What do you do when things get toxic at the top?
somewhat bewildered Meghan asked her press officer to deny the drift of negative stories, only to be confronted with the age-old palace argument that if they denied one, they have to deny them all, and then those stories that weren’t denied would, rightly or wrongly, be perceived as true.
All the more frustrating for an actor who once had a million-plus followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, hanging on her every post, not being allowed to punch back.
In her eyes – and those of her husband – she was a team player who tried manfully to fit in since joining the Royal family. Hadn’t she done everything expected of her, and more? And this was how she was treated?
Diana told me that her first year of royal life had been “exhausting”. But Meghan has, in the words of her aides, hit the ground running. She has performed more than 100 engagements, flown the flag of her adopted country abroad, given speeches, helped the Duke write his own and contributed to a bestselling cookbook in aid of the Grenfell Tower victims. She has taken on patronages, looked glamorous, joined in, and always been ready for her close-up.
She has smiled, and smiled, and smiled again. Much of this while pregnant. Oh, and she has overseen the redecoration of two homes. Next week, at the bidding of the Queen and the Government, the 30-plus weeks’ pregnant Duke and Duchess will fly to Morocco on a state visit.
For Meghan the actress, there were often prizes galore. But even in the midst of awards season – the 91st Oscars take place next Sunday – for a member of the Royal family, there are no added glories. It is a state of play that Diana never got used to, either. “Never got a ‘Well done’ or a pat on the back,” she told me.
Though Meghan and Diana were from totally different backgrounds, generations and upbringing, neither were remotely prepared for their royal lives that lay ahead. Meghan was redcarpet, not Royal family-ready.
“It was a really stark difference,” admitted Meghan, now 37, in her engagement interview. “I didn’t have any understanding of what it would be like.”
Even though Diana had no internet trolling to navigate and was raised literally next door to the Royal family in Norfolk, life in the public eye was still daunting; it took her years to get used to the attention.
As she famously told me for her biography: “One minute I was nobody, the next minute I was Princess of Wales: mother, media toy, member of this family, you name it – and it was too much for one person.”
This disconnect between the reality of Meghan’s life and the unfair way she sees herself now portrayed has doubtless encouraged her to take a leaf straight from Princess Diana’s playbook – to go over the head of the Palace and allow her friends to speak on her behalf.
However, she did not fully take into account Newton’s Third Law of media handling – that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Her friends’ criticism of Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle – for his staging of paparazzi shots, attacking Prince Harry and dismissing the British monarchy as a secretive cult like Scientology – drew an immediate response from the retired lighting director himself. This week, he released to the media a five-page handwritten letter from his daughter that she had sent him last August.
She described how his eccentric behaviour before her wedding, which
he had been too unwell to attend, had “broken her heart into a million pieces”, and pleaded with him to stop consorting with the tabloids.
Don’t think for a moment that this family feud is going to end any time soon. There is the little matter of baby Sussex arriving in April. Amid the joy and delight will be a public lament from Meghan’s father wondering if he will ever be allowed to see the child.
Meghan has been cursed with a family from hell, and they are not going to release her from purgatory that easily.
If it is any consolation to the Duchess, Diana, too, fell out with a parent, her mother, after her wedding, having complained that Frances Shand Kydd wasn’t as supportive as she could have been. That estrangement, though, took place in private – without a curious public being handed a ringside seat.
It is remarkable how these two women, lifetimes and worlds apart, have enjoyed so many Sliding Doors moments. When I was researching my biography, I noted how often those who knew Meghan as a young woman spontaneously mentioned the D-word in the same breath.
Comparisons are inevitable – her secret visit last February to comfort the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire and her subsequent involvement with their charity revived memories of Diana’s own trips to the homeless on London’s South Bank.
Both women shared a humanitarian mission, both charismatic, their glamour offset by a spiritual dimension, a profound belief that they had a “calling” to use their position to make a difference.
Of course the ultimate irony of Clooney’s concern about Meghan is that unlike the late princess, she has scarcely been bothered by the paparazzi during her life in the Royal family. Both William and Harry have aggressively used privacy legislation and other legal arm twisting to keep unwanted photographers at bay. It is a strategy that seems to have worked.
Meghan is a flag-bearer for a new breed of confident, articulate and assertive women whose high heels are aimed firmly at the glass ceiling. But the presence of a mixed-race American inside the Royal family is both a challenge and an opportunity. For some, she is intimidating; witness the online trolling that, King Canute-like, aides try and erase (Kensington Palace is kept busy deleting an epidemic of body-shaming comment aimed at both Meghan and Kate). To her enthusiastic cheerleaders, the Duchess is inspiring, making the monarchy seem relevant and inclusive.
When she was a teenager, Meghan talked about one day being “Diana 2.0”. For now, she is more accurately described as “Meghan 1.0” – but she will have learned a great deal from the tumultuous events of the last few days. And, hanging in the air, there remains a definite feeling that we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Meghan has been cursed with a family from hell, and they are not going to release her from purgatory that easily