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Duchess Meghan is taking to her role as a royal
The former actress is growing into new role
After 100 days in the glare of a different kind of spotlight, the former actress looks like she’s fitting right in.
In fairy tales, you’ll recall, you never hear about what happens after the handsome prince marries Cinderella. But in the real-life modern era of social media and 24/7 coverage, we can all suss out if they really do live happily ever after.
It has been a little more than 100 days since Prince Harry, 33, married Meghan Markle, 37, in a breathtaking wedding at Windsor Castle, broadcast and livestreamed to billions around the world May 19.
Now that they’ve had some time to themselves and carried out public appearances representing Britain’s royal family, it’s fair to ask: How’s she doing?
Is the former American actress adjusting well to the royal life of duty and public service? Has she worn the right clothes, said the right things, curtsied the right way during public engagements? Does she look happy and confident? Does he look happy and proud? Yes, yes, yes and yes.
Most important, does Queen Elizabeth II look pleased? As a matter of fact, she does.
Lots of observers, from professional royals watchers to ordinary Brits, also seem to think Meghan is a hit as a newbie royal: graceful, personable, wellprepared, stylish and very much in love.
Off-duty, they’re enjoying weekends in the gorgeous Cotswold countryside about 90 miles from London, where reports say they have rented an estate while renovations continue at their Kensington Palace home base.
And, according to Sally Bedell Smith, the American writer whose biographies of the royals are best-sellers, they’ve adopted a dog – a black Labrador named Oz – who joins her rescue beagle Guy as part of the Sussex family. With a much-anticipated international tour Down Under coming up in the fall, it looks as if the future is gold for Their Royal Highnesses.
Except for one problem: What to do about Daddy? Her 74-year-old father, Thomas Markle Sr., not to mention her obstreperous Markle half-siblings, Samantha Grant and Thomas Markle Jr., all regularly turn up on TV and in the tabloids in Britain, carping, criticizing and grumbling about Meghan, Harry, his family and even the queen.
So far, Meghan’s success as a royal seems to have insulated her from public humiliation if not private sorrow. Instead, members of her new family, starting with the queen, have gone out of the way to show support.
The 92-year-old monarch is a woman who rarely lets her emotions show, but she appeared delighted to spend a day with Meghan on a series of engagements in Cheshire in June; she invited her to spend the night with her on the Royal Train – a rare privilege even Harry hasn’t been granted.
Meghan “has done very well. It’s a steep learning curve, quite an initiation,” says CNN royals contributor Victoria Arbiter, daughter of a former press secretary to the queen who spent some growing-up years at Kensington Palace.
Arbiter says you can see Meghan’s confidence growing with each appearance. “But she really shined that day out with the queen. It was an exceptional day, and they both looked very happy. That day was the highlight.”
Meghan has handled herself with dignity and composure at a series of public engagements, including a wellregarded two-day visit to Dublin, Ireland in July, Smith says.
“She has a lot of warmth, and he has charisma, and both are approachable with crowds,” Smith says. “Because of her background (American, biracial, a former actress on ‘Suits’), she’s already brought a lot of people into the fold of royal fans who were either indifferent or hostile. Now they look on her as a member of a family that is inclusive and very 21st-century. They are real assets for the image of the modern royal family.”
People who thought Meghan was going to “revolutionize” the royal family had it wrong, Arbiter says. “She showed she’s not interested in revolution. She wants to show up and do what she’s supposed to do and do it well,” Arbiter said. “She’s incredibly smart and strategic in the approach she is following. She’s done her homework the way an actress does research for a role.”
Meanwhile, the Markles are talking, talking, talking about their resentment of not being invited to the wedding and about Meghan’s relationship with her father. Markle Sr., a retired Hollywood lighting director who lives in Mexico south of Tijuana, missed the wedding because he said he was too sick to travel. Ever since, he says, he has had little contact with his daughter except for a few tense phone calls, including one with Harry, who chided him for talking to the media.
Markle could not or would not stop. Instead, he told TMZ, with whom he has chatted often for months, that he was miffed the queen planned to meet with President Donald Trump (in July) before she met him.
“If the queen is willing to meet our ar- rogant, ignorant and insensitive president, she has no excuse not to meet me. I’m nowhere near as bad,” he complained on July 26.
Later, he compared the royal family to Scientologists. “They are either like Scientologists or the Stepford family,” he told The Sun, “because they are secretive.”
Smith, whose royal sources are deep, says she knows “for a fact” that Meghan has been distressed by her family’s behavior. “One thing she stopped doing is reading the press because it was too upsetting,” Smith said.
Her family’s public outbursts are no doubt painful and embarrassing, but are they permanently damaging to Meghan or her marriage or the royal family? The consensus seems to be no, because eventually the Markles will lose their news value and the TV shows and tabloids will no longer be interested.
“There’s not a lot he can say to add to what he’s already said,” Smith says. “If he wants a relationship with his daughter, he’d be wise to do what he can to get over his feelings of hurt and betrayal.”
Can Meghan’s relationship with her father ever be repaired? Possibly, but it can’t happen with the public watching, Smith says. She points to Meghan’s private secretary, Samantha Cohen, a highly regarded former top aide to the queen, as a potential daddy whisperer whose discretion is unchallenged.
“She has good instincts, and if there is a way of repairing this, she could be crucial in helping to guide them to get to a rapprochement,” Smith says. “I suspect that on some level they are already trying to work things out . ... There must be a way to mend what is obviously a very painful situation.”
Meghan “has done very well. It’s a steep learning curve, quite an initiation.”
Victoria Arbiter CNN royals contributor