If Meghan is being treated like Royalty, I’m glad I’m a commoner
DO YOU remember when Meghan Markle was just the kind of breath of fresh air needed to sweep through the musty old corridors of the Royal Family?
Oh yes, we had Kate and Will but they had become a bit, well, staid what with his bald patch and her tan tights.
Meghan, however, was something different.
She was new and glamorous and American. A woman of colour, a Hollywood star, a charity worker and a gal used to running her own, highly successful life.
Meghan hadn’t snagged a Prince – he’d snagged her. What a coup for Harry! And the Royals! And Britain!
And the wedding! Didn’t she look fabulous? Didn’t she handle those difficult relatives well? And those photos of her and the Queen giggling together – even the Monarch loves her. Get her face on the teatowels and keyrings quick.
But that was last year and if a week is a long time in politics then six months is a lifetime when it comes to Royalty. Now, Meghan is that new friend we all loved in the beginning and have gone off.
She’s difficult, they say. Demanding and haughty and prone to self-pity. Staff at the palace have quit, others keep out of her way. She is conducting a ‘feud’ with Kate, they say, and has driven the two Royal brothers apart by insisting on moving home.
Meghan keeps cradling her bump in a ‘funny way’ too – obviously trying to draw more attention to herself. Her handwriting has been analysed – prone to ‘anger and self-pity’ was the conclusion – and she has now had the temerity to ‘change’ the way she speaks to sound more British.
Manipulative, you see. We knew it all along. Except we didn’t and we don’t.
All these stories, leaked by palace ‘insiders’ or people ‘close’ to the Royal household and merrily seized on by some parts of the British press, are hog-wash.
Perhaps she was demanding about her wedding. Show me a woman who isn’t. Maybe she and Kate aren’t best mates but so what? They are very different people. She wanted her own home – why is that a crime? And of course she’s changed the way she talks. She’s living in London, not LA, and is probably trying her very hardest to blend in.
What we’re seeing here is the peculiarly British sport of building someone up, placing them on a pedestal and then knocking them off. And it’s very ugly. You’d think we’d have learned our lesson after the treatment meted out to Lady Di, ultimately destroyed by the speculation and scrutiny which marked her life as a princess.
Here in 2019 nobody is pursuing Royalty on bikes or hiding in bushes but, thanks to social media, what’s being done to Meghan is just as bad.
Her every move, style choice and word is picked over and attacked. This is psychological warfare against a woman about to give birth whose only crime was to marry into a famous family.
Meghan has a public role but she isn’t public property; she’s just a human being who deserves better.