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Some 18 months ago, Meghan Markle gave an interview to Vanity Fair in which she spoke for the first time about her love for and relationship with Prince Harry.
She said that they were, despite the inevitable pressure and interest, trying to preserve the private atmosphere of lovers, but added, “I’m sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell.”
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Two months after that interview appeared, Meghan and Harry were engaged—but, rather than being invited to come forward and tell her story, Meghan has found, since her wedding, that control of the narrative and representation of her life has been ripped away from her.
Last week, after months of negative and critical headlines, in which she was branded ‘Duchess difficult’ and portrayed as a diva, Meghan snapped, and authorized five friends to collaborate with People magazine to put her side of the story.
It was mention by the five friends of a letter sent by Meghan to her troublesome father—in which they said she begged him to “stop victimizing me through the media so we can repair our relationship”—that turned the interview with People, otherwise filled with fascinating but uncontroversial details, from an interesting curiosity into a full-blown crisis, after Thomas then handed over large sections of the letter to the Mail on Sunday to publish.
A theory has begun to wend its way through some strands of British opinion in the days since that Meghan may have actually wanted the letter to her dad to go public all along.
For example Camilla Tominey, a former royal correspondent who is now executive editor of the Daily Telegraph, none-too-subtly questioned in her weekly newsletter, “why the Duchess sent five pages of such intimate detail to her father last August, at a time when he was leaking a great deal to the press.”
Omid Scobie, royal contributor for ABC’s Good Morning America, went further, directly suggesting Meghan “knew in her heart of hearts that this was going to be released to the papers” adding “many of those things in that letter were written with the public in mind. She very much wanted to set the record straight.”
When Thomas failed to oblige her by leaking the letter, the unsubstantiated extension to this theory goes, perhaps Meghan goaded him into it him by authorizing her friends to disclose the letter’s existence.
It certainly reads in places as if it has been written for a wider audience than just her dad, with some expository phrasing. In reference to her sister Samantha, for example, Meghan writes; “On a daily basis you fixated and clicked on the lies they were writing about me, especially those manufactured by your other daughter, who I barely know…you watched me silently suffer at the hand of her vicious lies, I crumbled inside.”
Meghan may well have decided to play her dad at his own game, and exploit his penchant for selling her out. This doesn’t make her a wicked manipulator. It makes her someone who isn’t prepared to shut up and sit down just because the royal establishment tells her to.
Not since Diana has a royal wife so explicitly rejected the queen’s golden rule of media engagement; “Never complain, never explain.” Meghan is determined to tell her side of the story. Can the institutional behemoth of royalty embrace Meghan's desire to use her own voice?
The fact remains, however, that, between the interview and the publication of the letter, Meghan has got herself into a tight corner. While still hugely popular on the global stage, there is a sense in the UK that public opinion is beginning to turn against her, partly fueled, no doubt, by the predominantly negative coverage of the UK press.
Comparisons are being drawn outside the UK between the treatment of Meghan and Diana (most recently by her friend George Clooney) but to her domestic audience, there is one important difference—before Diana started speaking out to the press, she had endured years of emotional abuse in stoic silence, and already won a place in people’s hearts.
Meghan does not have that foundation in place. Surprisingly, given the acres of coverage devoted to her, we actually know very little about Meghan Markle; much of her life story is disputed, with, as postmodernists would say, competing versions being offered by different people with different agendas. The palace is nervously awaiting the next of these versions—her sister Samantha’s memoir—in the next few months.
With Diana (or Kate), there was no such confusion, partly because they were both so young when they entered the royal orbit.
For Meghan, therefore, importance of really clear messaging and positive optics are terribly important.
On both these fronts, dark clouds lower for Meghan. It seems clear now that Meghan did not co-ordinate her press effort in People with the KP press team. This would suggest that Meghan and Harry have no confidence in the people who are actually being paid to represent them to the media. This is a grim situation indeed, and it wouldn’t be surprising if some resignations ensue.
And the optics of the situation with her father, aggravated by confused messaging, just keep getting worse.
Thomas Markle, for reasons unknown, appears to have calculated that he has more to gain from trashing his daughter than remaining silently loyal.
While his behavior reveals him to many as duplicitous, unpleasant and disloyal, his situation does also raise uncomfortable questions about Meghan and Harry’s treatment of him. Why is he still driving around in an old car that costs less than one of her dresses? Why is he living in a dilapidated house? And why has his son-in-law not made an effort to fly out and see him?
There is, fortunately for Meghan and Harry, a golden opportunity to reset the conversation and perception of themselves coming with the birth of their first child.
This is going to be a global media event that will dwarf even the hoopla around the birth of Prince George.
If Meghan and Harry have any sense, Thomas Markle will be front and centre in the first family picture, which will be released to the media by a reinvigorated press team at Kensington Palace.
Thomas will probably carry on selling stories to the press till the day he dies anyway.
But stopping him is not the point.
Meghan and Harry can’t make Thomas be reasonable or generous or kind, but they can occupy the moral high ground that comes with keeping clean their side of the street.
