Last year, the Hollywood Reporter swore up and down that they had sources within Archewell, and those sources claimed that the Duchess of Sussex was still “bullying staffers.” What happened next was interesting – instead of just letting the bizarre trade-paper attack fester with zero pushback, Meghan and her team organized an Us Weekly exclusive in which several current and former Archewell employees spoke candidly about what Meghan is like as a boss, and basically they said that she’s great, she cares about everyone and she doesn’t treat people badly. It was a well-done pushback on a dumb story which originated in the UK. My only minor quibble was that it ended up in Us Weekly. But it looks like Us Weekly is interested in getting in the “defending Meghan” business. Their cover story this week is “The Meghan Debate” and once again, they used named sources to dissect why people love Meghan or love to hate Meghan. Some of Meghan’s allies and friends are quoted in this piece, but Us Weekly also gave space to some of Meghan’s biggest detractors.
The discourse around Meghan’s businesses: “Meghan is embarking on a number of business ventures as an entrepreneur and working mom. The constant scrutiny is motivated by clickbait and systems that make sport out of attacking women,” Meredith Maines, CCO for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, tells Us of the discourse around Meghan. “I hope that readers pause and ask why publications are so interested in clicks at the expense of a founder, a woman, a mom, who is creating and building. As Meghan deploys her brand, show and podcast, we’re looking forward to partnering with outlets that want to understand the business story and the power of brand building by a founder.”
A positive impact: Emily Sorrells has known Meghan since the early days of The Tig, becoming friends through social media. “The projects Meghan has been working on recently reflect a side of her I have known for years,” she told Us. “She has always felt a responsibility to use her platform to make a positive impact. In her role as the founder of The Tig, she spoke openly and vulnerably about her own life and allowed others to do the same. In the process, she created a community and connected with us all on everything from travel and food to mental health and community service.”
Meghan lacks follow-through: But one PR expert has clocked that while Meghan is great at the launch, she’s not so hot at the actual execution. She seems to tire of her projects quickly, particularly if they’re not lapped up as eagerly as she might have hoped. “Meghan has always been great at launching new ventures, but her problem is sustaining them,” Evan Nierman, Founder and CEO of global PR firm Red Banyan, tells Us. “When a project is meant to be a reinvention but ends up reinforcing the same old criticisms, it’s a major misstep.”
Meghan wasn’t malleable: [Meghan’s] independence felt like a breath of fresh air at first, and like the fun, red-haired prince who had always been seen as more rebellious than his brother, William, had finally met his match. But perhaps the fact that Meghan was a modern, independent woman also meant she ultimately wasn’t malleable enough to be a “good” royal. Christopher Andersen, author of bestselling books Brothers and Wives and The King, agrees, telling Us: “If Meghan could have learned to stick it out in the U.K. as a full-time royal — if only for Harry’s sake — I think she’d rank today not far below Kate as one of the world’s most admired women.”
Meghan has never complained about her privilege: Publicist Jane Owen also believes Meghan might struggle to come back from how ungrateful many people perceive her to be. “She made the mistake that has always gone down badly with the general public: she complained about her massive privilege,” Owen tells Us. “Yes, being rich and famous is a burden, but the people struggling to buy eggs don’t want to hear about it… She also needs to acknowledge that she now sits in a place of privilege and wealth that is far beyond the target audience she’s hoping to reach.”
Comments from Essence editor-in-chief Danielle Cadet: “From a Black person’s perspective, which is really the only one I can speak from, there is a disconnect from her because she doesn’t necessarily identify or participate in Blackness in a way beyond her feeling a typical appearance would mean that she’d be welcomed,” Cadet says. She adds, “From the perspective of Black people, it’s hard to decide whether or not we want to defend her in any way, because it’s like, do you even really identify with us?” Still, Cadet believes that if Meghan was actually white, nobody would have such an issue with her success — and her constant quest for more. “You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an unrelatable white woman, and none of us have that much of an issue with it,” she says. “It’s interesting to me that there’s a refusal to acknowledge the role that race plays in our opinion of Meghan.”
Meghan’s not a diva: Contrary to reports that Meghan can be a diva, insiders from her Netflix show say that, while she’s a woman who knows what she wants, she’s nice about it, and working with her is actually pretty breezy. “Meghan and Harry are always lovely while filming,” said one insider. “Meghan is known to have a strong-willed personality and has a clear vision for what she wants. She’s not afraid to voice her opinion, and it was known very early on that she would be running the project and making final decisions. Her and Harry have a lot of creative control, and that was the agreement.”
While there are absolutely quotes in here which I found horrible and unfair, I think the idea behind it was to have a proactive debate about “why is everyone obsessed with Meghan, and why has she become this hugely divisive cultural figure?” Something which was left largely unsaid was the fact that a powerful national media has spent seven-plus years ramming the Windsors’ agenda down everyone’s throats re: Meghan, and that affects every single thing we hear about Meghan and how people react to her too.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, cover courtesy of Us Weekly.
