry and Meghan are borrowing Sussex from their title to make up their last name,” Ms. Bowie, who was previously the co-host of the “Royally Obsessed” podcast, said in a phone interview. “I never read it as Meghan formally changing her name, but more as this symbolic thing for herself, that she feels this connection, between the four of them, that they move through the world under the name Sussex,” she added.
Opinions have continued to roll in, even from relatives of Harry and Meghan. Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a cousin of King Charles III and a reality television star on “The Traitors,” claimed she had been wrong about her own surname in an interview he gave to Town & Country, saying the family’s surname is Mountbatten-Windsor. “Her children are called Archie and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor; they’re not called Archie and Lilibet Sussex, because Sussex is a title,” he said.
The Times then went around, trying to figure out the actual rules about surnames and the Windsors, and came back with nothing confirmed. Probably because the Windsors make it up as they go along? Everyone is breaking royal protocol until William and Kate do it, you know? Then it’s fine. Harry and William used “Wales” as a surname in school and in the military when they were the sons of the Prince of Wales. Obviously, Harry intends for his wife and children to do the same with Sussex. I would also imagine that William’s kids are now using Wales as their surname in school, just as they initially used Cambridge as a surname before their dad became PoW. What kills me is that literally all of these “royal experts” know that, and know that Meghan is totally within her rights to call herself Meghan Sussex. “She’s either totally oblivious to what her actual name is, she doesn’t understand it or she’s lying.” Get a massive grip, you harpy.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images & Netflix.
