MEGHAN AND THE MIDDLETONS

MEETING THE FAMILY

“William was longing to meet her and so was Kate,” Harry told the BBC of how he introduced his new girlfriend to his family, while Meghan gushed that Kate had been “wonderful”. The feeling certainly seems to be mutual. “It has been wonderful getting to know Meghan and to see how happy she and Harry are together,” Prince William and Princess Catherine declared in a joint statement last week. Meghan’s first introduction to the entire Middleton clan came when she was invited to Pippa Middleton’s wedding reception as Harry’s guest in May of this year. The Prince reportedly made a 100-mile round trip from Berkshire to London and back again to pick up his girlfriend so that she could join the party following Pippa’s high society marriage to financier James Matthews.

A COMMON BOND WITH KATE

No doubt Kate will be an enormous source of advice for Harry’s future bride, having herself married into the Royal family in 2011 under a similar tidal wave of details and press scrutiny of everything including the skeletons in her family’s closet — remember the infamous Uncle Gary Goldsmith. Like Princess Catherine, Meghan has a black sheep in the family. In 2016, two months after Meghan and Harry’s relationship was officially announced, her half-brother Thomas, (her father’s son from a previous marriage) was arrested during a domestic dispute. He had been drunk and allegedly wielded a fire-arm, but was released without charge, having apologised, and pledged to address his drinking.

PARTIES WITH PIPPA

Meanwhile, for light relief, it seems inevitable that Meghan might seek out friendship with her Royal Hotness Pippa Middleton who, as the most society-loving of the royal entourage, already boasts a constellation of celebrity friends. Pippa has embraced the glamorous, redcarpet lifestyle that Meghan will, to some degree, have to leave behind.