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Meghan on the stand?
Meghan Markle could be “forensically challenged” over the interview she and Prince Harry gave to Oprah Winfrey, according to a source talking to the Mirror about what to expect if Samantha Markle, Meghan’s half sister, has her way suing Meghan for defamation.
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The Mirror says that Meghan may be asked in a future deposition who “the royal racist” was, and what they said. Since Harry and Meghan spoke about an unnamed senior royal questioning the skin color of their then-unborn child, it has been alleged to have been Prince Charles.
“Nothing is off-limits if the duchess is deposed,” a source tells the paper. “Samantha’s lawsuit focuses heavily on claims made by the duchess when she spoke to Oprah. They include details on how little Meghan says she knew her half-siblings, but also about the life she had when growing up. Samantha, who shares the same dad with Meghan, does not recognize much of what the duchess said, and wants to challenge it all by making her sister sit for a deposition.
“Everything will be forensically challenged. For sure, Samantha hopes Meghan will be tested on all aspects of the Oprah program, including claims she made about the royals.”
In the lawsuit, as The Daily Beast has reported, Samantha claims Meghan “concocted” a rags-to-riches fairytale story, and launched a “premeditated campaign to destroy” her and her father Thomas’ reputation. Meghan’s reps says the claims are baseless, and—right now at least—plan to give it “the minimum attention necessary.”
Queen dumps Buck House for good
The Sunday Times reports that the queen “will never live again at Buckingham Palace, making Windsor Castle her permanent home and main official residence.”
The Daily Beast reported in November last year that the queen was not expected to ever spend the night at her “iconic London home again.” Although Buckingham Palace refused at the time to confirm our story, and indeed do not appear to have officially confirmed it to The Sunday Times, we concluded that the queen had “de facto moved to Windsor.”
At nearly 96, who could blame her? Windsor is a far pleasanter and more homely place than Buckingham Palace, which is known to be subject to regular rodent infestations. Strategic buckets sometimes have to be deployed to catch rainwater. Princess Anne was nearly killed by a piece of falling masonry a few years back, and it is now undergoing a decade-long $500 million renovation, which has made it even less attractive as a home.
The queen, it is therefore assumed, will be in the slightly odd situation of traveling to Buckingham Palace to take part in the Platinum Jubilee balcony appearance of June 2 (also her official birthday parade) and again on June 4 for the “Platinum Party at the Palace.” How much personal presence she will have in the Jubilee celebrations, however, appears to be a somewhat moot point…
Seen to be believed
On the Jubilee, an interesting insight from Daily Mail royal editor Rebecca English, who told the Palace Confidential podcast on Mailplus, “The conversations they're having now around the queen and the Jubilee are very different [from] the conversations they were having a year ago. A year ago, they expected her to be front and center at everything, attending every event, and that definitely is no longer the case.
“She will attend what they call the big keynote events around the Jubilee, in the run up to it and over the four-day bank holiday weekend.
“But she definitely won’t be attending everything.
“I’m told: Please don’t let that be a cause for alarm. It’s a simple fact of life at 95, you wake up with aches and pains you didn’t have the day before.
“If she gets a cold, it will maybe knock her out of circulation a little bit longer than it would have done a year ago.
“These are celebrations of her historic anniversary and she will definitely be seen, but just be warned: It won’t be quite as much as we had hoped.”
City mouse
Royal writer Robert Hardman has a new book coming out to mark the 70th anniversary of the queen’s reign. Entitled Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II, it’s to be published by Macmillan in March in the U.K. and in April in the U.S.
Hardman, who also works at the Daily Mail, published an extract of his book in the Mail this week.
One mouse-related problem he recalls: when Michelle Obama was getting ready for bed during the American state visit in 2011, her husband was apologetically informed that there was a mouse in his room.
Obama’s reply was to whisper to the palace butler who had brought the news: “Don’t tell the First Lady, just don’t tell the First Lady.” Obama aide Ben Rhodes told Hardman, “He didn’t care except [for] the fact that Michelle Obama was terrified of mice.”
Hardman also reveals that when Charles offered to escort Meghan as she walked the aisle of the royal chapel at Windsor at her wedding to Harry, Meghan replied, “Can we meet halfway?”
The author approvingly describes the comment as a sign of a “confident, independent woman determined to make a grand entrance on her own.”
Hardman says that although the queen offered Meghan and Harry the option of reviewing their exit from the royal family a year after they left, she never expected them to have second thoughts, telling one friend who asked if she expected them to return, “Of course not. They took the dogs.”
Snappy
Arthur Edwards, the Sun’s veteran royal photographer who has become as much a part of royal tableaux as the queen’s hat and handbag, told a podcast this week: “Camilla would always say hello, Kate says hello, William, yeah, they’re all very friendly, and so was Harry until he met Meghan, and then he became very, very distant, and it became almost, well, it was miserable. I just find it very depressing with them. They just hated the media and it was miserable, so I ducked out of them and sort of went with Charles to New Zealand and, you know, places like that.”
This week in royal history
Prince Edward turns 58 this Thursday, March 10. He was born on March 10, 1964, at Buckingham Palace, and is the youngest of the queen’s children. In recent years, he has also been the most scandal-free, with wife Sophie striking up a special closeness with the queen.
Unanswered questions
What will Harry do? Ditch the Platinum Jubilee? Bring Lilibet to see the queen somehow? Expect some delicate royal jubilee planning, and messaging, around who’s in and who’s out.
