Will Meghan’s court case put more strain on her friendship with Jessica?
THEY were once inseparable, but the Duchess of Sussex’s friendship with stylist Jessica Mulroney could come under almost intolerable strain because of Meghan’s legal battle over privacy.
The relationship has already become fraught after 40-year-old Jessica dragged her pal into an online row over racism.
And if she is called to testify under oath about their friendship and what she knows of the Duchess during the case in London’s High Court, those bonds could be broken irreparably.
A mutual friend of the women said: ‘Meg needs to be careful. Jess is the keeper of her secrets. She knows where all the bodies are buried and she does not forgive and forget public disavowals easily. She is said to be keeping a note of everyone who has come out for or against her.’
The pair were once incredibly close, having met in Toronto when Meghan was filming the legal TV drama Suits, which made her name.
Jessica’s twin sons Brian and John, now nine, were pageboys at Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018, with her daughter Ivy a flower girl.
Jessica helped Meghan choose her wedding dress and was reportedly made a godmother to 14-month-old Archie, although she could not attend last year’s christening at Windsor Castle.
In turn, Meghan is Ivy’s godmother. But last month, Meghan failed to get in touch on Ivy’s seventh birthday, despite normally marking such celebrations with multiple presents.
The relationship appears to have cooled after Jessica became embroiled in a row with socialmedia influencer Sasha Exeter, who called for high-profile people to be more vocal in support of Black Lives Matter movement, which Jessica took to be a personal attack.
Ugly messages were sent behind the scenes, with Jessica reportedly threatening to harm Sasha’s career. When Sasha accused Jessica of trying to silence her, as a black woman, Jessica name-dropped her friendship with bi-racial Meghan as evidence that she wasn’t racist.
Jessica apologised, but lost lucrative TV jobs hosting a Canadian reality show and as a correspondent on Good Morning America.
Meghan’s publicists then briefed reporters that the Duchess was ‘mortified’ by her best friend’s behaviour and that she ‘could no longer be associated with her’.
Another friend told the New York Post their relationship was already on the way out, even before that row, because Meghan felt that Jessica was ‘making a career out of the friendship’.
‘The white privilege row has really given Meghan the excuse she was waiting for to cut Jess off for good,’ they said. ‘I don’t know what the tipping point was, but Jess has been on the outs for some time.
‘Their friendship is definitely not what it was. And really, how can you have such a close friendship when one person is basically making a career out of the friendship?’
Meghan’s court case against The Mail on Sunday revolves, in part, around five of her friends who spoke about the Duchess to America’s People magazine.
In the article, they mentioned a letter she sent to her father, Thomas, which is at the centre of the privacy claim.
The lawsuit last week revealed
Meghan’s anger with the Palace staff who she claim left her ‘unprotected’. Turning on her former courtiers, she claims the communications team ‘prohibited [her] from defending herself’.
That claim was met with incredulity by those who know her. ‘Anyone who has met the Duchess knows she cannot be prohibited from anything,’ said one source
The court case raises the possibility that staff who worked in Kensington and Buckingham Palaces may also be called as witnesses.
The court papers, detailed in written answers provided to The Mail on Sunday’s legal team by the Duchess’s lawyers, add to the very public fallout from the Sussexes’ departure from the UK.
The Duchess is suing The Mail on Sunday on the grounds of breach of privacy, data protection and copyright, over the publication of parts of the handwritten letter to her father.
‘Jessica made a career from their friendship’
frankly, irrelevant. Time, therefore, to up the ante. Letters sent to their UK charities such as Street Games, thanking them for work during the pandemic, contained the phrase: ‘We have been touched to witness from afar the coming together of the organisations we champion and so deeply care about.’
And the protests supporting Black Lives Matter that swept the US offered the perfect cause at the perfect time. Cue Meghan’s speech, recorded for the virtual graduation ceremony at her old LA high school, Immaculate Heart, and Harry’s recent video, recorded for the Diana Award ceremony, apologising for the ‘institutional racism still endemic in society’.
As one observer commented: ‘Harry was apologising and looking to the heavens as if he were some self-appointed world leader. Yet, in truth, he is the epitome of white privilege.’
The Sussexes’ publicists, the celebrity experts Sunshine Sachs, have ensured that their clients’ interests in racial and social injustice are well documented – telling publications that the couple have spoken to a number of Black Lives Matter leaders and community elders. The couple have also blundered controversially into the public debate about Facebook advertising, supporting an advertising boycott of the social media giant over hate speech and fake news.
A spokesman for the couple was happy to say: ‘As we’ve been developing Archewell, one of the areas the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been keen to address is online hate speech, and we’ve been working with civil rights and racial justice groups on it.’
But a Californian source observed there is a big risk with their alignment with the Stop Hate for Profit pressure group: ‘Harry and Meghan want to make their money through public speaking. And yet it is the big businesses and tech giants of Silicon Valley who will pay the big bucks to hear them speak,’ the source said. ‘Is it really so sensible for them to berate them before they’ve even started? Have they torpedoed themselves before they’ve launched themselves on the speaker circuit?
‘Silicon Valley does not forget attacks against it – and has Meghan forgotten that Facebook owns her beloved Instagram [with the Sussexes’ site having 11 million followers]? They seem to flip-flop to a different cause each week, as the fancy takes them.’
One thing the couple were happy to announce to the world, through the trusty channel of ‘sources close to them’, was that they had signed up to the Harry Walker speaker agency, which also has the Obamas, Bill Clinton and Serena Williams on its books.
The most high-profile clients are
They flip-flop to a new cause every week as the fancy takes them
thought to charge up to $1million (£800,000) a speech – a revenue stream that the Sussexes will need if they are to find a new home, befitting their celebrity status, not to mention cover their ever-burgeoning legal and security bills.
Their house-hunting has been put on hold by the pandemic. As, apparently, has Meghan’s ambition to publish a children’s book based on the adventures of her rescue dog, Guy.
Reportedly the couple are looking for a large mansion, with pool and staff quarters, in one of the exclusive gated communities high in the Hollywood Hills.
Meanwhile, they have hired a new nanny for one-year-old Archie as they settle in at their borrowed mansion and are still adhering to lockdown rules in Los Angeles.
But how, exactly, are they filling their days?
A friend said: ‘They are not going out much. They cook for themselves and also send their security out for food. They are real homebodies and enjoy doing yoga together in the garden, walking the dogs and watching TV.
‘Their new nanny enables them to work, talking to their team and progressing Archewell.’
Californians were surprised to see the couple popping into a local hardware store last month – with a big security retinue – and last week they visited a cafe to help prepare food for those in need.
The couple have made no secret of the fact they hope to add to their family before Archie’s second birthday next May, with Harry saying last year he wanted two children ‘maximum’ due to the environmental impact.
But as they officially wind up their old Sussex Royal foundation (yet still keep the website, despite promising they would no longer use the SussexRoyal name), are they contented? Harry has left behind his family, many of his friends and his beloved military duties.
Another major loss for Harry are the Metropolitan Police protection officers who have been with him for years, becoming friends and in some cases mentors. None has remained with him in LA, as the couple have hired new American security provision.
Conservationist Jane Goodall has become a close friend since she met the couple last year in Windsor. In an interview with the Radio Times, she said she had spoken to Harry, and said: ‘I think he’s finding life a bit challenging right now, I don’t know how his career is going to map out.’
Despite the understandable temptation to keep looking backwards, it may help to start looking forward.