DRAMA QUEEN
Callahan: Royal pain Meg’s Hollywood wiles and lies
The Duchess of Sussex has upstaged the queen again, columnist Maureen Callahan writes. Meghan Markle turned her accusation of racism into a dangerous guessing game that has roiled the royal family — and kept the Harry and Meghan soap opera going.
OF the many bombshells dropped Sunday night, truly upsetting was Meghan and Harry’s claim that a senior royal worried how “dark” their baby’s skin might be.
The palace didn’t even issue a denial. Within hours, the couple made it clear that it wasn’t the queen and it wasn’t her husband, Prince Philip.
So it happened.
But if you’re going to out a senior royal as racist, why not just say who it is? Don’t the British people, the taxpayers funding the monarchy, have a right to know? Who would ever blame Harry and Meghan for it?
I realize how cynical this may sound, but bear with me: In leaving the identity a mystery, this becomes Part 2 of Meghan and Harry’s story, played out as a warp-speed online parlor guessing game and media fixation, keeping Harry and Meghan at the top of the news cycle for at least the next few days.
Even Oprah Winfrey couldn’t get the name out of Meghan. When she tried with Harry, his response was telling.
“That conversation I am never going to share,” he said. “But at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked.”
That implies he was so close to this person, he wants to protect them, even after something so ugly. That he may even harbor hopes, someday, for reconciliation.
And so here we are, wondering which of the few senior royals is the racist: his father, Prince Charles, who walked Meghan down the aisle after her estrangement with her own father and who welcomed her mother, Doria? Prince William? Camilla or Kate? Professor Plum with the candlestick in the library?
I don’t mean to make light. But in not simply saying who the offender was, Harry and Meghan are casting the ugliest aspersion upon four of his closest relatives. Not a great strategy if Harry, as he seemed to gesture Sunday night, has hopes of someday patching up things.
As ITV News royal expert Chris Ship told The Sun, the couple, by extension, is blaming the queen, whom they otherwise professed to love and adore.
“Equally, they are criticizing the institution of which she is head,” Ship said, “and therefore you’re criticizing his grandmother, the queen.”
If you take the interview in total, it seems nothing short of a
calculated attempt to blow up the monarchy (“I wasn’t planning to say anything shocking!” — Megs), burn the crown to the ground and expose a dysfunctional family that cares not about mental health or Meghan’s suicidal impulses — hard to believe, given Harry, William and Kate’s very public, palacesanctioned work with mentalhealth advocacy.
So far, it seems to be working. #AbolishTheMonarchy is trending on Twitter. The tell-all is dominating headlines worldwide.
As with Diana’s infamous Panorama interview, the world can’t get enough of palace intrigue, betrayal and dastardly deeds.
That said, Meghan eluded a few scandals of her own: the rampant bullying that sent highly experienced staffers fleeing, at least one in tears. The instant entitlement that saw her go “mental” over blankets that weren’t her preferred shade of red. The blood diamonds from MBS. The false claim that their son, Archie, was denied a title because he isn’t 100 percent white — not, as is true, because he is a greatgrandchild of a ruling sovereign rather than grandchild or child.
When Charles becomes king, Archie may be granted a title. Although now . . .
Just a few other whoppers:
That Meghan knew zero about the royal family and barely knew who Harry was. That life inside palace walls felt “almost unsurvivable,” even though the queen “has always been wonderful to me” and that her husband, as the queen’s favorite grandchild, had a direct line to the crown.
That the royal family badgered and bullied and failed to protect them, even as the queen worked out an exit plan that left the door open for re-entry should these two crazy kids learn that their skills on the open market, sans the working-royal halo, prove less than profitable — especially as they planned to be so private. Yep, sounds like the actions of a coldblooded, Machiavellian racist old lady.
Also: Meghan, who hilariously claimed to have no involvement in the so-called tell-all book “Finding Freedom,” admitted last November that, in fact, she did help.
But not enough to generate headlines — that book was lighter than air. Nope. Meghan was holding back for Oprah, knowing how desperate she was to land an interview.
Meghan is a creature of Hollywood, after all, and she knows how to deliver a cliffhanger. Can’t wait to see what happens next.