Meghan’s TV chat to be a Rolls-Royce car crash
IT MAY be not saying much in these Covid times but I know exactly where I will be at 9.30pm tomorrow – parked in front of the TV, popcorn at the ready for Oprah Winfrey’s hotly anticipated royal interview. After a week of accusations and counter-accusations, dripfed across the Atlantic Ocean, and a public slanging match, I can’t wait for the next instalment in The Windsors At War.
Team Royal Family has 10 palace staff willing to testify that Meghan is a bully while Team Sussex accuses Camilla and Kate of leaking stories about Meghan.
The backstabbing and hot-tempered intrigues include charges of racism on the part of the courtiers and of Meghan’s greed for freebies and fancy couture.
And while it’s certain that Meghan will spend much of her two hours with Oprah wittering on about motherhood and her grandiose compassion projects, the segment on her stepping back or stepping away, whatever she calls it, from the royal family will be scrutinised as forensically as Diana’s Panorama interview.
IN BRITAIN, there is resentment at Meghan, a mere TV actress preferring tawdry Tinseltown to its most august institution, whose spectacular displays of pomp and ceremony and weight of history makes it, or so it likes to think, the envy of the world. The saga is also personal in parts of the US, where people fell for the fairy tale of an American princess only to see it disintegrate into rancour and rejection.
Here, though, the fascination is more primitive; what we are viewing is a car crash and, as with all unfolding disasters, we can’t look away.
What caused it is another story – a clash of cultures between the frosty world of royal privilege and precedent and the fast-moving celebrity world with its exacting demands and work ethic or something more run of the mill, a style of family feud that is universal, where a newcomer is the catalyst.
It goes without saying that Meghan Markle was not a traditional royal bride.
She would not budge an inch for protocol and had no intention of taking her place below Prince Charles and William in the hierarchy.
On her only joint outing with the Queen she ignored advice to wear a hat. She threw a fit
about her wedding tiara.
By choosing Meghan, Prince Harry signalled his willingness to steer a course away from his destiny.
Their cutting loose from royal life would be no big deal, were it not for the existence they have chosen, donning the mantle of victimhood while hustling for publicity.
AND all the while lecturing us on everything from unconscious bias and feminism to kindness and the environment. The world has changed dramatically
since Harry and Meghan had their plans for a more progressive monarchy – one where they could attend the grandest royal occasions while remaining free to trouser fees for speaking engagements and red carpet appearances – rebuffed by the Queen and it will shift some more when the pandemic ends and workers must bear the cost of recovery.
As hunger and homelessness and a tsunami of mental health problems threaten an uncertain world, what place will there be for a mega-wealthy and entitled couple with a messianic complex but no real qualifications to speak of?
In that sense the Oprah interview may be the last turn at the rodeo for deluded and selfimportant celebrities spouting ‘do good’ platitudes at the little people. And that’s the reason why I, for one, can’t wait.