I love hearing about the Duchess of Sussex’s pre-royal life. Before then-Meghan Markle was cast on Suits, she was a jobbing actress, taking smaller roles wherever she could get them. She was on an episode of Castle, for goodness sake (she was the killer who poisoned herself to look innocent!). But when Suits came, Meghan’s career went to a nice level – she was famous but not too famous, on a popular show but not a network show. Meghan knew there was always room for better press and more networking, which is why she apparently visited the Us Weekly office a year before she met Prince Harry.

The Duchess of Sussex took her publicist on a tour of a US magazine while she was still an aspiring actress in an apparent bid to raise her Hollywood profile, Omid Scobie has revealed. Meghan visited the American offices of US Weekly a year before her relationship with Prince Harry became public “to see if there was something to do”.

The future Duchess was starring in the legal drama Suits at the time, but was not regarded as a major celebrity and the visit is likely to be interpreted as an early publicity drive on her behalf. Mr Scobie, whose new book Endgame has come under the spotlight over revelations in the Dutch edition about the King and the Princess of Wales allegedly making remarks about the skin colour of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s unborn child, suggests the visit was a factor in Meghan later trusting him as a journalist.

Speaking about the moment in 2016 that news broke that Prince Harry was in a relationship with Meghan, Mr Scobie – who worked for US Weekly at the time – told the James O’Brien podcast Full Disclosure: “Suits was a huge thing for our magazine and funnily enough a year or two earlier – I wasn’t in the office at the time – Meghan’s agent or publicist had brought her in to just meet editors and see if there was something to do.”

He added: “She was very much on the radar, even if she wasn’t up there with the big-name celebrities.”

Mr Scobie said Meghan’s visit to his magazine’s offices gave him an advantage when it later came to reporting her romance with Prince Harry and eventual marriage.

“We really had a lead. I had the lead in covering the early days of this relationship and when I left the magazine they were my focus for this [royal] beat.” He suggested that it was this early connection that allowed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to trust him as a reporter who could be sympathetic to her situation as a mixed-race individual marrying into the British monarchy. “She had picked the people she wanted to cover it. I was able to be the one that provided the different perspective,” said Mr Scobie, who is of British-Persian heritage. “I was known as the safe face at least.”

[From The Telegraph]

It honestly wasn’t until Meghan joined this mob family that I even understood the despicable practices of the British media, so imagine Meghan’s culture shock when trying to navigate the British press system alone. She was used to the American way of doing things, especially when it came to entertainment media. Entertainment media isn’t like royal media whatsoever – it’s perfectly normal for an actress to, say, visit the Us Weekly office or go to Entertainment Weekly or People Magazine-sponsored events, all in the name of promotion. It’s straight-forward – an actress looking to get her name out there AND promote her show would obviously be friendly with the gossip media and entertainment media. The Telegraph is desperately trying to make Meghan sound like she was conniving, when really she was just… a working actress.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.