Following the 1997 death of Princess Diana with her “explosive” celebrity but unstable personality, the British royal family reportedly never again wanted to bring someone into the family who would outshine the queen and her direct heirs.
But it appears that the royal family ended up admitting someone with star power and a flair for drama in 2018, when Prince Harry married American TV actor Meghan Markle.
Famed editor Tina Brown assesses that combustible turn of events in a new interview with The Telegraph, ahead of the release of her new book about the royal family, “The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor — the Truth and the Turmoil.”
Brown calls Meghan “an earnest Californian speaking her truth,” while trying to save “her sweet, sexy husband from his crusty, clueless relations.”
“Even as Meghan became bigger on the global stage, like Alice in Wonderland she had to shrink into the voiceless requirements of service to the Crown,” said Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and The Daily Beast. “She just couldn’t comprehend that. For an actress, star power is leverage. If you don’t get what you want as an actress, it’s, ‘Call my agent!’ But if you’re in the palace and you’re married to the sixth in line, however big your star power, you are not that important to the palace. I do understand how extremely frustrating that was.”
According to The Telegraph, Brown’s book offers the best account yet of the “divisive phenomenon that is the former Meghan Markle.” On one hand, Brown is sympathetic to Meghan who clearly had “a very tough entry into England.” She is understanding of Meghan’s claims that she, as a biracial woman from a middle-class American background, was traumatized by the relentless and sometimes racist coverage by the U.K tabloid media, and no doubt encountered snobbery from the British establishment.
Brown furthermore believes that Meghan and Harry together could have been “a tremendous asset to the Commonwealth,” and Meghan probably had a lot of good ideas that could have been beneficial to keeping the royal family relevant in the 21st century.
On the other hand, Brown said, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are impatient people who are “addicted to drama.” Harry, more charismatic than his older brother, Prince William, also is a “very insecure, fragile, hot-headed guy who never really dealt with the death of his mother and then he’s confronted by a slightly chaotic life.”
The truth about Harry, Brown told The Telegraph, is “he’s so emotionally needy that he’s been completely and utterly taken over by Meghan and his whole personality has changed. It’s a really sad thing to a great many people. Meghan seems to answer some huge need in Harry and it seems like they are in a powerful co-dependency. And I do question how it will end.”
Brown also criticizes the way that Harry and Meghan handled their exit from royal life in 2020. “The problem was that the way Harry did it was so catastrophically rude that it got everyone genuinely angry and feeling that he just had to go,” Brown said, referring to the couple publicly launching their since-shuttered Sussex Royal website before working out the terms of their exit with the queen.
“He just alienated everybody,” Brown said. Harry and Meghan did further damage to his relationship with his family when they sat down for their tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, during which they accused the royal family of racism. Meghan also notably accused Kate Middleton of making her cry before her 2018 wedding.
“William was disgusted about Meghan’s attack on Kate because she can’t answer back, Brown said.
“The Oprah interview was desperately damaging to any relationship that Harry could ever hope to have with his family,” said Brown. She sees little hope of repair, given that Harry is expected to publish his memoir this year, in which he’s likely to reveal more embarrassing secrets about the royal family.
Harry probably won’t dish any dirt about his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, or about Kate, whom he once regarded as a sister, Brown said, but he probably won’t hold back in critiquing William, his father or his father’s wife, Camilla Parker Bowles. Charles and Camilla were lovers before Charles married the much-younger Diana, and the two famously cheated on her during the marriage.
“William has accepted Camilla in terms of what she means to his father. He’s been grown-up about it,” Brown said. “Harry, on the other hand, can’t stand Camilla, he doesn’t want Camilla to be queen, he’s very angry that it’s happening. He has not made his peace with it and he probably never will.”
Harry and Meghan also have not made peace with the fact that it’s futile to keep filing lawsuits against the British media, Brown said.
Brown said that “stirring up this hornet’s nest” is probably one way that Harry feels he can express his anger at the media, whom he believes killed his mother and who has made his and Meghan’s life miserable.
“That’s his view, and he’s not entirely wrong,” Brown said. On the other hand, Brown said, “doing battle with the British media is a lost cause.”
“Unfortunately, Meghan is as combative about it as he is,” Brown added. “William and Kate calm each other down a lot; their marriage works very well in that way. In the Sussex marriage, they wind each other up and it’s Us Against the World, and that’s a disaster.”
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