Markle can still make Britons squirm
Reports emerged this week that joggers have been defecating outside Queen Elizabeth’s holiday home in Scotland and leaving wet wipes in their wake. And yet, not even this bit of ripe news — nor a global pandemic — can distract the tabloids from their favourite subject: Meghan Markle.
Markle, Prince Harry and baby Archie “Mexited” the U.K. for L.A. ages ago, but British tabloids are teeming with gossip about the couple nonetheless. The source of that gossip this week is a brand new book called “Royals at War: The Untold Story of Harry and Meghan’s Shocking Split with the House of Windsor.” According to the book’s authors, Dylan Howard and Andy Tillett, Markle did the unthinkable back in 2018: while in attendance at the wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank, she allegedly revealed to guests that she was pregnant with Archie.
From the book itself: “Later on at the reception Meghan put her foot in it when she decided that it would be the ideal moment to announce that she and Harry were expecting their first child. This was a huge social gaffe, even if you were not royal — stealing the limelight from Eugenie, who was furious, as was her mother Sarah.”
I have no clue if this is true. (Bazaar claimed in 2018 that the rumour — apparently a long-standing one — is false.) But true or false or somewhere in between, the notion that it’s distasteful to reveal happy news at someone else’s happy event — royal or not — is deeply petty. There’s wisdom in concealing bad news at a celebration. But good news? Bring it on. Personally, I’d have been elated if a friend or cousin revealed at my own wedding that they were pregnant, or engaged, or had passed the bar exam, or what have you. It takes a special combination of insecurity and stodginess to get cranky about good news at a wedding. And an even more potent combination of the two to feel upstaged by a fetus.
It’s ironic that despite their extravagant private jet-setting lifestyle, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have an ongoing history of making big news for doing things casually. Prince Harry proposed to Markle in 2017 over a dinner of roast chicken at home. Markle turned heads and, believe it or not, provoked controversy for closing her own car door and wearing jeans.
And now she is alleged to have let it slip at a party that she was with child.
The question is how does anybody — even stodgy royals — continue to care about these rigid social conventions in an era where the events at which they’re supposed to matter don’t even happen?
It’s interesting that a story about an alleged wedding faux pas is bombshell news today, during a global pandemic when wedding etiquette and weddings themselves are currently few and far between. This summer is the unofficial season of cancellations, postponements, virtual weddings and, increasingly, stripped down backyard ceremonies with 10 or fewer guests in attendance.
The so-called “micro-wedding,” previously a niche trend written about on lifestyle blogs, is now the only option available to many couples who wish to tie the knot before people other than themselves. Many of these couples have had to radically alter expectations for their big day. These are events at which formalities are relaxed, a single photographer stands at a safe distance, and everybody gets to sit at the head table because it’s the only table present.
In other words, these are events at which it’s hard to believe that a surprise pregnancy announcement a la the kind Markle allegedly made in 2018 would ruffle feathers. In the COVID era, any good news is welcome news, anytime, anywhere.
Even, I suspect, at Buckingham Palace.