It seems inconceivable that a princess-to-be such as Meghan Markle would not be familiar with the story of Sleeping Beauty.
Enraged at not being invited to the christening of the king’s daughter, a bad fairy wreaks a terrible revenge by casting a spell that condemns the king’s beloved child to fall asleep forever upon reaching adulthood.
So why on earth didn’t Meghan just hold her nose and invite the bad fairies—or in this case the jealous siblings—to her wedding, and be done with it?
ADVERTISEMENT
Instead, Meghan chose to exclude them from the guest list for her wedding to Prince Harry next month.
The move appears to have dramatically backfired, with two siblings now trashing her in the media on an almost daily basis.
While Meghan’s half-sister, Samantha Grant, has little credibility, having been disowned by her own mother and having blatantly sought to cash in on her sibling’s fame the moment the engagement was announced by saying she would be penning a book entitled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister (now, apparently, changed to the less confrontational A Tale of Two Sisters), the decision of her brother, Thomas Markle Jr., to give an interview slamming his sister is a more worrying development.
Markle Jr., in an interview with the historically anti-royal Daily Mirror, said that Meghan’s refusal to invite them has “torn my entire family apart… Meg likes to portray herself as a humanitarian, a people’s person and a charitable person but she is none of those things to her family.
“She is giving the greatest performance of her life. She is acting phoney. Once she got into Hollywood she turned into a different person. She’s clearly forgotten her roots and her family.
“Maybe the normal American family she has is embarrassing to her because we’re not producers and executive producers.”
Thomas Markle’s outburst has done little to flatter him. His previous history with the law notwithstanding—he was arrested last year for allegedly holding a gun to his girlfriend’s head in a drunken rage—his jealous and ungracious airing of grievances shows exactly why Meghan wants him as far away from Windsor Castle as possible on May 19.
It’s now perhaps easier to understand why Harry said of his and Meghan’s Christmas at the queen’s country estate, Sandringham, that it was, for her, like experiencing the family “she has never had.”
But Tom Markle’s story is generating coverage, as are his sister’s aggressive tweets. Samantha posted this week, saying: “It’s time to ‘man up’ @HRHHenryWindsor. ‘Shout outs’ about humanitarianism, don’t work when you are allowing Meg to ignore the Markles. It is s [sic] contradiction.”
The argument cuts some ice among those who generally hate the royals already or have, for whatever reason, taken a dislike to Meghan.
As Samantha Grant has previously said, why invite hundreds of “complete strangers” to your wedding and not your family?
The answer may be the quite reasonable that you are not close, but the decision not to invite Samantha and Tom Jr. may turn out to be a strategic error.
As the writer Christopher Andersen, author of best selling e-book Diana’s Boys told The Daily Beast: “Even if she can’t stand them, well, as the Mafia saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
“Meghan has been extremely cautious about not making a misstep, and she worries that her loose-cannon relatives will do something to ruin her standing in the eyes of her in-laws.
“One can’t blame her, but at the same she might have avoided all this negative publicity and incessant speculation by simply inviting them and letting the chips fall where they may.
“It’s doubtful her siblings would have gone to the press to complain if they’d simply been included.
“As for William and Kate, there were plenty of relatives and friends who had generated negative headlines in the past—William and Harry’s pal Guy Pelly, Kate’s uncle Gary Goldsmith, to name a few—but they were all invited and all behaved themselves.”
The royal biographer Penny Junor concurred, telling The Daily Beast: “Maybe it would have been safer to have invited them. I think most people would be sympathetic. We all have ghastly relatives lurking somewhere.”
The other reason for inviting the troublesome relatives to the wedding would have been that if they had been ensconced inside St George’s Chapel, they would not have been able to be anywhere else—such as in the studios or commentary boxes of TV channels, which both now certainly will be.
Tom Markle Jr. may not be the most sympathetic of characters but he’ll be in demand on the day his sister is the most famous woman in the world, even if it’s just as a Jerry Springer-esque sideshow exhibit, the flip side of the Princess Meghan fairytale that has captivated America.
The enthusiasm with which platforms have been provided to Tom Markle, 51, and Samantha Grant, 53, by the British press should also provide a warning to Meghan of just how ready the British press will be to switch from their current everything-she-touches-turns-to-gold attitude to portraying her in a much more negative light.
If they can dig up some dirt, it will sell a ton of papers.
And the angry outbursts of her siblings also beg another, troubling question—where is Markle’s dad in all this?
The journalist and writer Andrew Morton has claimed that her dad, Thomas Markle Sr., will be there, writing that the retired lighting director has been “going for fittings for his new morning suit.”
He has stayed out of the limelight since news of Meghan and Harry’s relationship broke, but there is no disputing that Meghan has had a difficult relationship with Thomas.
In one recently unearthed video clip, she was seen, as a teen, saying she had fallen out with him.
Earlier reports that he was going to be walking Meghan down the aisle are no longer being bandied about by journalists with the confidence they once were.
Is he even coming?
The palace did not reply to queries from The Daily Beast on that question.
Let’s hope he is.
Because as every student of Grimm’s Fairy Tales (let alone King Lear) knows, a jealous sibling is one thing, but an irate father is quite another.
