Meghan and Harry: Should We Love Them Or Hate Them?
This Sunday, facing Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will take the light to the point of perhaps burning their wings. Since the Megxit, they rocked protocol, disappointed the Queen, and crushed Kate and William. The Sussex point, at a time when nothing is going well.
In 2017, the beginnings of their love story sounded like an “English” dream. Actress Meghan Markle, like a Grace Kelly in Instagram sauce, falling into the arms of the rebel but fragile Prince Windsor, devastated by the death of his mother. Obviously, the United Kingdom has a passion for this emerging couple, more thoughtful than Charles and Diana, and less perfect than Kate and William. And the entire United States is turning to Buckingham for the first time, adding some 320 million potential viewers to the endless soap opera of the British monarchy. Their miraculous meeting in London fascinates young girls in bloom, their royal wedding in Windsor fascinates the crowds, the announcement of Meghan's pregnancy arrives as the best news of 2018. After the passion of the first months, however, the first are formulated criticism and some old unearthed "files" emerge (family problems, paternal letters ...). Media love lasts maybe three years, too.
Once upon a time ... in Buckingham
It all started, as a reminder, with five resignations. Between summer 2018 and spring 2019, Prince Harry's advisor, Meghan Markle's personal assistant and two Kensington Palace communications officials slam the door of the Sussexes cottage. Then, it was the couple's private secretary who left the post she had held for seventeen years. Involved in these different departures: Meghan's outbursts of anger, the freedoms taken by the couple with the sacrosanct protocol and "the six or seven leaflets that the new Duchess sends every day to her assistants with her ideas and its demands, ”says the Daily Mail.
The world therefore falls into two categories. Those who can not stand it any longer and readily nickname it “Me-gain”, a nickname referring to its increasingly high demands and its supposedly excessive taste for luxury. And those who support it, valuing its positions and its independence vis-Ã -vis the protocol. The latter, whose number is set to wane as more complaints emerge, such as those unearthed by The Times on March 3. Several sources told the prestigious English daily that Prince Harry's wife harassed two personal assistants and undermined the trust of a third, using what they called "her emotional cruelty".
The arrival of Archie and the separation of the royal houses
If the birth in May 2019 of Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, seventh in the order of succession to the throne of the United Kingdom, calms tensions for a time, the Sussexes do not benefit much from this moment of media grace, Meghan not changing in no way his Hollywood habits - and refusing the traditional photo at the exit of the maternity hospital. The separation of the royal houses of William and Harry, announced in March 2020 by Kensington Palace, e nds up crystallizing tensions.
Officially, the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex separate their professional lives (with different staffs, projects and modes of communication). Unofficially, we are leaning towards a media war between Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle and a potential quarrel between the two brothers. Either way, the perpesctive seems the same: let the Cambridges shine, and mute the Sussexes, as the Queen would like.
Inappropriate expenses and travel to South Africa
t yet. The months went by and got worse. First there were the three nannies recruited in just six weeks, the exorbitant cost of the work undertaken at Frogmore Cottage (Meghan and Harry's new home on the Windsor estate) and, finally, the four round trips in private jet made in August 2019, and annoyingly contradictory with the - much claimed - commitment of the couple in favor of the environment ... "The recent behavior of the couple is a disaster for the image of Buckingham Palace, which has it is also difficult to manage them, ”says author Lady Colin Campbell, an expert on the British royal family. "It is clearly Meghan who is in charge, but it is a novice who plays in the big leagues and who spoils everything in the most catastrophic way possible", she laments, while a mad petition even calls for the withdrawal of the titles of "Duke and Duchess of Sussex" to Meghan and Harry. Meanwhile, the Cambridges are taking low-cost flights and Kate is causing a sensation with earrings ... at 6 euros.
Admittedly, Meghan and Harry's official trip to South Africa comes at the right time to restore the couple's image. The photos of Archie all smiles in Cape Town, Meghan's swaying dance, the reaffirmation of Harry's environmental commitment, the love kiss on Monwabisi beach ... Everything is there to make the most virulent forget the misdeeds supposed from the princely couple, if only for a few days. A few days, precisely, before this official press release from Prince Harry denouncing the unhealthy ambiguity of the tabloids; even threatening to attack some of them too often attacking his wife.
A predefined destiny
In October 2020, it's done. Harry files a complaint against The Sun and The Daily Mirror, which he accuses of having hacked certain voicemail messages on his personal mobile phone. Meghan, meanwhile, filed a complaint against DMG Media (publisher of the Daily Mail) for misuse of personal information, copyright infringement and violation of the Data Protection Act 2018, after the tabloid published a letter from his father in its pages. Trial she just won, at the beginning of February.
The couple isolated themselves, and announced that they wanted to take a step back from their role - so far preponderant - within the royal family: "We intend to distance ourselves as" leading "members of the royal family, and to work towards becoming financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen. ” The couple add that they plan to no longer just live in their cottage in Frogmore, Windsor, but to settle halfway in North America. The British press sounded the start of “Megxit”.
2021, the turning point
They settle in Los Angeles, far from missions and protocol, in March 2020. There, they emancipate themselves. Keen to build a charity that “makes sense” in their own words, they create an organization focused on awareness-raising around mental health, Archewell. They also sign a multi-year contract with Spotify, to whom they have promised a series of podcasts, produced by their own company Archewell Audio; and a colossal deal with Netflix, which could amount to up to $ 99 million (83 million euros), according to an expert. On the menu: the production of documentaries, docu-series, films, series and children's programs.
To date, none of their projects has yet officially seen the light of day. Other news are responsible for reminding us of the existence of the Sussexes every week. Meghan Markle's second pregnancy, for example, announced on February 14 with a photo of the Duchess in a white dress, lying in the grass. Or the multiple teasers of what promises to be the event of the year in the United States after the election of Joe Biden, namely the interview of Meghan and Harry with Oprah Winfrey, broadcast in prime time on the 7th March on the American channel CBS. Buckingham is already shaking with it, and Elizabeth II herself has decided to speak to her subjects for a few hours on BBC One to, it is said as if we believe, to celebrate Commonwealth Day.
Wrong way ?
The unanswered questions, however, remain as follows: Are Meghan and Harry on the wrong track or are they doomed to this, ultimately, to be loved, unloved, praised, lynched, admirable and scandalous? Are they finally there to distract viewers from the monarchical soap opera (even attract new ones), while Kate and William prepare to become queen and king - much to the delight of early adopters?
Is Meghan Markle a tyrannical diva, as some of her staff have said - and still say so? Morally fragile, could Prince Harry be under the influence of this wife who has achieved the feat, in just three years, of cracking an unshakeable Crown?
“Meghan didn't come with her dowry, but with a million Instagram followers,” biographer Andrew Morton told us in 2018. In other words, the monarchy has entered an era beyond its control. Perhaps she catches a glimpse of the dark result in the distance.
