The Sunday Times (of London) had yet another lengthy piece about the fallout from Netflix’s Harry & Meghan. Salt Island is not in full panic mode yet, probably because all of the bad stuff (for them) is in the second half of the series. Right now, the Windsors are in general ass-covering mode, lying constantly and trying to exert control over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s narrative. What’s interesting is what the palace is deciding to nitpick about the series so far, like Meghan’s claim about how there wasn’t any “princess training.” Some highlights (via the Daily Beast):
William won’t watch the series: A friend told The Sunday Times: “He (William) says he will never watch it and I know he definitely won’t.”
Meghan’s princess training. A source described as “a total lie” the claim Meghan was left utterly in the dark over royal protocol. It’s “a total lie,” a royal source told the Times. “There was prep for everything, walkabouts—even though she was engaged to someone who’d done hundreds of them—clothes, everything. The level of support was intense.” The Times says that before they married in May 2018, Harry’s then private secretary, Ed Lane Fox, known as “Elf,” gave Meghan a 30-point dossier, with a full guide to the royal life she was taking on, with advice and contacts included.
Meghan’s niece Ashleigh: A royal source also told the Times that it was incorrect to claim, as Meghan did, that she was encouraged not to invite her niece, Ashleigh Hale, to the wedding. “That just didn’t happen,” a source said. “We never gave any advice, steer or guidance on who of her family or friends should or shouldn’t come to her wedding. I have a very clear memory of her [Meghan] saying that she had a niece who she would in other circumstances have liked to invite, but she didn’t want to invite her because it would have put her under intense scrutiny. It was not a question she put to us. We would never tell her not to invite her own niece to the wedding and we would never get involved in any management of personal relationships.”
Meghan & Harry’s engagement interview: Royal sources say that Meghan’s claim that her and Harry’s engagement interview with BBC presenter Mishal Husain was an “orchestrated reality show” was also untrue. “Every word of that interview was what they wanted to say. She controlled every micro-detail of how their engagement publicly went.”
Harry’s comment about how royal men don’t follow their hearts in marriage: An old friend of both brothers told the Times: “That was so cheeky, that’s a love match if ever there was one. Catherine doesn’t even fit the mould—she’s not an earl’s daughter or blue-blooded. The sadness is Harry was so close to Catherine.”
The Waleses and Sussexes will exchange Christmas gifts: The Times reports that William and Kate have bought Christmas presents for Harry and Meghan’s kids Archie and Lilibet, while Harry and Meghan have bought presents for George, Charlotte, and Louis.
I think the princess-training issue is probably a much more complicated one than either side will acknowledge. Meghan thought that there would be a book or actual lessons for everything involved with a public role, from dressing to waving to what to say at a reception, etc. What ended up happening is that they sent Susan Hussey and a bunch of decrepit old men to talk to Meghan and they gave her limited – and likely contradictory – advice. Meghan thought she would get actual lessons. What she got was a memo and a bunch of racists condescending to her.
What else? The Ashleigh stuff is interesting, I guess. I absolutely believe both things can be true at once, which is that Meghan was being told that it would be too controversial or too whatever to invite her niece AND Meghan was like “I need to protect and shield Ashleigh.” Meghan has done that with a lot of her friends too – there was and still is an overzealous, racist press looking over every one of Meghan’s connections and trying to find scandals or weaknesses to be exploited.
As for William and Kate’s “love match” – lmao. Sure. And while it’s true that Kate wasn’t an aristocrat and it’s true that no one in the royal family wanted William to marry such a lazy peasant, it’s also true that Kate “fits the mold” because she’s willingly a silent Victorian ghost who has subverted her entire personality to fit into the mold.
Photos courtesy of Netflix, Avalon Red.
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- 172496, Britain’s Prince Harry and his fiancee US actress Meghan Markle are greeted as they arrive to attend a Terrence Higgins Trust World AIDS Day charity fair at Nottingham Contemporary in Nottingham. Nottingham, United Kingdom – Friday December 1, 2017. Photograph: © Avalon.red, PacificCoastNews. Los Angeles Office (PCN): +1 310.822.0419 UK Office (Avalon): +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@pacificcoastnews.com FEE MUST BE AGREED PRIOR TO USAGE
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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attend the Terrence Higgins Trust charity fair at the Nottingham Contemporary Centre,Image: 356625727, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no
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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visit Reprezent 107.3FM in Brixton, to see their work supporting young people through creative training in radio and broadcasting, and to learn more about their model of using music, radio and media for social impact.,Image: 359678156, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no
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- HRH Prince Harry, Meghan Markle leaving Westminster Abbey following the Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving on Anzac day.,Image: 369657160, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no
I believe Meghan and Harry and this is mainly because I saw what happened to Diana. They tried to do what they were told from the time the public found out they were a couple until their wedding and after. Then it became untenable were railroaded, targeted and abused and had to flee for their lives and I’m glad that they did.
She didn’t say she never got a memo, she said she got no training.
A MEMO IS NOT TRAINING.
This 30-point dossier sounds more like an HR employee handbook which is not the same thing.
YES. THIS. She also said it in a kind of cheeky nod to The Princess Diaries – she’s saying that Julie Andrews didn’t sit her down and give a boot camp. These people are so ridiculous.
Julie Andrew’s def did not sit down with her. Instead, Meghan got Lady Susan Hussy 😂
Point 1 use skirts
Point 2 nude nailpolish only
Point 3 don’t closr your car door
Point 4 no bare legs
Point 5 no shoulders showing
Oh, no, that was the made up protocol breaches.
@COUCH POTATO –
Point 6 – Don’t flash your bum whilst walking about.
Oh wait, I guess that’s ok because we saw so much of it from another princess who shall remain nameless.
@ Couch Potato LOL at the car door thing. On another site W&K fans were gloating about some car door incident & how Harry will rue the day that he left because his children won’t be brought with all the privileges of rank that he was.
And all I could think is “Is that all that monarchy is then? Having someone open the door for you? Is that why they pay millions in taxes every year so that they too can have the ever so sleight chance of marrying a prince – just so they can have someone open the door for them? ”
All that furor about duty and service to one’s country boils down to wearing gaudy jewelry and being pampered by staff… while also bitching about H&M being the privileged elite with no sense of irony whatsoever. Its all so bizarre.
And what’s 30 bullet points, a page? So helpful, I’m sure. And I bet it didn’t mention she’d get excoriated for wearing dark nail polish, or crossing her legs, or, gasp! closing her own car door!
Maybe it was a PowerPoint, with a pie chart.
They say Lady Susan Hussey talked with her?
Would this be the same Lady Susan Hussey that shocked the world and that had to recently step down in DISGRACE, because she deeply insulted and physically assaulted a Black woman, Ngozi Fulani (Hussey touched the woman’s hair without permission, that’s simple assault) who runs a charity for Black women victims of violence?
They really want to parade her out now, Lady Susan, as the Talking Points Memo woman who dealt with Meghan? Former lady in waiting to HM or not, she’s a proven racist and I feel sure that Meghan is speaking her truth on this, and would have more to say but is being KIND because that’s how she rolls.
H&M are on record saying that she did not receive the necessary guidance and training. My gut feeling is that their interview will have been checked for accuracy before it got aired on Netflix and that they have some level of proof for much of what they’ve said. Interesting that Ed Lane Fox’s name is now being thrown out there: I’m sure that the dossier is easily retrievable and publishable, if it indeed exists. And yes, Susan Hussey’s name was tossed out earlier as one of Meghan’s guides—yet we are not hearing about her guidance, just that of an ELF.
I was going to say the same thing. If this memo exists, why hasn’t it been leaked to the Royal Rota before now? Meghan has said more than once that she didn’t receive any training. And as xoxo pointed out, a memo is not training. Both Diana and Fergie have spoken about how ill-prepared they were, and Diana’s grandmother was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother!
Well, they mention who to contact, so I think it was just a list of contact info for various things.
I’d LOVE to see this dossier.
Heck, “A Royal Corgi Christmas” had a dossier!
An actual elf might have been more helpful.
LOL! Word. An actual elf couldn’t have been worse.
Meghan’s story does not need to be checked for accuracy.
Meghan’s story is the story of every black/ biracial woman ever recruited by HR into a department where an old stalwart manager didn’t want any black/ biracial people working for them but they couldn’t say that publicly in 2017 because that manager knows they’d be toast.
So instead they pretend to acquiesce to the changes whist sabotaging the new recruit;
They do this by:
– refusing or with-holding training
– provide the wrong information to embarrass the new unwanted recruit
– pit them off against an existing mediocre employee
– pit them off against an existing mediocre employee who they have previously lobbied to be promoted or who was seen as underperforming that they have a soft spot for
– smear the new recruit and describe them as ‘not a team player’, ‘lacking the necessary soft skills’, not living up to the skills/ education presented on their cv (thick), ‘refusing mentoring or guidance’, ‘being a risk to the operations of the firm’ (can’t be trusted – huge one for black women), ‘not understanding the culture of the company, “not.a good cultural fit’.
^^ the latter two were always code for ‘black/ poc or queer person’ but in recent years HR depts have caught on as have line managers who know that they’ll come under scrutiny so now they try and go for incompetence or undermining the new recruit in other ways.
They basically used the WHOLE of the tired old playbook against Meghan.
William and by extension Kate saw very quickly how capable, charming and easily Meghan performed the role under IMMENSE pressure and when they couldn’t break her under the guise of protocol, they released the big guns in the form of briefing against her.
Then when Harry refused to play ball and refuse them to use Meghan as a human shield as they had done to him preciously, I think that’s when the cracks appeared between Harry and Bill. As people have stated recently on this board, Bill has an expectation that Harry is merely ‘spare parts’ from which he can borrow as and when needed and I suspect Bill then expected that arrangement to extend to Meghan via proxy of Kate. I think Bill and Kate never expected the scale of Harry’s pushback hence why they blame Meghan. It doesn’t occur to them that a husband/ wife would genuinely love someone to those depths to protect them so for them Harry’s behaviour seems chaotic and indicative of weakness. I suspect that this is where a lot of the ‘Institutional gas-lighting’ stated before the Rota Rats jumped on board.
They hazed Meghan all the way through the run up to the wedding, but the real vitriol started during/ after the Oceana tour when the world saw how INSANELY popular the COUPLE (and not just Meghan) were. It mirrored Diana’s first Oz tour but with extra rocket boosters because the world and Archie’s chickens could see this was a love match.
The Royal Reporters were just not ready for that level of impact and they realised that Harry was keeping them at arms length – it was then the penny dropped and the Rota Rats started openly writing twitter posts to the effect that if Harry didn’t allow them acess to Meghan, that they’d just make things up….
I suspect that after the tour, the Rat pack then leaned on William as the head of KP but Harry stood his ground and then she earned the moniker “Duchess difficult”. I remember so many tweets at the time indicating that Meghan was ‘difficult’. Those messages were actually to wind up Harry as they know that he is super protective over his wife (and late mother).
Also I think the Royals were SHOCKED by how quickly a 37 year old Meghan got pregnant. I remember all the Rota at the time tweeting about how the couple were planning to wait till after H&M then proposed US Tour. I think the BRF truly thought Meg would struggle to get pregnant the same way Sophie did given age etc. They showed no care for Meghan and sent her to Oceana, which was at the time a Zika zone. They really didn’t give a rats arse about that girl. Don’t forget that around the same time Zara had also suffered a miscarriage shortly after the Rio Olympics and would later be seen to be heavily pregnant at H&M’s wedding.
For Royal women procreation is heavy on the list of priorities so I suspect that the ease with which Meg discharged all her ‘obligations’ just repeatedly pissed them off.
Anyway all the above to say that I believe Meghan – they set out to scupper her in every way possible. They seemingly acquiesced to Harry’s choice of bride but had their own plans to send her packing, and as is often the case when families do this, it has backfired spectacularly and could now become the things that weakens (if not destroys) them as an institution.
Flower,this response needs to be published.
Great summation.
This all happened to me in my first job. In my case I was a young woman, my country is overwhelmingly white but I was working class and that’s how I didn’t fit ‘the culture’. It has caused me huge pain, CPTSD and to abandon a profession I had worked incredibly hard for. Also nobody understood what was going on, they told me I was at fault for being childish or not savvy enough.
It hurts again seeing it all spelt out clearly like you did. Man was I done dirty.
Meghan leaving was the best decision ever, and the only possible one.
“we would never get involved in any management of personal relationships”
LMFAO, yeah, that’s why Jason was the one “handling” Thomas, right? Oh I guess that just never happened huh?
I think they’re playing cute with “no one employed here NOW told her those things. (Jason who??)”
But to that point, wouldn’t the logic thing be for Jason et al to *want* Ashleigh there precisely because it would kick up even more Markle family drama? What doesn’t sound right to me is that KP would encourage Meghan to not invite Ashleigh because it would potentially look unseemly. KP loves making Meghan and her family look unseemly! Wouldn’t they therefore be encouraging an invitation to Ashleigh?
Thomas and the psycho sister were making the Markle family look unseemly. Ashleigh would have come across as cute and normal and gone against the whole portrait they were painting.
Inviting Ashleigh also would have hurt the KP narrative of how Meghan isn’t close to her family, unlike KATE who comes from the perfect family (per KP.)
The narrative was that Meghan came from an uncouth family and therefore she was trash who was “rising above her station”. That’s why they highlighted Tom Sr and Jr, Scamantha and Tom Jr’s ex-wife and her kids. Ashleigh, the lawyer, didn’t fit that narrative. I fully believe that’s why KP didn’t want her around.
Any scrutiny of Meghan’s relationship with Ashleigh would have discredited Samantha and exposed her for the unhinged liar she is – claiming to have raised Meghan and meanwhile not even raising her own children – and then the palace wouldn’t have been able to use her as a weapon against Meghan. If the palace was truly working in Meghan’s best interest, having Ashleigh there or issuing a simple statement about how close they were despite neither having a relationship with Samantha would have helped to neutralize Samantha in the media, and it’s extremely telling that instead they chose the path that would allow Samantha to continue her smear campaign.
Jason and team were WAY out of their league with the Markles. They had no strategy.
Narcissist Tom giving live updates to TMZ and not GAF about how this will “disrespect the queen” was completely new territory to the royal family. This wasn’t snits back and forth about kid tights and tattling over private jet use. This was faked heart attacks and trashy American famewhoring to a global audience lapping up the drama. They’re weren’t ready.
NCWoman and Becks, I totally agree. It ruins their narrative if Meghan has a Markle relative that is impressive in her own right, they wanted to burn everything down about Meghan, at that time. Ashleigh literally looks like the American girl next door, AND she’s an immigration attorney? It’s not shocking they didn’t want her at the wedding. They wanted to equate Meghan with trash, and Ashleigh is anything but.
FFS, she even has dimples and is gorgeous.
It may be true that BP and Clarence House were not involved in who Meghan invited, but that doesn’t eliminate Jason Knauf from the list of suspects. He was very busy micromanaging Meghan’s family, it seems.
This is an excellent point. We know that the royals aren’t exactly the best communicators, and Harry has told us that whenever he tried to really talk to the queen or his father he was shut down, so I think it’s absolutely possible that William and Knauf schemed and plotted and did things to Meghan and Harry that CH and BP have no knowledge of, to this day. Knauf (at William’s behest) absolutely could have been the one to “advise” about Ashleigh, or “suggest” how to handle the engagement interview. Hell, he could have even intercepted or doctored training materials so that Meghan never got what she was supposed to in full. I’m not saying Charles’ hands are completely clean, but I doubt that he and Harry have ever gone point by point to compare notes on what was happening, and I think if they did Charles might be shocked to learn the full scope of what they were subjected to under William and Knauf’s machinations.
That is what I immediately thought: funny that they just said a “royal source” or “palace source,” and not from which royal household, etc. – I 100% bet it was someone who was not involved with H&M’s wedding at all, so they could be “technically” accurate while completely misrepresenting the situation.
The best part is they don’t seem to realize how they are all just further proving H&M’s point: the media complains/explains to protect William, and lies to exploit H&M. **All** the stories coming out of the palaces this week have been making H&M’s point for them.
In fact, I wonder if that is some of the brilliance of separating the series into two volumes with a week in between: Vol. 1, really not that bad or gossipy, but enough of a hit on the media that they go into overdrive, and then all this fresh evidence of the palaces briefing against H&M, and the media piling on, is in everyone’s mind as Vol. 2 drops…
Meghan will never be right in their book. Nothing she says will ever be true. When she says she was suicidal they’ll claim it was just a bad day. She’ll never win!! The machinery around hating, disputing, misconstruing her is too big!!
They hunt/prey on her like they did Diana until they find another Diana/Meghan to begin the cycle again. All the stories people magazine used to print weekly about Diana have disappeared only to be replaced by Meghan. Same in the daily mail and other publications.
We are seeing in real time a woman get strategically destroyed and it’s terrifying! I can’t imagine what Diana went through alone…smh
I feel for her! I believe her! And praying the best for her.
@Truth. +1.
I made a comment in another thread about the RF acting like the Sussexes were runaway slaves, to be returned further broken down, or destroyed. I now believe that’s exactly what happened to Princess Diana.
I want to see this alleged memo and can’t wait for the Sussexes to show their receipts.
Just admit you never liked Meghan. No need to pretend. We get lots of new posts from people being paid to express their anti Meghan talking points whenever the Windsors are scrambling.
Seriously, ask yourself why you feel that way and try to list the times she’s been ‘disingenous’ without using something the tabloids have said about something she’s said.
I agree with the post that this seems like the truth is somewhere in the middle and both parties believe they’re being honest. I have no doubt Meghan wasn’t as adequately prepared or trained in the same way Kate was, or treated the same whatsoever (I mean, Kate has been in her position for years and is still being coddled as “coming into her own” while Meghan was thrown to the wolves). But my guess is that they also have her *some* information, perhaps in a way that was either incomplete or totally condescending/racist/snobby.
In any case, clearly getting a memo isn’t the same as getting classes.
Even Anne has stated in interviews that you are mostly figuring things out yourself.
I suspect part of the problem is asking someone to explain how to be royal or how to exist in a monarchy is like asking a fish to describe living in water. They’re born into it. It’s the reality they know. How do you describe all the lifetime of little details that you just know instinctively?
*However* that being said, they should be smart enough to realize that anyone would have to just learn through experience and given her much more grace.
I think the British advisors didn’t really grasp the gap in cultural knowledge between what a local would have absorbed naturally from childhood vs what a foreigner would be expected to cram in a matter of weeks.
Like Meghan not knowing that formality continues behind closed doors. Why would she? Americans simply don’t do that. Why wouldn’t she welcome her bf’s brother with a hug? Like I knew about curtseying to the queen but I never thought about how rank plays in outside of the queen and who else Meghan would bow or not bow to. No idea.
It’s a lot to process even for a Brit like Kate, but a least she’d have the basic concept of walkabouts and the royals at Xmas cuz that stuff is on UK tv, news etc.
Whereas with Meghan people aren’t gonna know what she doesn’t understand unless she asks a question. But would she know enough about a given situation to realize a question needs to be asked? What seems common knowledge to the Brits may not even occur to outsiders.
There was always going to be a steep learning curve and everybody just needed to chill and roll with it but obviously that didn’t happen.
Memos, classes, training, cultural differences – it’s all useless if they’re going to treat you like shit. What needed to happen was for the Queen or Charles to make it clear that Meghan was valued and off limits to negative leaks.
Within days of learning who Harry’s new girlfriend was, headlines bearing “Straight Outta Compton” were published. Meghan was told by Harry not to speak to the press, because the British believed her to be dying for attention by doing so. This never stopped. How would you behave under such circumstances? Would you be guarded or open?
Replying to Gisella and Jo above
I think people dramatically underestimate how intrusive and frightening it was to a bunch of women to have their lives stalked and harassed by men with cameras. Social security numbers compromised, back yard cameras installed, phone calls to uninvolved parents, being hunted and followed in the streets. All while Meghan was in the UK or Canada. I can’t imagine the guilt and anger of “causing” all that.
I am right there with you. Meghan was just a successful woman, living her life, and suddenly, everyone around her was fodder for the British media. I can’t imagine trying to marry the man I love, while simultaneously trying to protect everyone I cared about long before I met the man.
I mean, she said there was no princess training class. A dossier is not a class.
She was also talking about meeting TQ for the first time, and about being an American. The context in that moment was all about timing and her background.
The first meeting was in September, 2017. Harry proposed shortly after (in November by all accounts), and he’s said publicly that he was waiting for her blessing to ask (thus they had to meet first). I can guarantee that beyond the “don’t to this with the paps” instructions that Meghan was getting from the courtiers, they were NOT giving her instructions in royal protocol. They were hoping Harry wouldn’t marry her!
So when Meghan said the thing about training, she was talking about being an American who was dating a member of the royal family. She NEVER said they didn’t give her instructions in protocol or whatnot leading up to the wedding.
Once again, they’ve taken what she said totally out of context and put words into her mouth she didn’t say. For reference, see “privacy”.
I’m sure they gave her a dossier and had the crusty old crones that served TQ give her advice and all. But they likely were bad at it. Princess Diana had the same complaints, you know. Supposedly the Queen Mum gave her lessons and she stayed with her for a while, and Diana was later all “yeah, we’d eat meals together and she drank and didn’t teach me anything.” She messed up more than once after marrying re: protocal. So it’s not intuitive. I mean, Diana was from an aristocratic background!
Replying to myself because as far as I remember, Meghan made the specific comment about no princess lessons in the lead up to meeting TQ for the first time and having to curtsey. I could be wrong about that, in which case, oops.
But I absolutely belive they did not give her much instruction and that Meghan has the receipts (emails, texts asking questions about protocol) to prove it.
Oh damn! My two sentences have unleashed the Tiger! LOL
LOL, it wasn’t at you, @Boxy Lady, and I sincerely hope my rant didn’t come across that way. But yes, your point did unleash me, lol, because it reminded me of how much they twist Meghan’s words and take them out of context. It infurates me, and I have no idea how she copes with it with such grace.
ITA with everything you said, and also, even with a “dossier” full of protocol, I sincerely doubt how helpful it would be to a modern woman, let alone one as intelligent as Meghan. I would bet it includes tidbits on the proper way to greet the 3rd wife of a Viscount but absolutely zero guidance on what to do with your Instagram account, and I can say with 100% certainty that there was nothing in it about avocados. 30 points is literally nothing; the first time my in-laws pet sat for my dog I gave them a “dossier” bigger than that on his feeding schedule and vet contacts. 30 points for a public-facing royal role wouldn’t even scratch the surface.
No worries TigerMcQueen. I’ll admit that when I first saw the length of your reply, I was like, “what the…?” But when I actually read it, I knew it wasn’t against me. That’s why I put that “LOL” in there: I knew where you were coming from.
It would be hard to order off the shelf a royal bride who fits the mold better than Kate. The non-aristocratic background made her fit the new mold even better. But for sheer vacuousness and superficiality no one can top Kate. They can literally throw the mold away now.
They are conveniently forgetting the flashing incidents though. Nothing Meghan did ever approached that kind of behaviour but Kate wasn’t criticized for the multiple incidents during engagements.
Oh, she was just being naughty, they would say. A woman showing her ass is acceptable behavior as long as she’s not “woke”.
Letizia, Spain. Maxima, Netherlands. Mette-Marit, Norway. Mary, Denmark. Daniel, Sweden.
Lots of non-aristocrats there. Kate isn’t unusual for not being one.
And Sofia, Sweden. And none of them flashed their bum (multiple times!) after marrying into the Royal family.
Meghan is going to be so sad you don’t like her, she is not going to eat avocados for a week.
The whole section of “we would never get involved in any management of personal relationships.” is one of the biggest lies ever told! Jason Knauf literally tried to launch himself into a lawsuit that at core was about a letter this woman wrote to her father! He actually provided evidence to help a tabloid emphazing his involvement in the matter, you could not make this stuff up if you tried. I suspect stories like this is why the sussex’s feel like they have to keep talking about there experience, they were coming out of a world where “reporters” just invent facts via palace briefing and never question anything regarless of evidence to the contrary!
Not only that, he literally helped her write the letter to her father and the palace was activity trying to get Thomas to stop giving interview only when it was him trashing the RF. There were emails from last year of Meghan talking about how Charles was berating Harry about Thomas. And don’t forget when the palace knew that the DailyFail was going to run the story about Thomas staging pictures, they tried to stop them from publishing it. Also the time when Meghan’s ex agent was selling fake stories about Meghan to the press and Jessica stepped in and told her to stop. The agent ran to the DailyFail saying she thought she could say anything with no pushback. The Dailyfail went to Jason and Jason said he’d make sure Meghan’s friends weren’t pushing back against fake stories. That’s why the 5 friends from the people article chose to stay anonymous. The palace were 100% involved in all of Meghan’s relationships.
There’s been so much that I already forgot about the whole 5 friends thing. Wow!
They freely get away with so much misinformation and truth twisting about Meghan. How exhausting.
Like Jeremy Corbyn said if I read what was written about me I would hate me too!!
someone needs to do a story by story documentary on what Meghan went through because it’s too much
This, 100%.
If Kate didn’t fit the mold, she wouldn’t have able to marry William. She made herself fit into the mold. I believe Meghan wasn’t given any help because the Palace wanted her to fail and to leave Harry before the wedding.
The Palace wanted her to fail and leave Harry. They knew that Meghan would never work in the family dynamic because it would be just a matter of time before the British public start complaining about paying taxes to support her. It would have been a major issue in the future. To Meghan’s credit, I think she suspected that too. Only an all white family can get away with financial support from the public for so long even in difficult times.
I don’t buy this, mostly because the Palace (and royals) never wanted William to marry Kate. Charles gave him the classic Prince Philip out, ‘Marry her or dump her, you’re ruining all of our reputations’. William dumped her (again), but took up with her again months later when no one else would date him. He kept dating, cheating, dumping for years, right up to dating someone else months before their engagement was announced. The secretly planned announcement, where William told the press and arranged the press conference *without telling Charles and granny*. They were only told about the engagement one hour before the press conference.
IMO William married Kate because 1) he’s lazy 2) he was pressured by the press 3) Carole and Mike pressured him 4) she’d let him live as a single man after the wedding and 5) he wanted to marry someone as useless and lazy as he is. That last one is important. The BRF didn’t want him to marry someone with no career, someone who fails to learn from her mistakes, and someone lazy. They didn’t want him to marry drunk partygirl Kate who didn’t work after graduation and spent her days waiting for William to call. Boring they can stand, lazy and mute was never their plan for William’s ‘modern wife’. Kate was never the BRF or Palace choice.
I never knew that William only gave a one hr heads up about the engagement. Sounds like he blindsided the queen, lol.
I thought there were no royal sources? And I thought they never spoke about the Sussexes? As for people who want to holler “fake”, one thing to note about fakes and liars is that their story will keep changing to fit the narrative. Now which side’s story has done that? Meghan and Harry have been consistent throughout this ordeal. And I truly believe that Meghan got no assistance with protocol for three reasons: 1. They wanted her to fail. 2. They were making up and changing ” protocol” as they went along. 3. They didn’t want to be bothered. Charles sent an aide to check on his grieving 13 year old son but we are supposed to believe that this same bunch gave special consideration to make sure Harry’s wife fit in? I call bullsh!t on that.
My feeling is that communication and cultural differences are at the heart of this along with a toxic dose of racism and inflexibility. Meghan cannot win with these people and they have their noses lifted too loftily in the air to admit that they blew it. A real shame for all of the pain and suffering endured, but a real opportunity for Harry to escape the history of spare and the stilted destiny that goes with it. Diana and Heaven really have blessed him. The path forward is to just keep moving and living their best lives.
Harry made a general comment about Windsor men not always marrying for love ( and his father is a prime example) but the media assumption has been he’s talking about William and Kate. Why? 😂🤣
Yeah, the way he worded it seems clearly aimed at his father and mother. Diana was chosen because she seemingly embodied what the institution defined as an ideal royal bride: aristocratic and no past (i.e. a young virgin) – Charles didn’t love her but married her because it was time he married someone and she seemed like a good royal match on paper.
All these people crying about Harry dissing hos brother’s marriage are the ones letting the cat out of the bag, which I suspect is what they (the press) want to do. There’s apparently a story about the Cambridge marriage that the press can’t talk about directly.
And the very next scene after he says that comment shows Diana.
Wootton made the link to W and K because he is shit stirring. He knows they leak to him and he’s using that knowledge against them.
I mean royal sources were bragging about how they didn’t tell Meghan she was supposed to wear a hat when she went to that visit with the Queen.
It’s clear that they didn’t tell her about wearing at hat and then let the press run with the story that she was being defiant or had no respect for protocol.
Exactly how could there be a protocol memo when we know the protocol is made up bullshit? Kate got praised for doing many of the things that were “against protocol” when Meghan did them.
We know these incompetent palace jerks don’t train. They make stuff up as they go along.
And Kate clearly never got lessons even though they said she was.
there’s no way they didn’t give her any guidance. but i also don’t think they gave her nearly as much guidance as Kate got. there’s definitely a bias there for sure. she didn’t get lessons like Kate did and she still did the best job she could have with what resources she received.
on the other hand, i think meghan’s portray of the instruction she got for how to curtsy in the documentary was a bit much. she could have done better to illustrate how foreign it was for her without mocking it.
Sorry but from my point of view bowing/curtseying to any fellow human just because they were born to a certain position is worth mocking.
She wasn’t mocking the curtsy, she was being self deprecating about how she didn’t do it correctly. She did an excellent one at the funeral.
I’m British and I totally agree. Meghan accurately showed the total joke of bowing or curtsying to some one because their 10x great grandfather killed the right person or magically was the right religion
I am many others do and and will not bow. The royals are simply super rich dole recipients.
Meghan was funny I thought poking fun at the daftness
Aussie here and I totally agree, especially about curtsying. To my mind curtsying is a ridiculous activity and anachronistic and it deserves to be mocked. I don’t see why women can’t merely incline their heads like men do if some sort of show or respect is required. But there is the second element here that people are expected to be curtseyed to and bowed to merely because they were born to a certain set of parents. No human being deserves to be bowed to merely because of accident of birth. Combine the two notions of the absurdity of the action of curtsying in the 21st century and being expected to do it to someone merely because of who their parents were and you have a major excuse for mockery, IMO.
i can see try to see the point she’s trying to make…but girl u marrying into one of the most rigid families built on centuries of elitism…wat do you expect? and also have you not watched the princess diaries???
even in other cultures, you bow or do something to show respect for an elder or someone older than you. it’s not really something to mock.
Ya bowing is done a lot in Asian culture. I just think they didn’t prepare her so she was confused? I didn’t think the bit was too mocking or disrespectful. confusing…how did Harry didn’t tell her that she needed to learn how to curtsy. And let her do that weird medieval bow thing? Don’t let ur future wife embarrass herself in front of judgy in laws….
She was actually “mocking” herself, comparing herself to a performer at a Renaissance festival. But sure, go ahead and run with the Daily Fail talking points if you want.
Yeah, I got taken in by headlines even though I know better and didn’t really understand that she was mocking herself until I actually watched the episode. She was recollecting with wry humor her own faux pas at the time.
Took a wrong turn when u tried to post to the daily fail I see
Meghan was poking fun at herself. That said, the idea of having to curtsey to your grandmother (in-law to be) prior to sitting down for lunch deserves mocking. Curtseying & bowing to ‘your betters’ is ripe for mocking. Mock away, one & all!
idk, i am a meghan supporter and i feel like that was weird. it didn’t feel self-deprecating to me. gave ammunition to all the haters. even harry looked a little uncomfortable.
Meghan breathing is ammunition for any haters
this whole thing has been blown out of proportion and that’s the only thing anyone is talking about now. i think meghan let her actress side show by doing that theatrical bow to tell her story and she was trying to have fun but it came out the wrong way. whoever is editing that docu should have caught that. it added nothing to their story and made her seem a little silly. also pretty sure it’s not a law you have to curtsy to the queen bc michelle obama didn’t do it and she also said she broke protocol and hugged the queen and even the queen said all the protocol is crap! this was just a weird scene in the documentary turned into a crazy controversy.
Michelle Obama isn’t one of the Queen’s “subjects”. She is American.
@equality in that respect, at that time, neither was Meghan. She was an American and not married into the royal family. She didn’t have to bow or curtsy to the Queen if she didn’t want to.
I think what Meghan said about her clothes is the perfect example – she was told some things as “protocol”, ie “don’t wear the same color as other more senior members of the family” but no one ever told her what other members of the family were wearing, so she had to guess and just wore neutrals all the time to be safe. They set her up to fail.
Also, they’re telling on themselves with that bit about her getting married to someone who’s done a bunch of walkabouts so surely he could give her guidance – how tf is Harry supposed to teach her to be a princess? It’s not the same as being a royal born prince and there’s like a thousand more things the women have to do than the men. You’re telling me Harry had to worry about what color to wear, how to do his hair, how to curtsy, what jewelry to wear, what shoes to wear, what hat to wear, what color to paint his nails, whether to wear panty hose or not, etc, etc, etc?
“The sadness is Harry was so close to Catherine.”
Not as close as Kitty wanted to be. She’s another one who got smacked back for trying to manage his life.
And if Harry was so close to Catherine, why didn’t she help Meghan? Oh, because she was hoping that they wouldn’t get married and she could keep Harry all to herself, until he married someone just like her.
I read once that Kate was nasty to a lot of Harry’s past gfs and ran them off.
Harry said “I look forward to getting to know her” when their engagement was announced. And outside of stories or kate invading his pace at Ivy Cottage or trying to set him up with Pippa, there is nothing to show they were close. Harry was polite to her in public, which she latched onto because her husband basically ignored her all the time.
And others have stated that someone close to Harry would have welcomed Meghan. Kate did the opposite.
They didn’t get any closer after W&K married either. When Kate was expecting CC, the press asked Harry at an event how Kate was. He said, ‘I haven’t seen her in a while but I hear she’s fine’. No, they were never close. What Harry said in their engagement interview sticks with me. He made such a point of introducing Meghan around to everyone important to him, setting up times to meet, making sure they’d meet her. The people important to him, like Tiggy, Eugenie, his godmother Sarah Chatto. Those people are the ones who matter to him and who (seem to have) welcomed Meghan.
Harry was always polite, attentive, smiling, and gentlemanly towards Kate in public. More than William that’s for sure. But I’m thinking as soon as those events were over he went on his way. The media idea that they were close is literally based on photo-ops and public-work events.
Meghan said she received guidance from Jason Knauf on not inviting Ashleigh. She named who advised her. And we know from the past when it comes to Jason Knauf, he doesn’t give good advice. Them trying to change it into “that never happened” is called distraction and gaslighting. It’s to get the readers to question Meghan’s story and think of other possibilities of what could’ve happened. They did the same when Meghan corrected the cry story and when she shared the story about them exchanging private vows days before their weddings. It’s also extremely insidious to claim Meghan could invite anyone when we know the palace was working hard on keeping Samantha and Thomas Jr far away from the wedding. So this gaslighting and nitpicking by the Palace to question Meghan’s story isn’t working.
Yup even after she spoke the truth about the crying story they still doubled down. It’s switched to well both of them cried then to well she bullied charlotte blah blah!
But guess what everyone remembers? The Oprah interview watched my 70million people and not the million of versions created by the palace and press. Same will happen for this Netflix documentary.
So why did they waste money on flying Jr. over to the UK, only to have him stand “outside the gates” and smoke cigarettes, and then fly home? I don’t get that, unless it was to further make Meghan look the the trash that Sr.’s firstborn spawn have always been.
And I’ll bet good money she has emails and/or texts from JK with saying it wasn’t a good idea to invite her niece. She would not name names without receipts.
So one sheet of paper with thirty bullet points. Which you had to be extremely familiar with the rankings and British royalty to understand. How helpful.
I have seen interviews where Phillip, Anne, Edward have said the same thing, that there is no training , there are no lessons on what to do or say, they’re expected to just go out there and do it, but we’re to believe Meghan was given a dossier. If that’s the case they should produce it, show it to the world, give a copy to the newspapers.
We’re forever hearing about people’s diaries. If lessons were scheduled those lessons would be on their diaries, so again it’s easy, show the dairy entries.
Prove it.
The should stop call it proudly The Firm. It’s just poorly managed mess.
I’m sure Meghan did get a dossier, and being the sort of person she is, she probably read it very carefully and tried to go along with it for the most part. But I think it’s also likely that, as an American, perhaps she didn’t take it as deadly serious as they expected. Royal protocol seems excessive at the best of times, and even the WASPiest Americans would likely find it absurd to maintain that level of formality even in private amongst their own family members. If they had given Meghan a proper advisor, rather than just a memo and a racist relic to guide her, that person could’ve stressed to her the importance and strictness of protocol. I have no doubt that, even if she considered it all to be ridiculous, she would’ve complied without too much complaint, other than perhaps privately venting her frustration to her husband (just as many of us normals do when it comes to our own in-laws). But no one cared. No one wanted her to succeed in her role, they just wanted to scare her off. It’s sickening, the way she was set up to fail over and over.
Meghan is a nerd. She absolutely would have taken it seriously. She herself said in the doc that the last thing she wanted was to embarrass the RF.
I think another option is that the dossier wasn’t correct or it wasn’t actually enforced all the time. I’m thinking about every single job and school and club I’ve ever joined where you get a list of your duties, the rules, how to do things, what not to do, safety protocol, etc, but then nobody seems to follow it exactly. Rules and policies have evolved but the rule sheet didn’t, people say things like “oh yeah, that’s how you’re *supposed to* do it, but we don’t actually do that.” Or “oh yeah we do it like that except for when we do it like this instead.”
So I can imagine a bullet point being “you must wear a hat in church, for remembrance Sunday, and for Xmas walks. You don’t need to wear a hat for walkabouts or normal duties.” Except everyone wear a hat around the queen. But that wasn’t mentioned. But it’s just a thing that people decided to start doing.
I can also imagine Meghan trying hard to follow rules and people saying she’s being “uppity” too “Princess-y,” too “grand,” “above her station,” because some things that were rules weren’t actually followed all the time. So then maybe she would relax. But then she’d be in the room with the one person who expected those rules to be followed to a T and they would get mad that she relaxed. So then she’d start up again with doing everything and then someone would take offense that she was being “too formal.”
So one of the issues (just one, obviously) with the whole “royal sources” thing is that the royal sources come from different….well, sources. so here, with the wedding and Ashleigh. I can believe that Buckingham Palace, even Clarence house, didn’t tell Meghan not to invite Ashleigh, but Kensington Palace was probably like “welllll….it might be better if……” so this royal source could be from Charles’ team and could be telling the truth as far as they know it, And maybe even that KP person doesn’t consider their very strong advice to be “telling Meghan not to invite Ashleigh” (even though Meghan got the message loud and clear.)
It just makes me really sad how so many of these papers are just coming swinging, insisting the whole docuseries is a lie, and people are just accepting that. The royal propaganda machine is very very strong.
I believe everything Harry and Meghan state because they are saying it with their full chest voice.
I don’t believe sources and friends because the Rota rats said they they don’t get briefed by the palace so are they just making it all up? Is there an aide or former aide that will go on record with what happened? There’s much more gaslighting and subterfuge coming from the palaces and press.
Besides James holt going on record in this docuseries no one else will. I kinda wish Harry and Meghan’s old staff from Sussex royal would but I believe most of them are still working in the palace.
Jason knauf has gone on record though sayin the vilest things about Meghan especially.
As an actress who had a lot of practice learning scripts, I’m sure Meghan had the dossier memorized very quickly. That dossier probably lacked examples for any of the 30 points and there wasn’t any “live” instruction. Can’t imagine Lady Susan volunteered any useful tips & the Mids were quite nasty forbidding M to come to Pippa’s wedding. She was a late arrival at the reception because Harry had to drive ~30 miles after the wedding to pick up Meg then return to a reception already in progress for over an hour.
Kate had years of proximity to the RF before her wedding + all the Middleton helpful hints, including Pippa’s cues picked up as a friend of several aristo girls. Kate still forgot her slip & flashed her bum a few times & was basically a mindless robot through lots of her new-wife appearances.
This just reminds me that all these symbols of royalty are stupid. Protocols, curtsies, nude nail polish — utterly ridiculous, outdated, and like I said, stupid. Thank God she got out of there.
What the palace is upset about is that the Sussexes are providing corroborating witnesses. The palace sources are nameless and faceless.
Nameless, faceless…meaning made up
Not sure how a memo or typed instruction is considered real training right. They will say and do anything to contradict Meghan. It’s just about making her lose. Idiotic BRF, you’re the losers now.
That’s contrary to what every married in and born in woman has ever said about what it’s like to being part of that family. As well, while they claim Kate spent the first decade if her relationship “learning” how to acclimate to the role, I’m of the opinion that this is BS used as cover for how feckless and lazy she continues to be.
She got a memo, no proper training. It was super cute to see Harry helping her.
Cue the Derby? Horseracing stuff – the Sussexes gave out the prizes…
The memo could not be enough, because they thought it would be enough to make her fail.
The real reason. Someone in the institution insist that the employees to do exactly what Meghan described.
Luckily, she did not fail, but her success meant that she had to go.
I’m loving the irony of Susan Hussey being brought in to give a biracial American so-called royal protocol lessons. I wonder if she grabbed Meghan’s hair and demanded to know where her *people* are from.
Will’s “friend” said…LOL I don’t believe Will has any friends.
Kate and William being a love match: sure I believe they loved each other once upon a time when they were young college students. During the wedding, I don’t remember Kate and William being super emotional but I thought Kate looked super happy that day. She was excited at being the center of attention, it was what she had been dreaming of for years. William didn’t look unhappy either, I actually thought he seemed pleased (or maybe it was relieved lol). They definitely seemed in synch the first few years of marriage and then gradually they became distant and cold. Like Charles with Diana, William got his 3 heirs out of the marriage which is all he really needed and I guess he felt he no longer needed to put in an effort.
As for the royal protocol/princess lessons, we know the BRF isn’t the Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. Diana said there were no princess lessons, I think Fergie said the same at some point? I’m sure people give advice on some things if you ask but you are largely left to fend for yourself. The press invents fake rules that don’t exist. I also think there were serious conversations around Ashleigh being at the wedding and maybe the guidance was it was Meghan’s call to invite her but that the optics of not inviting her own sister would bring unwanted press intrusion into Ashleigh’s life. Meghan weighed the pros and cons and decided not having Ashleigh there would be better for her (Ashleigh), but probably felt she had been pressured to not have there due to Samantha.
Whom to believe? Whom to believe?
The couple who are putting things on the record, or unnamed palace sources. It’s sooooo hard to decide, guys!!!
What makes it so difficult for these folks to understand intersectionality. Meghan NEVER said, she was cool with how Kate was treated by paparazzi early on in the courtship. Black women are not saying that white women don’t experience sexism. Meghan never said that what Kate went through was ok. The BRF said what Kate went through was ok and then Meghan, tried to do even more emotional labour on top of all the shit she was going through and educate them on the fact they are seeing the two experiences as a false dichotomy. Do they really not get this? Or is their refusal to see reason further gaslighting?
The truth isn’t in the middle. The truth is what Meghan and Harry say. With the caveat that I bet anything they’re softening it a lot. Abuse victims do that.