Posted on 03/08/2021 7:56:39 AM PST by Kaslin
The interview was loaded with apparent revelations. But there's absolutely no way around the he-said-she-said dynamic that characterizes this conflict.
Regardless of how many sit-down interviews they grant or how real their reality show gets, we’re destined to observe the royal family from afar. Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, which aired Sunday night, ostensibly peeled back the curtain on their troubled relationship with the House of Windsor.
Of course, we don’t actually know that it did anything of the sort. The newly minted Californians coordinated the primetime special to tell their side of the story. That’s how this goes. According to Harry and Meghan, who left their roles as senior members of the royal family, they did “everything [they] could to make it work.” The queen may have a different take. (Although we likely won’t hear it in a splashy TV interview.)
Markle told Oprah she’d experienced “suicidal thoughts,” explaining, “I went to the institution and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help…and I was told that I couldn’t.”
“I went to one of the most senior people to get help. I was told I couldn’t because it wouldn’t be good for the institution,” said Markle.
Harry on his father Prince Charles:
There is a lot to work though there. I feel really let do. He’s been through something similar.
He knows what pain feels like.
And Archie is his grandson.
I will always love him but there is a lot of hurt that has happened#OprahMeghanHarry— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 8, 2021
Harry on Prince William: The relationship is one of "space at the moment" and time heals all things hopefully.
Meghan: I regret believing them (the Palace) when they said I would be protected.#OprahMeghanHarry— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 8, 2021
“I’m comfortable knowing we did everything we did to make it work.”
Both Harry and Meghan tell Oprah they did everything they could to make their roles work, but ultimately the institution and family let them down.#OprahMeghanHarry
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) March 8, 2021
Prince Harry says the Royal Family cut him off financially at the start of 2020 (after announcing plans to step back from royal roles) but says he was able to afford security for his family because of the money his mother, Princess Diana, left behind.#OprahMeghanHarry
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) March 8, 2021
Harry: If it were not for Meghan, I wouldn’t not have been able to leave. I felt trapped as well.
I was trapped but I didn’t know I was trapped.#OprahMeghanHarry— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 8, 2021
Harry says the royal family has an issue with race “For this union and the specifics around race there were opportunities for my family to show some public support. No one from my family ever said anything. That hurts.” #HarryandMeghanonOprah #MeghanAndHarry
— Roya Nikkhah (@RoyaNikkhah) March 8, 2021
Meghan: They took away Harry's security. I wrote letters to his family – I accept that I couldn't;t have it. But I said "please keep keep my husband safe. Please don’t pull his security. And they said it’s not just possible".#OprahMeghanHarry
— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 8, 2021
The couple said they felt “trapped” as royals. Meghan said she begged unsuccessfully for Harry’s security to remain. Harry said his family “literally” cut him off, and he’s living on money left by his mother.
In reference to rumors swirling around her wedding, Markle claimed it was actually Kate Middleton who made her cry, despite reports to the contrary. Harry said his relationship with Prince William involves “space at the moment.”
They were married in a private ceremony three days before their public wedding. They’re now expecting a baby girl in the summer, but want only two children. Floating a huge allegation, Markle said before the birth of her son there were internal “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
The interview was loaded with apparent revelations. But there’s absolutely no way around the he-said-she-said dynamic that characterizes this conflict.
The crown wants to protect itself. Harry and Meghan want to protect themselves as well. Given the necessarily public nature of their spat, both sides must now manipulate the media in their favor to succeed. Whether you love Markle or hate her, what you’re seeing is a curated media character striving to achieve an illusion of authenticity.
I confess to being viscerally irritated by Americans’ palace intrigue over the royal family. Women project onto royals because their privilege makes it seem okay, so controversial royals are incredible gossip fodder, like homecoming queens and trust-fund princesses. British tabloids are a different beast, but it seems inevitable that Markle’s admitted struggles with fame-induced mental health problems will spark comparisons with Britney Spears.
For the public, it seems like a trade-off. Markle and Spears get fame and money, so we get to joke when they gain ten pounds or have an off day. We get to speculate about their family drama and they get to jet set. Is it fair? Tabloid culture is certainly a response to demand. Demand is not always or even often broadly moral.
Markle is notoriously sanctimonious. She lectures the world from her position of immense power and privilege. She has the vapid politics of a Zinn-chugging liberal arts graduate. Depending on which rumors you believe, she’s not very nice either. But who knows what’s real in a battle for the narrative? It’s not possible, so you might as well just stop investing in the fight.
At play here are deep international dynamics, the trading of literal royalty for America’s decadent version of it in Hollywood. Emotive millennials pointedly bucking their conservative family’s tradition of stoicism, swapping dignified roles and their inevitable constraints for self-indulgence.
We’re all projecting a lot onto this couple. The comment that struck me most was Harry’s claim his family is “scared” of British tabloids and acts accordingly. Powerful people being scared of the free press? What an incredible concept.
Here in the states, where Harry and Meghan have chosen to make their home, reality star Bethenny Frankel deleted a critical tweet that read, “Cry me a river…the plight of being a game show host, fairly unknown actress, to suffering in a palace, w tiaras & 7 figure weddings for TWO WHOLE YEARS to being a household name w @Oprah on speed dial, fetching 7 m for interviews, hundreds of millions in media deals.” For a couple with the world at their fingertips, it’s true that Harry and Meghan do a lot of whining.
After blowback from users and outlets like TMZ, Frankel deleted the tweet and added, “I watched M & H sit down. Emotional distress & racism must feel suffocating & powerless. I’m a polarizing, unfiltered(often to a fault)flawed person w a voice. When I heard of the interview, during a pandemic, it felt like a surprising choice. I’m sorry if it hurt or offended you.”
American tabloids defend rich and powerful celebrities as long as they cloak themselves in vague wokeness. That makes California a much warmer home for Harry and Meghan for reasons beyond the weather. Here, they can have their cake and eat it too.
For all our personal and cultural projections onto the couple, “Harry and Meghan” is always just our interpretation of the family’s media tug-of-war. We have little access to the reality at hand, which is carefully clouded by the resources of enormously powerful people. Why bother squinting?
Don Draper said it best. Love her or hate her, the best approach to Meghan Markle is simply not to think about her at all.
She's well on her way to becoming World's Most Hated Woman.
As for her husband, well, we have a name for chumps like him.
It was said he was gay....he sure dressed gayish.
I am not sure why everybody is so interested in the inbred monarchy in their spawn. They should abdicate as a family, and their family, unless they’re already US citizen should not be allowed in the US.
I think Meghan’s kid is as much of a US citizen as Baraq Obama was, LOL.
Heck people wanted to be entertained by two people who are nobody but think they’re somebody we all need to hear from. They don’t get they’re a joke and a show.....or they do and don’t care as they walk to the next deposit to their bank account.
don’t i know it, it’s not for sissies...
wonder how old she was when taken, 90+ at death
And she’s wearing Makeup! HAHAHA!
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the woke glitterati is they demand the right to lecture everyone else while brooking no limits on their personal behavior, public or private. Meagan’s deal included a great number of limits on her personal behavior and that didn’t work for her. The public good wasn’t worth that kind of sacrifice on her part.
The movie Sin City 2 featured a character who could have gotten everything she wanted by just asking nicely, but instead her nature was to acquire it by devious & abusive means, ultimately getting nothing and destroying herself.
Such is Meghan.
A cut from all the International Networks that picked it up.
newsflash: William and Kate named their daughter Charlotte Elizabeth DIANA -
That’s nice.. I had no idea😊
Darn,I don’t have a TV.
he was our first Queen?
“I’m an idiot but I didn’t know I was an idiot.”
I watched the whole interview. Meghan through Catherine under the bus. That’s all it took for me to despise Meghan more. She’s a big baby. Boo effing whooo!
Gee I missed it do to a pressing personal item, cutting my nails.
They wanted taxpayers somewhere or Prince Charles to pay for their security after they left for the big bucks in Hollyweird. If you believe their PR, they are doing so well with their Netflix and Spotify deals they can easily pay for security and everything else themselves. They managed to buy a $14M mansion in Montecito didn’t they?
She couldn’t talk to her mother who has worked as a social worker in the mental health sector? See her Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doria_Ragland
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.