Every great love story needs a villain.
And in the ongoing romantic drama of Harry and Meghan, the role is being filled (in true fairy-tale style) by Meghan’s wicked half-sister, Samantha Markle, whose latest ruse is to threaten to come to London this week, on the pretext of wishing to discuss her and Meghan’s father’s health with England’s newest princess.
The announcement was made by her publicist, on Twitter of course.
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So, Meghan’s not aware of Samantha’s attempts to embroil her in a tawdry public row?
Right.
It is obvious even to the most credulous observer that Samantha’s intended arrival into London is a pure publicity stunt. If the primary concern was her father’s health, she would perhaps recall that even her weak and easily led father, Thomas Markle (another character straight out of Fairy Tale central casting), has previously begged her to shut up, saying her outbursts make him stressed, and that he has to “pop a Valium” every time she takes to the airwaves to trash her half-sister (although we must admit the question of why he has taken to doing the same presents an unfathomable contradiction).
Hanging out at Starbucks on Kensington Gore clearly isn’t going to increase the likelihood of Meghan taking time out of her busy schedule for a chat with Samantha. Meghan has made it very clear she does not wish to ever see her half-sister again, by not inviting to her wedding or, indeed, seeing her for the decade preceding her nuptials.
Geography doesn’t come into it.
Samantha’s only possible motivation for flying to London to make a scene is if she suspects it will increase the amount of money she can make off TV appearances and her much-ballyhooed, but still unpublished book, originally entitled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, which has now been rethought and renamed, slightly more diplomatically, In the Shadows of the Duchess.
Public interest in Samantha’s increasingly pathetic attempts to try to force her half-sister to engage in a public war of words with her are subject to the law of diminishing returns well-known to every ice-cream eater—by the time you reach the twentieth lick of your dessert, you’ve kind of had enough.
Meghan has been criticized for not engaging with her family, and there is a clear argument that errors were made before the wedding. It was a strategic mistake not to just invite the embarrassing family members to the wedding and let the cards fall where they may.
But what is done cannot be undone, and to the cruel attempts of her half-sister and her father in particular to shame, humiliate, and belittle Meghan in the months since the wedding, there is only one possible response: a cold and dignified silence.
Meghan’s public embrace of her mother—who accompanied her on an official royal engagement this week—is a powerful rebuttal of the narrative that Meghan has somehow abandoned her family. Most children of separated parents would confess that they are closer to one than the other, that they perceive one parent as more sinned against than sinning.
There’s little doubt that even the usually loyal British public would be tempted to buy tickets for a Jerry Springer-style showdown between the two sisters, and such is her notoriety now that she might even sell a few books (if she ever gets a publishing deal), but Samantha Markle may be overestimating the appeal of a solitary voice screaming abuse at Meghan from the railings of Buckingham Palace, whatever her surname.
