A ROYAL PAIN
Megxit? What’s it? And here we go again. America has always dined on the delicious droppings off and under England’s royal table.
As a journalist dispatched to England from 1981 to 2013 to cover the British royal family at weddings, leisure, or each other’s throats, it was a chance to watch the Brit tabloid press sprout like mushrooms after rain reporting on royal missteps and misdeeds.
The latest version of the War of Independence — the hasty exit to America by England’s Prince Harry and his American actress wife, Meghan Markle, to escape bullying from the Brit press and crippling royal family control — is yet another paean to royal pain.
The new royal rift surfaced this week in advance of a well publicized Oprah interview Sunday with America’s transplanted British royalty, known simply as “Harry and Meghan,” who are also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Enter Oprah!
Originally intended to showcase the couple’s new life in America away from England’s royal interference and bullying primarily by the pens of the Brit tabloid press, a pregnant Markle, expecting her second child, was sent a Brit brick this week in advance of the interview with Oprah, a friend who attended their royal wedding.
Only this time Meghan was the subject of a story in the mainstream Times of London newspaper accusing her of bullying her royal staff while living at Kensington Palace in October 2018, before the couple’s headline-grabbing wedding.
Based on a formal complaint filed in October 2018 with the palace by a member of the royal staff, the report accuses her of bullying and distressing her royal aides so seriously that two of them fled the royal household.
Tears were mentioned.
The accusations were then followed closely by news that Buckingham Palace, the royal family’s personal PR juggernaut known as “The Firm,” felt the allegations were serious enough to investigate! Crikey!
By the way, the titular head of “The Firm” is Queen Elizabeth, Harry’s grandmother — who is awaiting word on the recovery of her 99-year-old husband, Prince Phillip, from a heart procedure this week.
Drama. Drama. Pain. Trauma. Oprah is now making it clear “there is no subject that is off limits.”
Although royal tabloid watchers (reporters) were notorious in the past for making stuff up, there was always plenty of royal gravy to be absorbed by London’s 10-plus healthy newspapers! Consider:
The insulting theatrics of royal divorcee Princess Margaret ,a notorious table mate from hell, who demanded a curtsy and bow before entering her swimming pool on the isle of Mustique. She also made headlines calling the Irish “pigs” during a private party she attended in a very Irish 1970s Chicago.
Princess Diana’s secret royal love letter stash at London’s popular San Lorenzo Italian eatery during a secret dalliance; and her affair with Brit cavalry officer James Hewitt, the cad who eventually told.
The infamous phone-sex tapes between Prince Charles and his mistress (now wife) Camilla Parker-Bowles, which were as weird as his conversations with plants to encourage growth.
Prince Andrew’s murky playboy friendship with notorious sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and whose name appeared on an FBI list of possible people to question.
The escapades of Sarah Ferguson, the incredibly likable “Fergie,” the ex-wife of Prince Andrew, once caught attempting to sell access to her ex-husband because she was cash strapped.
“Fergie” has since been shut out of Brit royal weddings, including Harry and Meghan’s, on the orders of the Queen.
But there are few who have the media power of Oprah.
In snippets of Oprah’s interview released in advance of its airing Sunday, Prince Harry, a witness to his mother Diana’s lack of protection at the hands of the Brit press, opines thankfulness to be there to protect his wife because he doesn’t want history repeating itself.
And although Markle’s sparkle has dimmed because of this latest brickbat lobbed across the pond, her press response via handlers cited determination, “to continue her work building compassion around the world ... striving to set an example for doing what is right and doing what is good.”
So here’s the problem: The royal watch is a hungry beast, and since the tragic death of Lady Diana in hot pursuit by the world press, who else in the stilted, dour House of Windsor can match the “royal” glitz and glamour of Harry and Meghan?
Tell me?
Tally-ho, but stay tuned.
Sneedlings . . .
Saturday birthdays: Shaquille O’Neal, 49; Tim Howard, 42; and Tyler, the Creator, 30 . ... Sunday birthdays: Amanda Gorman,
23; Wanda Sykes, 57; and Jenna Fischer, 47.