The one thing that this year of Sussex drama has given us is concrete examples and stories of what the British media considers bullying and/or inappropriate/noteworthy behavior from Prince Harry and Meghan. At long last, they’ve provided us with examples, smoking guns which we can all see and analyze. I still think the reaction to Meghan’s “I’m Sussex now” moment on With Love, Meghan was extremely telling about what triggers the Derangers, and they’re still crying over Meghan correcting someone and stating a preference. In the past week, we’ve also heard from Sophie Chandauka as she claims that she found it grossly offensive that Meghan… politely asked her to switch her position for the polo photos. It’s abundantly clear that this was the problem all along, that anything Meghan said or did was going to be used against her and she was always going to be called a bully and narcissist for existing or stating a preference or correcting someone’s mistake.
What’s also strange is that all of these “concrete examples” of Meghan’s actions have just emphasized that she and Harry always needed to get the hell away from these people. And those people seem to think that their unhinged, years-long campaign against the Sussexes somehow proves the opposite, that the Sussexes simply need to “come back” because something something, this never would have happened if H&M were still working royals! From Celia Walden’s latest piece in The Telegraph:
If there’s one characteristic that would have benefited both Prince Harry and Meghan Markle above all others, it’s surely self-awareness. As Sophie Chandauka, the chairman of Harry’s former charity, Sentebale, continues to spray-gun the pair with accusations (of causing significant damage to the charity’s reputation, of bullying and toxicity), one can’t help but feel that even a few drops of it might have helped the embattled couple avoid yet another scandal, the emergence of yet another “ghost of howlers past”. But no. They knew best.
They knew that Megxit was the way to go, that ditching the only job Harry had ever been any good at was a bright idea, and that once safely ensconced in America, giving an interview in which they effectively bad-mouthed both the Queen and the Duchess of Cambridge (two of the most popular women in the United States) was the wisest thing to do.
They knew that publishing an autobiography (filled with factual inaccuracies) in which Prince Harry revealed that he had been suffering from a frostbitten penis during William and Kate’s wedding was judicious, that listing the illegal drugs he had taken while living there on a US visa was, yup, a good plan, and that continued whingeing about their royal plight in a Netflix documentary series was definitely going to endear them to their target demographic. Because everyone loves a prince sawing away on the world’s smallest violin – five years on. It was also never in doubt that Meghan had exactly what it took to be a television domestic goddess. That she had neither of the attributes crucial to making those shows a success – natural warmth and authenticity – wouldn’t be a problem.
Now, I’d hazard a guess that members of the Royal family aren’t terribly self-aware as a species. How can you be when you’ve grown up in such a privileged bubble? But that’s why the machine is there: to act as a buffer between you and the outside world. To save you from yourself while capitalising on any natural talents. (In Harry’s case, this would be the foreign trips, where he seems to go back to being funny, down to earth and genuine.) Ditch that machine and you are at the mercy of your own cretinous impulses.
Someone who used to work with the Sussexes once told me: “It’s not that they are consistently being given bad advice. It’s that they won’t take good advice from anyone.” Perhaps now might be a good time to start?
They really think they’re making some kind of strong argument, right? “Look at this hate campaign we’ve waged against the Sussexes for years, that proves that they were so wrong to walk away!” Now, do I think that Harry and Meghan have made perfect decisions this entire time? No, of course not, and I’ve said so often enough. But for the big decisions – Sussexit, speaking to Oprah, the Netflix H&M series, Harry’s memoir – they’ve absolutely made the right calls. The fact that the British media has been having a years-long crashout about them proves that they’ve made the right decisions too.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
