The Markle family debacle
As Harry and Meghan prepared for their big day, members of the bride’s family threatened to turn the event into a soap opera
SEVEN years ago a handsome prince took his darkhaired love to be his lawful wedded wife and the world rejoiced. Young, goodlooking, in love – it was the warm and fuzzies all the way. But let’s not forget that, by the time Prince William wed Kate Middleton, every inch of her life and those of her family had been pulled apart. And the Middletons were found wanting in some ways.
Here’s a quick refresher: Kate’s parents, Carole and Michael, made a living selling party supplies online. In other words, they were new money – and new money is often scoffed at by those in the upper echelons of British society. If you didn’t have a title and a family home in the country, were you worthy to wed a Windsor?
To top it all, Carole was a former flight attendant who, if gossip was to be believed, had sent her daughter to St Andrew’s University in the heady hope of her landing a certain student prince.
Oh, and Carole said “toilet” instead of “loo” – and anyone with an ounce of class knows you don’t say toilet!
Still, anything the Middletons could do, the Markles could do better. Or worse, as it turns out. Because as Meghan prepared to marry Harry, things were spiralling out of control. And in her case, her own family were feeding the beast.
Forget the Markle sparkle – this was the Markle debacle.
YOU just couldn’t make it up. As the UK’s Independent put it, “it reads like the script of some overblown daytime TV soap”. And it does. A beautiful Hollywood
actress called Meghan Markle meets a cute prince on a blind date and they fall head over heels in love.
In no time she’s being hailed as the best thing that could ever happen to the royal family – vivacious, gorgeous, confident and worldly. She’s also of mixed race, bringing a breath of diverse fresh air into her prince’s lily-white family.
Her prince is smitten, his family love her and it looks like the fairytale to end all fairytales. But the fates are conspiring against our lovely heroine.
In one corner: her father, Thomas Markle, a man the bride loves but who’s clearly troubled. In the countdown to the wedding he’s photographed in an internet café, googling news about his daughter and her beloved. A few days later it turns out he colluded with the paparazzi, accepting $100 000 (R1,25 million) in exchange for posing for the shots, which are sold all over the world.
Then he claims he’s had a heart attack, although he’s spotted loading up on fast food at McDonald’s and KFC almost immediately afterwards.
In another corner: the bride’s half-sister, Samantha Grant, who admits the whole staged-picture plan was her idea.
She’s in a wheelchair as a result of multiple sclerosis – and while the world is still digesting the pictures scandal she’s involved in a car crash and breaks her foot. She blames the paparazzi – they were chasing her, she says.
But police are baffled as there’s no evidence of harassment and one commentator wonders if Samantha might have a Princess Diana complex.
Samantha has also been trying to get her moment of fame ever since her sister hooked up with her prince and even penned a book, meanly titled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister.
Meanwhile, Thomas announces he won’t be at his daughter’s wedding as he wants to save her further embarrassment. Then he’s admitted to hospital for heart surgery and all possibility of his attendance is ruled out.
Meghan is upset and witnesses say she and her prince are in floods of tears during the wedding rehearsal.
And in the third corner: Thomas Markle Jnr, Meghan’s half-brother and possibly the worst of the lot. Weeks before the wedding he composes a handwritten letter (which he shares with In Touch magazine) to the prince urging him not to marry Meghan. “She’s obviously not the right one for you,” he says. “This is the biggest mistake in royal history.”
He accuses her of using their father until he was bankrupt, then dropping him like a hot potato when fame came calling.
“It’s apparent that her tiny bit of Hollywood fame has gone to her head, changing her into a jaded, shallow, conceited woman that will make a joke of you and the royal family heritage,” he writes.
Thomas Jnr then seems to have a change of heart just before the wedding, saying his sister will make a beautiful bride and all’s well. He’s still not invited.
You have to wonder: what on earth does Queen Elizabeth make of it all? It’s easy to imagine her muttering “those dreadful Americans” into her tea.
But hold your horses, royal commentators say: the Windsors are hardly perfect themselves. In fact, they have enough drama and scandal in their background to script a soap opera all their own.
Some critics have even laid the blame for the whole Markle debacle squarely on their royal shoulders.
EVEN the most hardened cynic would have to admit that Meghan and Harry’s wedding was beautiful. But it was hard not to feel sorry for Doria Ragland, the mother of the bride. S Everyone seemed to have someone by their side except her (although Oprah was on her own too – pity they didn’t team up). And Doria, while poised and lovely, had an air of loneliness about her.
This could easily have been avoided, those in the know say. Doria flew into Britain only three days before the wedding, barely enough time to get over the jet lag of her 11-hour flight from Los Angeles. Why didn’t the royal family PR machine insist on her arriving in the UK with weeks to spare, helping her only daughter prepare for her big day?
“She should have been holed up in a swanky suite in Kensington Palace, trying on hats, choosing sugared almonds and generally guiding her daughter through the final preparations,” the Daily Mail’s Sarah Vine says.
Royal writer Richard Kay believes all the dreadfulness could have been avoided if “Buckingham Palace, normally a finely tuned machine, hadn’t been so ineptly disorganised”.
“If only senior voices at the palace had whispered in Harry’s ear that the bride keeping her family on the outside with their noses pressed against the window pane was bound to mean trouble.”
The drama around Meghan’s dad could’ve been avoided too if the palace powers had had their wits about them. “It was utterly misguided for royal advisors not to have realised that this lonely, cash-strapped man would struggle to deal with the enormity of his daughter’s wedding.”
But if Thomas had made it to the wedding, he would’ve met Harry only hours before the ceremony, which would’ve been “absurdly unworkable”.
“If only someone had given thought about how best to include Mr Markle,” Kay says.
Which raises the question: why not Meghan herself? She has a big heart for many charitable causes and has devoted much time to such issues. But doesn’t charity begin at home? Surely reaching out to him could’ve helped dampen some of the drama?
Ah well, what’s done is done. And let’s face it: after a wedding like that, the warm and fuzzies are winning through again.