It seems to me like one of the Duchess of Sussex’s favorite patronages was Smart Works. She became the patron of Smart Works in early 2019, less than a year after her wedding. Smart Works helps lower-income women get professional clothes (and shoes/accessories) for job interviews and their jobs. People donate clothes and accessories and women can come and pick stuff out and either borrow the clothes or keep them. Meghan donated some of her personal clothes, she did photo-ops to raise awareness, and she also launched the Smart Set capsule collection for some staples of every woman’s wardrobe (black trousers, a crisp white shirt, a handbag). Meghan’s Smart Set collection was a massive success, just like the cookbook she did for the Grenfell community kitchen. That’s because Meghan is a worker and she’s smart as hell.
Well, because Meghan cared about low-income women and because Meghan was so smart and such a hard worker, she had to be abused and smeared and ripped to shreds by the press and members of the royal family. Meghan and Harry are still being “punished” for… I don’t know, daring to exist. Part of the Queen’s punitive actions included not allowing Harry and Meghan to use their “HRH,” His/Her Royal Highness. Meghan and Harry said that they are still HRHs, but that they agreed to not USE the HRH. Well, now Meghan’s patronages are following suit:
Meghan Markle just took a significant step away from royal life. On Saturday, Smart Works charity — of which Meghan is patron — removed all mentions of her as either an “HRH” or “royal” on the group’s website. Last September, Meghan unveiled a capsule collection for the charity, which helps women find employment with coaching tips and professional attire for their job interviews.
Where the site once included a section headed, “Our Royal Patron,“ it now reads “The Duchess of Sussex.“ Elsewhere, a page is now headlined, “Our Patron, The Duchess of Sussex,” whereas it previously read, “Our Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Sussex.”
The change is the first evidence that Meghan and Prince Harry have shifted into the agreement struck with Buckingham Palace in February, when it was decided that they would not use the term “royal” moving forward — although their Sussex Royal website and Instagram pages remain active.
Again, just a reminder: Prince Andrew was BFFs with a pedophile and human trafficker who “gave” him underage girls to rape and Prince Andrew is still an HRH. He still gets to use his HRH. If he was being announced somewhere, they would call him His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. Meghan and Harry no longer get to use their HRH because… they overshadowed everybody else with their hard work, I think. Anyway, it’s cool that Smart Works is still ride-or-die for Meghan and do you notice? There are zero rumors about Smart Works wanting a different patroness. They’re happy with Meghan. I hope she does tons of work with them from Canada.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red and Backgrid.
This would be a natural response, I think. And yes, I also think Smart Works is happy with her as patron. I can’t wait to see what else she does for them over the years.
I’m looking forward to an entire collection designed by Meghan… with bright jewel colours… and capes!!!
And zero credit given to Duchess Do-Little by a sycophantic “royal” reporter. Looking at you, Phil Dampier, you lying jerk.
God really loves, The Sussexes. They were able to visit their patronages and tie all loose ends. Treat their staff with a posh lunch, while’s still looking fabulous, before the dreaded corona lockdown.H&M left in style. The irony is The Queen, W&K, Charles and Camilla, have all fled to their country houses, for isolation, so NO ROYAL ENGAGEMENTS, for the Left Behinds, and The Sussexes, therefore, the media would not have any material to gloat about. This is POETIC JUSTICE!
Bottom Line is it doesn’t strip away the fact that they are still part of the BRF. Harry is a Prince. This punitive measures just shows the pettiness of the Queen and her cronies.
XO
I’d bet there are quite a few charities that wish they’d gotten Meghan as a patron, royal or not, over Future Kween Katie Keen.
“Meghan Gets Sh!t Done” as her Suits mates liked to say!
Standing by their woman though – obviously they know what an impact she’s had and can still have. I wonder how just the removal of the HRHs affects these businesses, if at all. They can still show the same support for those organizations, just without the HRH, but still with the title. Because they’re not “full-time working royals” surely the events and photo ops will lessen, but I wonder if JUST the HRH has an impact.
The photo ops may not matter, if the Sussexes use their own friendly media outlets and social media. These days, stuff blows up on social media first and the “traditional news” races to catch up. Just yesterday, they posted a Mothering Day message and the traditional news outlets reported on what they said. I think in Harry & Meghan’s cases, the HRH will end up not mattering at all.
One of the Royal Reporters was complaining that without ‘legitimate, critical media’ aka the Royal Rota, H&M’s charities would not be taken as seriously and they’ll lose their effectiveness (seriously, this guy seriously came up with this bullshit). They have social media and thier pics of reporters/ journalists who would die to have access to them. HRH doesn’t matter a drop. Andrew has a HRH; it’s lost any respectability.
Ayesha Hazarika; the lady who introduced Harry for his last Travelyst event, wrote a column in a newspaper, was interviewed on Piers Morgan’s morning show about her meeting Harry AND Ted Baker (the designer of the dress she wore to the Travelyst event) posted the pic of her and Harry on thier social media to advertise the dress she was wearing. She got loads of positive attention/ press just from one meeting.
I didn’t think so, but I’m not British so I didn’t want to assume what that meant to people! I think globally, people and organizations couldn’t care less.
There was a tv documentary here in the UK; it aired Friday night and was titled “Meghan Markle where did it all go wrong” I was expecting the usual hatchet job but it really detailed Meghan’s involvement with volunteering as a teen and her continuing charity and working as an activist for women’s issues. It really made me sad that someone with her work ethic and superb communication skills is portrayed as “pushy” or “difficult” because other members of the royal family (and their respective households) cared more about their own prominence than charities having a proactive and hard working patron.
Totally agree. I think zero people had a better head or heart for this work. Her whole life has been about being a public activist; she effectively trained herself. It was a perfect fit for her to be in a role like the Duchess of Sussex. And they forked it up. As we said all last week, they coulda had a bad bitch…
➕💯 HoopJumper. Very well put. I don’t think the use of the wordS HRH are going to make any difference. Everyone knows they still are HRH but just not —- bizarrely — allowed to use it. I wish Smart Works had waited until after March 31 to rollout the change, but 🤷🏻♀️ that’s a minor Complaint really. As to Andrew, I hope that karma bus gets some gas in it and keeps coming for him, but karma seems to keep giving him a pass — this life.
@Mads: out of curiosity, how was the doc? I try avoid these docs as some of them are really biased. What factors did they blame as to why things ‘went wrong’.
I like that the title was removed, with no fuss. It is better to do it now than wait for the deadline. With Covid-19 in the news, it would be trivial for the press to make a song and dance about this title change. I am glad SMART WORKS, has retained The Duchess as their Patron, it shows they are pleased with her. Do you know that, JenniferSaunders, and David Cameron’s wife are all patrons of SMART WORKS? I think, without this albatross of HRH around her neck, watch this space; the best is yet to come. Title does not maketh a man or woman.
@abena – Totally!
Very correct, @Abena…
100% agree about not having the HRH. Not so sure about the press though. The Royal Reporters are extremely nasty and a pandemic won’t stop them taking cheap shots at Meghan. But the fact that the charity would rather keep a HRH-less Meghan than any of those title dullards just shows the family up.
I recommend following them on IG if that’s your thing, they have lovely posts about their clients and updates when they get the job they went for. I got the M&S dress in both colours when they did the Smart Set and I lover wearing them for work (or I did back when I used to leave the house for work).
I don’t think the distinction will hurt their brand. “The Duchess of Sussex” title alone elevates and distinguishes her from an ordinary celebrity. It sounds royal, and references her connection to royalty. I don’t think most people will notice that the HRH isn’t there. And frankly, they’ve got so much in the way of charisma, media smarts, ability to connect with people and charitable natures, that they don’t need the title to prop them up unlike some of the Royals. They have already established themselves and shown the world what they can do, so there’s a track record they can point to as they forge new relationships and projects in the future.
Meghan did some truly excellent work while she was still living in England, the cookbook and the Smart Set collection, Wow!!! One thing that’s really bummed me out during this whole mess is that she didn’t get a chance to do something big for Mayhew, the dog/cat charity. I was so excited when she took on this cause as one of her own and couldn’t wait to see what plans she had for them but then we never heard anything again, after her first public visit. This is such an important cause and I hope that Meghan was able to connect with them when she was there earlier in the month and that something will come out once things calm down.
I did read somewhere that she was working on a children’s book with Mayhew. She was supposedly going to author it. Maybe that has to wait to roll out until her ‘status’ change of March 31 if she’s actually authoring it. Because as we all know all the royal rules are different for Meghan from the rest of that crowd.
I mean, she’s no longer using HRH or using the term royal, so this makes sense just from that angle.
Of course the Andrew angle just makes that look so much pettier.
I’m glad Andrew got to keep his titles – just highlights how gross they are. Makes H&M look better to be apart from the rest of them.
I don’t understand why this is such big news. It’s been established that they won’t use HRH anymore so I’m baffled why people are going crazy over it. It’s not as if the charity wanted no association with Meghan.
@Louise177 – 100% agree with your comment. All of this is much ado about nothing.
Meghan shut a car door and it was one of most read news stories on BBC News website. Anything she does is news. Personally, I’m glad of this reporting because there was a lot of ‘warnings’ from the British Media that Meghan would lose her ‘influence’ and ‘star power’ if she disassociated herself from the RF. So it’s always nice to hear charities choosing to stay with her (of course they would, she’s a success). It’s also equally enjoyable to see that they drop the terms ‘HRH’ and ‘Royal’ like hot rocks to stay with Meghan.
I forgot about the car door! that was such a non-story that was made into such drama by people/RRs who have too much time on their hands
SmartWorks is going to continue to thrive under Meghan as their patron, HRH or not. Which raises the dangerous question: What’s the point of a royal family? – which is why I think Meghan is seen as a threat by the papers and the BRF. Because if people like Meghan (by this I mean: raised by ordinary parents alongside ordinary people in an ordinary setting) can do the royal thing better than the royals themselves, then there really is no need to have them, let alone pay for them.
When H&M first announced that they were leaving, the Royal Reporters said that if they lost their titles then they would be less effective as charity patrons. Yeah, really ineffective – Meghan’s 2 IG pics from that private National Theatre visit made the front page of all the tabloid papers!
Well because without the platform afforded to Meghan by the royal family she wouldn’t have been an effective patron. Eg, if Sarah Rafferty or Gina Torres (her suits costars) were to become patrons for the National theatre in the UK it would be… well odd frankly and nobody would cover it. Had one of them married prince Harry and then become patron it would be a huge deal and press coverage would be guaranteed for whomever they are patron for. That’s no to take away from Meghan, she is charismatic and smart, but she always was- but only after marrying into the Royal family was she catapulted into the A list.
What I mean is the royal family aren’t the only A-listers out there. So if Meghan, a actress on a cable show, has married Brad Pitt, who is internationally famous but not a royal like Meghan rather than Prince Harry, her charity work would have been recognised. In this era of celebrities, royal doesn’t mean a lot to the public.
No they arent the only A listers out there of course, but there is something unique about them in the UK whereby being linked to them usually means worldwide fame.
It’s why we still know the name Chelsy Davy even though she is a non celebrity and that relationship ended a decade ago. Even my mum would know who she is and she has no interest in them at all.
I dont know why as I think the royal family (including Harry) are ALL totally boring. But it’s how it is. Interest does drop off though as they get older and less glam, ie when Meghan & Harry, or Kate & William came to Ireland we all were kinda loving the coverage, when Charles and Cam came it was like tumbleweeds. When the queen came in (about 2009ish) it was actually great though, but that was more because it was so historic for Irelans and the UK to have that symbolic rapprochement.
Digressing now lol
For a selfish reason, I’m glad they aren’t using HRH titles or ‘royal’. It might have hurt them and it’s absolutely gross that Andrew still gets to use it, but any association with the RF would just be an excuse to batter them even more. And any success would have been attributed to their royal status.
When they first announced they were leaving the BM did their best to convince the public (and themselves) that Harry and Meghan NEEDED then Royal connection in order to be successful. This just shows that orgs/ charities would stick to H&M like glue… titles or not.
It’s funny cos I heard the Royal National Theatre has actually dropped the ‘Royal’ from their branding because they want to be seen as more accessible! And they still kept Meghan as a patron.
The RR press is such a strange beast. They will spin a story out of thin air and imagination about Harry or Meghan and then when it doesn’t happen, spin a story blaming them for not keeping the commitment or something. The story is all fiction from beginning to end which just makes it crazy. Like the stories about how they’d bought a house in Toronto and pictures were published and neighbors were quoted. Then the realtor gave a Toronto paper a short interview saying she’d never even met them and house was still for sale and the RR dropped that story like they’d never started it to begin with. Then there was all the RR press hoopla about Meghan dragging Harry to Hollywood. First the stories were they were living at Ophrah’s, then they were going to live at Oprah’s, then they were going to rent the most expensive home in Hollywood from a middle eastern owner, then they had looked at and signed a rental agreement on a home that years ago one of the Kartrashians had rented for a brief second. (I remember that headline, ‘Meghan moving into Kartrashian home.). Now, the RR has told us due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sussexes will not be able to relocate to Hollywood! My whole point is, the story from beginning to end was printed and commented on endlessly always showing Meghan in a negative light and yet there is not one shred of proof that any of it was true. The Royal Rota truly are unbelievable when it comes to the Sussexes.
The National Theatre has never been called”royal” at any point in its 53 year history.
I’ve been rewatching The Crown at bedtime because it’s soothing to me in all this awfulness. And I’m at the part when Margaret wants to announce her engagement to Antony and the Queen tells her she can’t because Elizabeth’s pregnancy (with her third child and the future pedophile sex trafficker) needs to be the only thing that gets attention right now. I…know that the Crown is historical fiction but also where there’s smoke, there’s a true account of petty jealousy in this family.
It was to be expected. This wont have any affect whatever on their operations/coverage..etc I cant wait to see what projects they have planned (after the virus is dealt with)