Prince Harry vs Team Never Complain: Never Explain. The Most Polarizing Subject In The UK Since Brexit
Unless you are living completely off the grid, with no access to the internet or Google Alerts, you have been recently flooded with a plethora of red-hot stories, gifted to us by Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The Oprah interview, the Netflix docu-series/reality show and most recently, Harry’s tell-all book, The Spare. The media, with a frenzy equal to newly hatched turtles rushing to the ocean, have been diving into those waters to digest, discuss, dissect, debate, judge, condemn and regurgitate every last word. Like so many of us, I have officially reached my peak, my saturation level of Sussex consumption. So I swore I wasn’t going to write about it. The war of The Sussexes.
But something happened to me last week, twice, in fact, that has led me to keep this dialogue going.
Not one, but two friendly, white tablecloth dinners, out with intelligent friends, metamorphized into a full-out, drag ‘um down bar fight debate about the most polarising subject in the UK since Brexit, Harry and Meghan. I am not interested in highlighting the obvious conflicts of one of the world’s most famous dysfunctional families or once again discussing the “rivalry, jealousy and competing agendas” between Harry and his wife, the Sussexes, and Prince William and Kate, the Cambridges. The proverbial “they said/the Monarch said.” You can buy the book. Nor do I want to talk about Oprah, the Netflix series, or Harry’s “frost-bitten todger” (cringe).
What I am diving into is the one hotly debated nation dividing question— Does Prince Harry have the right to tell his story in the first place?
To air his famous family’s dirty tweedy breeches and expose this high-profile clan and their questionable behaviour. To recant us with his version of the truth, as he remembers it to be. With this question, all dinner table decorum was thrown out the window.
My answer. Damn straight, he does. It’s his story. You might not agree with what he has to say, but he has every right to say it. And if someone is going to pay him scads of money, all the better. Now I recognise my complete lack of objectivity. I have my own memoir coming out in a few months. I was not paid scads of dough, nor are the people who overlap with my story likely to be found on the covers of tabloids. But it is my story.
But here’s what I find interesting, in its complete contradiction. With all of Harry’s oversharing, his popularity has plummeted in the UK. Loud posh voices everywhere screaming, off with their crowns. But in North America, his popularity has skyrocketed. And my night(s) out with friends, accurately represented both sides of this royal-minted coin.
Let’s unpack this. Much of the British vitriol is directed against Meghan Markle and is generated and fuelled by the media, according to her supporters. Generally, the world loves a good Cinderella story. And from Meghan’s humble beginnings to— successful actress—to A-List royalty, there could not be a more modern-day example of that. In fact, as a kid, her early activism, coupled with her feminist drive, Meghan successfully lobbied Procter and Gamble to change an ad campaign for a dishwashing soap, bringing to the company’s attention that the ad was sexist. She got the ad reworded. So I ask, with this kind of initiative, why would she not be welcome?
While no public figures can expect to be immune from criticism, the level of anger that the British tabloids direct towards Markle is troubling and disproportionate to anything we have witnessed before.
In fact, it is so bad, she is ranked in popularity just barely above the most salacious, corrupt, member of the royal family the world has seen since Henry VIII was beheading wives, Prince Andrew.
It should be noted that Prince Andrew, brother of King Charles, reportedly friends with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has not been subjected to nearly the same level of scrutiny, criticism or hate by the British media. To date, there have been approximately 28,000 articles published about Meghan Markle. Compare that to when Prince Andrew was suspected of being a paedophile, there were 2,400 articles published. I mean, come on!
That is how unpopular she is. What actual heinous crime has she committed to be ranked marginally above a Prince that doesn’t sweat while screwing underage girls (allegedly)?
As a producer working in Toronto most of my life, I have heard first-hand all sorts of stories about celebs and their dreadful behaviour, on and off set. I personally know numerous crew and actors who have worked with Meghan, or catered events she was at, or worked for her in one capacity or another. And here is the truth, I’ve not heard so much as a hushed gasp or witnessed an aggressive eye-roll when comes to The Suits actress in the eight years she lived and worked in Toronto. Not a one. Her replacement on that show, however, Katherine Heigl… a legendary nightmare. So what the hell happened?
Why does the world hate Meghan Markle? Here is my theory, and with it, the role the British press has played.
Meghan, like Princess Diana before her, entered the Royal Family and cracked open its polished posh exterior, revealing the fermenting rot within. But unlike her “mother-in-law”, she was a non-conformist, untitled, opinionated, mixed-race, American actor. “A disingenuous, privileged person who plays the victim”, is what I have been hearing most. So, do I believe that the British press is responsible in large part for how we feel about Meghan? ABSOLUTELY! Just look at how they handle the same stories below. One through the soft-filtered rosy Kate lens and the other through the aggressive Meg microscope. The American press has not been this cruel and outwardly biased, not even FOX. It honestly makes me sick. I am not saying you have to like her, but at least have a good reason why.
The British press has made it abundantly clear that they would prefer Markle to be more like Kate Middleton and behave with a greater degree of passivity and conformism. Conversely, Harry, (in part), has influenced how I now feel about Kate and William. Yes, I read the book. The once great hopeful breath-of-spring-air for a modern-age Monarch, is now, nothing more than Stepford Royals. My words, not his.
So as the press tells their version of the story, so does Harry. Only with Harry, there is a much higher likelihood of accuracy, with more motivation to get the story right. And just like his mother, Princess Diana, who publicly spoke out against the same powerful family, and who too wrote a tell-all memoir, he will be crucified by some and canonized by others.
As the debate rages on, and their trial continues, we, the jury members in the court of public opinion, need to acknowledge that the majority of evidence is speculatively supplied by the media. So yes, Harry gets to tell his story. In fact, they have given him reason to. So until some other celebrity diverts our attention, (where is Kayne when you need him), we will continue to play god and condemn or save these people whom most of us will never ever know.
