To think Harry/Meghan are coming out of this worse than the Royal Family?

[Bassarid]

Is it just me?

I think in the US some of what they say will go down well. Many Americans have a rather strange view of life in Britain, thinking it’s all Downton Abbey or Austin Powers, and that the masses are poor and struggling. I have too many examples to mention, but a recent one was someone worried about a trip to England because we have no showers . They were visiting hotels in London

But, here in the UK, we know that a lot of what Harry says is utter bullshit - eg the lack of mental health help. He’s ok as long as he’s in California. No wonder he’s nervous of returning to the UK where he can be called out on all his rewriting of history.

No one is forcing them to sell their "truth" to the press. If they wanted an easy time, they could have laid low for a while. They clearly don't want a quiet, easy life.

'Another anti Meghan bitchfest. How very original Op'

Rtft @Lampzade. It is anything but a 'bitchfest'. Maybe try and not be quite so misogynistic.

It is actually primarily about H and his inappropriate oversharing at the moment. Seemingly giving no consideration to the mental health of the people he is publicly criticising when he has previously said his family have supported him (until he couldn't have his own way).

@amusedtodeath1 Of course they don't! No cash in that is there?

God forbid they might have to get actual real jobs then rather than sell their souls to the highest bidder.

Of course they can't afford a quiet life.
The publicity is what keeps them going and who would listen to their podcasts or whatever without all this extra oxygen?
They are 'poor 'compared to their new very rich friends over there and Harry knows this. Oprah is a shrewd business woman and knows they need to keep people interested in them in order to make money out of them both. Once the interest or money dries up , she'll be off. I bet they are holding a few more things back too.
(This is how I see it anyway. It's all a game :(

NB @ohforarainyday
Still waiting for a response to my earlier questions re your comments about posters on this thread

I don’t think Harry is doing himself any favours no but then I don’t think we (as in the UK) are his target audience.

I think therapy and taking your mental health seriously is a good thing but Harry knows the game well enough to know that he’s just feeding the gossip mongers and adding very little to anyone else’s life no matter how he labels publicising his ‘journey’. I do think there is an influence from Meghan there, how could there not be, but I would question whether the her very ‘Hollywood’ public soul searching strategy is a particularly healthy. It’s clunky and unsophisticated taking very little account of the permanent damage it can do to relationships that could otherwise be salvaged and valuable. I also think it encourages people to put too much of their identity into being a victim.

If I translated this situation to one of my friends I would be very concerned if someone who had previously been very close with their large family despite problems, suddenly cut them off and was partnered with someone who had done exactly the same thing. They might have found comfort in having a commonality or they might actually just be both incredibly toxic for one another since neither of them have managed to process their problems and maintain a previously close relationship. It’s like addicts - they’re not going to be giving each other good advice 99% of the time.

The narrative Harry and Meghan give is that Thomas pulling out was a last minute thing
It's not "Harry and Meghan's narrative". It's Thomas Markle's narrative. Thomas Markle has made very clear throughout that he was asked to be part of the wedding party, that he attended dress fittings in Mexico to prepare for the wedding with every intention of being part of the wedding party, and that he decided not to come at the last minute due to his health problems. Making up weird conspiracy theories involving Thomas Markle slagging off and threatening his daughter while simultaneously taking the fall for her by pretending it was his decision not to attend, in order to paint Meghan as some kind of evil mastermind, is a stretch even for the usual standards of these threads.

The most formal expensive wedding imaginable for which invitation cards will be changing hands for £££ in a few years time and they invited the bride’s father by email/text as if it was a quiet drink in the pub? Not buying it.

So you're accusing Thomas Markle of lying? Can you please explain why you believe that Thomas Markle lied about being asked to be part of the wedding party?

Yes, even if everything had gone exactly to plan, the only members of her family that would have attended Meghan’s wedding were her mother and her father.
Her mother's brother and step-mother both attended the wedding. There are photos and video footage of both of them at the wedding.

I can’t understand how a hitherto close relationship with your own father can go to pot so quickly. If he had been a lifelong bad father, then it’s fair enough, but M’s message to him in 2016 doesn’t sound hostile.
yes she had a decent relationship with him until she met H
But these statements are objectively, provably false. There's a candid video someone sold of Meghan aged maybe 20/21 saying "my dad and I aren't on speaking terms right now, it's really difficult". It's clearly a relationship that's been turbulent for years. It's a fact that Thomas Markle is or has been estranged from all his children and grandchildren. It's a fact that his own public behaviour (openly threatening his daughter, and making horrendous comments about "it's time to look after daddy") paints him as pretty toxic. It's common for enmeshed and dysfunctional parent/child relationships to veer between being very close and loving, and estranged/hostile.

It's weird that Meghan haters ignore all that and pretend they've always been super close when there is literally video proving they've had periods of estrangement before Meghan even met Harry.

any discussion they might have they can have no faith won’t be repeated next time he gets a bit of airtime and without trust there can be no reconciliation.
Yes, it must be awful knowing that any word you say will be leaked by the Cambridge press machine to the Daily Mail.

I have heard say that the US are not taking to kindly him saying this stuff when PP in barely cold.

@ohforarainyday

The Mexican suit fitting was a scam. However, Meghan had organised his outfit in London. I believe he was expected to come but pulled out at the last minute, either through heart problems or maybe anxiety? Or maybe he was put out that Meghan had told him she was making a speech and he couldn't.

At 20/21, most of us still have lots of growing up to do. The fact that Meghan is complaining about her Dad at that age is totally negated by the loving message she posted on Father's Day 15 (?) years later, when she was an adult.

I didn't know her DM's brother and wife were at the wedding. How do you know this? If so, I'm really surprised that they weren't seating with Doria, as she looked like she could use some company.

What tosh you talk about the Cambridge PR people leaking to the Mail - unless you have proof, I think that is a total lie.

They don't act like they came out of it just grand because instead of enjoying their new life, they are complaining about the royal family and how hard being a royal was. They need move on because at this point, they are making lots of money off exploiting the RF which is not a viable long term plan or good for their brand because people are eventually going to get sick of hearing two extremely privileged middle aged adults complain because daddy stopped financially supporting them, they stopped getting their security paid for by the taxpayers when they left The Firm and living in a Palace and enjoying a lavish tax funded lifestyle was apparently such a hardship. Many are already beginning to notice the inconsistencies in their stories and that for two people who claim to hate being a royal that they love using their royal titles.

Her mother's brother and step-mother both attended the wedding. There are photos and video footage of both of them at the wedding. Well that's a sum total of three family members. And that's still odd. I know we're on MN where people are always going 'no contact' and don't invite their relatives to their wedding but ... No she was ashamed of them

I don't think any of them are great role models tbh, but I don't think they're evil either. It's just a family row, they happen all the time.

I don't approve of Harry's behaviour, if only because is grandfather just died FFS.

Well whatever happens with H&M in the future, we now know one thing for absolutely sure - they will never, ever become working royals again. They went all in on burning any remaining bridges and so now they are truly going to have to do whatever they can to make pots of money without the safety net of ever returning to the UK or getting any funding from the RF.

To be fair to H&M, they must have known that the Oprah interview followed by Harry's latest speaking out would be the final nail in the coffin, so they must be feeling prepared to go it alone. (Although a cynical part of me is wondering if Harry's counting on a payday from HMQ's estate when she passes).

So I expect more of Harry speaking out wherever he can get an audience. His cruel family and mental health journey will become a stale topic at some point though so perhaps things will quieten down.

I wouldn’t much want Thomas Marie as my father....

BUT I think his lack of attendance was rather more to do with his appearance and demeanour and rather less because of their “toxic” relationship. Had he been a wealthy wasp but the meanest man on earth you betcha he’d have been there in the front row.

I've posted PLENTY of proof before. Lots of times. I said recently I was no longer engaging in demands for proof because a) Meghan-bashers never ever respond to requests for proof of their claims and allegations and b) every single time I've complied with demands for proof it's either been ignored, or weaponised as a way to attack me ("OMG you actually posted the proof we demanded you post, how crazily obsessed are you!!!")

I would like Rainy to come up with some evidence to back up her accusations against people on this thread in particular.

You know full well that if I was to post "I remember so-and-so posting in the now-deleted thread claiming X rumour about Meghan" there would be pages and pages absolutely howling about what a mean evil bully I am, how DARE I name and shame another poster, I'm obsessed, I'm a stalker, I'm clearly a paid troll, dozens of posts screaming PROOF PROOF PROOF PROOF NOW NOW NOW NOW (and if I did happen to have screencaps or cached threads as proof, you'd simply ignore it and howl more about how only obsessed stalkers screencap posts), blanket denials, accusations that by naming names I'm intentionally trying to derail the thread, accusations that I'm deliberately trying to get the thread deleted, that I'm dragging up irrelevant ancient history, that I'm disgusting and vile for spreading X rumour, they've never heard X rumour before, "isn't Rainy mean and horrible for spreading X rumour about Meghan", etc. etc. etc.

A commonly used tactic here is posters pretending they've never seen certain posts (i.e. posters who post "I've never seen anyone be racist towards Meghan" when you've seen them gleefully posting in threads full of racism) as well as posting deliberately inflammatory things that are quickly deleted, and then flat out lying and pretending they never said things everyone saw them say. I re-direct you back to my post about the "racial slur screencap" incident - not one person had the integrity to admit they'd been proven wrong.

That is sheer bullying. That is posting with an agenda. That is Tactics.

You know perfectly well that even if I was to post screencaps or links to cached threads saying "here's a thread where [username] spread X rumour, and here's a more recent thread where the same username claimed to have never heard of X rumour" that absolutely none of you would turn around and go "gosh Rainy you're right! Thanks for posting the details I demanded you post!"

You're just trying to goad me into giving you material you can use to attack me. It's pretty clear that a minority of posters have no interest in discussing Harry and Meghan because they appear absolutely desperate to turn every thread into Let's Pick Apart Every Word Rainy Says or Let's Pick Apart Every Word Rousette Says.

You're just trying to goad me into giving you material you can use to attack me

Blimey. What with that and all the upper case letters, this is all becoming a bit Twitteresque.

IMO their big error is to use an American PR company who saw them as another celebrity couple.

If they had used a British PR company, who would have been sensitive to the Royal situation, I am sure they would have found a more diplomatic way forward to be able to speak out, support the causes that mean a lot to them and to do this without disrespecting the Royal family and the UK.

I have very little opinion on most of it except that Harry was appalling to publicly moan about his father and Grandma a matter of weeks after his Grandfather's death. That was heartless and shows how little Harry is considering anyone else right now. Which makes me worry about his mental health even more.

What tosh you talk about the Cambridge PR people leaking to the Mail - unless you have proof, I think that is a total lie.

Byline Times (respected investigate journalism outlet) ran an expose proving that Christian Jones' partner accepted payments totalling £4k from a bank account belonging to the Sun. They had copies of bank statements showing the transactions.

There is plenty of information out there about Cambridge CEO and Dan Wootton's best friend Jason Knauf and his relationship with the press (there's a screencap of Jason Knauf's email tipping the press off about the Meghan bullying allegations that Jason Knauf himself started, on Twitter; DW also confirmed JK was the one who tipped off the press) and the undeniable weirdness of Will and Kate rewarding someone with Knauf's dodgy history with such a huge promotion.

As well as plenty of online comments, tweets, videos, etc. from tabloid journalists confirming they were fed info by royal staffers or that they have the personal mobile phone numbers of royal staffers and vice versa.

Royals leak to the press constantly. It's all part of the Old Arrangement.

At 20/21, most of us still have lots of growing up to do. The fact that Meghan is complaining about her Dad at that age is totally negated by the loving message she posted on Father's Day 15 (?) years later, when she was an adult.
Stop changing the goalposts. You can't pretend Meghan and her Dad were never anything but super close until she met Harry then turn around and say "oh well the fact they were estranged when she was 21 means nothing." Either they had prior problems or they did not. The video proves they did. The Father's Day message proves nothing except their relationship happened to be in a good place at that particular time. And you're ignoring all Thomas Markle's own toxic behaviour and the fact his behaviour was bad enough that all his children and grandchildren became estranged from him.

I'm afraid you're right @ohforarainyday

The latest for me is.... I don't post on an H&M thread for instance, I decide to ignore it. Then I get an @ Roussette asking me for my opinion on the latest awful turn of events. Even though I'm not on the thread.

I stupidly go on and write a long reply saying what I think and why. And I can guarantee that the poster who asked what I thought... completely ignores the post I took time to put together. Always happens.

So I do not blame rainy for not providing links the whole flippin' time.

If ever I do backing up what I've said, it's totally ignored because it's not what certain posters want to hear!

I agree Mulberry, that's what pissed me off about all this. His grandmother is grieving. It seems that if, God forbid (and I genuinely mean that), his wife died he'd expect a lot more respect than he is giving to his grandmother right now.

Oh, and by the way, I saw pictures of MM's uncle and wife going into the Church on the wedding day.

No, I'm not going to look for them and post it.

Agree re Harry's abysmal and unempathetic timing.
If he wants the media spotlight off him he could easily stop appearing in the media. He could do something useful and let others report on how great his work is rather than constantly telling us about the great things he is doing despite his family trying to stop him being his true self or whatever.