Meghan Markle Urges People to Vote, Says She Knows ‘What It’s Like to Feel Voiceless’

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Meghan: “Make all of our voices heard” 

Before Meghan Markle spoke to the 19th*’s Emily Ramshaw on Friday about online “toxicity,” racism, and fighting for change she told Marie Claire that voting was a “fundamental human right” that men and women had “put their lives on the line for.”

Meghan Markle: ‘There’s So Much Toxicity Out There’ ‘THE TIDE IS TURNING’

Tim Teeman, Katie Baker

Meghan was one of 100 celebrity women who spoke to the magazine about the importance of voting. “I know what it’s like to have a voice, and also what it’s like to feel voiceless,” Meghan said. “I also know that so many men and women have put their lives on the line for us to be heard. And that opportunity, that fundamental right, is in our ability to exercise our right to vote and to make all of our voices heard.

“One of my favorite quotes, and one that my husband and I have referred to often, is from Kate Sheppard, a leader in the suffragist movement in New Zealand, who said, ‘Do not think your single vote does not matter much. The rain that refreshes the parched ground is made up of single drops.’ That is why I vote.”

Smells like money

Given that Meghan had Diptyque perfume diffusers positioned around the ancient British church in which she was married to drive out its “musty” smell, she’ll no doubt be delighted to hear that the man who built the lavish Californian mansion she and Harry have moved into emptied two bottles of red wine on the cellar floor to add an authentic aroma.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, multi-millionaire businessman Terry Cunningham, 61, told how he and his wife Randi bought the “spectacular” plot in Montecito in 1999, and spent four years building the French Provencal-inspired home that Meghan and Harry now call home. He said: “I designed the wine cellar. It’s a beautiful room. It’s got gravel on the floor and I emptied a couple of cheap bottles of red on to the gravel so it smelled correctly. I thought that was kind of fun.”

He added that when he and his wife heard the news that Meghan and Harry had bought the home for $14m he thought, “Boy, did they ever get a great deal,” which just goes to show that the rich see bargain-hunting differently to the rest of us.

Cunningham says the house is private and isolated, saying: “The original 200-acre Riven Rock estate is off one of the main roads in Montecito and then you’re off on another sub-road and you’re in this private park-like setting, which is truly amazing. It’s what hooked us on the property in the first place, the privacy of it.”

The Mail estimated earlier this week that Meghan and Harry’s lifestyle at their new home would cost them around $6.5m a year, with almost a million of that being accounted for by a six man security team. Even if their annual running costs are one quarter of the Mail’s estimates, it’s clear that living this way doesn’t come cheap.

Sunny places, shady people

Unfortunately lovely homes in Montecito are not always owned by lovely people. Anna Fedoseeva, the wife of the home’s most recent owner before it was sold to Harry and Meghan, told the Sun on Sunday that her estranged husband, Russian banker Sergey Grishin, “is a dangerous man and destroyed my life.”

Fedoseeva added, “Meghan struggles for women’s rights. But in my case, that means just to be alive. It isn’t wise for them to surround themselves with him or anyone affiliated with him.”

Court documents reportedly say he is accused of holding a gun to his estranged wife’s head and knocking out her teeth during a campaign of intimidation.

Fedoseeva said she believes Harry and Meghan did not know about her ex-partner and doesn’t want to criticize them personally, but says their advisers showed a “lack of due diligence” over the purchase.

Fedoseeva said: “Even a simple Google search would have led to court records containing horrific allegations against Sergey. He put me through hell, with domestic violence, assaults and threats to me and all my loved ones. I am still fear for my life. I do not think it wise for anyone to surround themselves with Sergey Grishin, let alone Harry and Meghan.”

A spokesman for Grishin denied Fedoseeva’s allegations, telling the Sun on Sunday: “He is the unfortunate victim of a fraud perpetrated by his former wife. He has been obliged to file legal proceedings against her.

“When that fraudulent scheme failed, Ms. Fedoseeva made a series of false and highly defamatory allegations.”

Princess Anne turns 70: new pictures

New life goals: to look as luminous and generally fabulous as Princess Anne does in these new 70th birthday portraits taken by John Swannell at her Gloucestershire estate, Gatcombe Park, in February. Yes, there is royal glamor, but the outdoorsy Anne is very present and correct too.

Anne turned 70 yesterday, August 15—with birthday wishes (and photographs of the past) from brother Prince Charles and thanks for all the public well-wishes from the queen and royal family’s official Instagram account.

Author: How hostile press led to Harry and Meghan bio

In a revealing interview, Omid Scobie, one of the two authors of Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, told Town and Country that the much-hyped pro-Meghan and Harry biography “wouldn’t have happened had many of [our sources] not felt frustrated by the coverage they saw of their friends in sections of the tabloids here. I think there were many people that felt what we were seeing about the couple was far away from who they were, so to have a place where they could actually share another side of the story was very important to them. Had things been very different with the press over here, we probably wouldn’t have been able to put this book together.”

“Around Archie’s birth…we realized that there was a bigger story happening here,” Scobie said of himself and co-author Carolyn Durand. “That this was a couple who were incredibly frustrated with some of the situations with their roles and their place within the institution of the monarchy, and not being heard when it came to lots of different things.”

Asked if he knew what Harry and Meghan thought of the book, Scobie reportedly grimaced. “Part of me is curious. Part of me doesn’t want to know. Listen, I don’t think anybody likes being spoken about. That’s not something you ever get used to… We didn’t write the book for Harry and Meghan.”

As for his own future, Scobie says, “Whatever I write next, and I have a couple of things going right now, will be more low-key. Should we say…not much to do with royals.”

“Forgotten army in a forgotten war”

The U.K. Sunday Times reported that Prince Charles “blinked back tears” yesterday as he led a two-minute silence to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VJ Day; the day the Second World War ended with Japan’s surrender. Charles laid a wreath at a memorial for the Burma campaign at Britain’s National Arboretum in Staffordshire, and described those who had served in the Far East as “the forgotten army in a forgotten war,” but said their sacrifice “will echo through the ages.” Guests, including some surviving veterans of the campaign, sat on shady benches, spaced out among the trees to respect social distancing.

What Meghan’s really like, by her hairdresser

One of Meghan’s favorite British hairstylists, George Northwood, who traveled with Meghan and Harry on their royal tours to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand has told Grazia what it was like to work for the couple. “She and Harry are both very grounded and easy to talk to,” he said, adding, “Her hair often looks so effortless but she’s actually the most thoughtful person, even down to the smallest detail like her jewelry.”

Northwood said, “You really feel like you’re part of their team. What they stand for is so strong and inspiring, and they’re genuinely such kind people who really want to do good, so that rubs off a little bit. You feel part of something exciting.”

He added, “My favorite memory has to be when they frightened me half to death jumping out at me on my birthday. It was such a silly moment but so sweet that they wanted to surprise me. Meghan has a great sense of humor so we would always be in fits of giggles, but there would be these really surreal moments where we would sit thinking, ‘Is this really happening?’

“We would be sat in the dressing room like, “You’re the Duchess of Sussex, I’m your hairdresser and you’re going to walk out that door and be the most photographed woman in the world in a minute.’ We tried to find humor in those pinching moments, just to stay grounded.”

Charles visits crash site

Prince Charles went to visit the site of a fatal train derailment in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire. Three people died and six people were injured in the accident. In an Instagram post, Clarence House said Charles had “thanked those first responders who were first on the scene of the incident on Wednesday. HRH spoke to representatives of the emergency services including the Scottish Ambulance Service and Police Scotland.” One picture showed Charles surveying the site of the derailment itself.

This week in royal history

Were she alive, Princess Margaret would have celebrated her 90th birthday this coming Friday. The queen’s sister was born on August 21, 1930, at Glamis Castle in Scotland—and went on to become the original royal rebel, as The Crown has brilliantly captured. Where Elizabeth was groomed for queendom for a young age, Margaret was left to forge her own, less predictable, path. Carousing, heartbreak, scandals, and a colorful life followed. Margaret died, aged 71, in 2002.

Unanswered questions

Meghan said in her 19th* interview that she was looking forward to using her voice to speak out. How will she do so?