Tom Bower's book on Meghan Markle

[SmileyFaces12]

It's out next week, titled 'Revenge'. I've ordered it already!

Quite likely. It's the word 'our leader'. I have never considered QE as my Leader. I just find the thought annoying. I am rapidly reversing in the car out of the side alley into a very busy main road

@mathanxiety Thank you for putting it so much better than me. There is nothing the RF do that affects me apart from money to them and massive annoyance at their swerving of laws when it suits them, and avoidance of certain taxes.

@LurkingMarauder Well said. This book is a cashing in exercise.

Im not a great Meghan fan but I’d have stood up & applauded her for calling these people out. Good for her
I totally agree. It takes gumption to do this, I've done it on occasions and people can turn on you.

You are not a British citizen, don’t live in Britain (or ‘here’ as you somewhat confusingly call it).

It is amusing to read your lectures on how our lives are led from across the Pond.

You are conflating the role of the Crown with the role of the monarch. For a lot of people the monarch does play a role in their lives. Ceremonial but at times quite powerful. Perhaps not for Rousette—entirely her call as to whether it’s true for her, but for many.

LurkingMarauder
Two things. Firstly, he claims Toni Morrison, Bonnie Hammer and Diana Fossey [WHO IS DEAD] were on the Vogue cover. A quick google search shows that's an easily disprovable lie.

You haven’t read it, have you? He says they were identified as women of influence by MM to be included in the written article. No mention of covers.

I’m attaching the screenshot of that part.

Another in the “obviously hasn’t read it” camp but still feels the need to come on here (for the first time, you note!) to point out alleged errors that aren’t.

Bower knows very well that Meghan’s first advertisement for Reitman’s was in 2015, before she meant Harry. That would be why when he tells the story of what happened in the shooting of her second commercial for them, in 2016, he starts it like this:

I’m glad Meghan stood up to Harry’s friends for being sexist, misogynistic and transphobic. I hate that the friends just brush it off as being “bants” 🙄. It makes me think less of Harry for hanging around with such idiots in the first place though as I imagine he probably used to partake in that type of culture too.

Apparently the unknown actress that is such an intolerable diva was so bad, they worked with her again.

Also, MM has been plotting her 'false charitable persona' since she was 10yrs old. All through her teenage years, in the hopes of meeting a prince one day.

twitter.com/isexton/status/1548612879041105920

I think everyone involved sounds completely obnoxious, including Meghan. Such arrogance and bad manners to impose your political views at every turn, at a large social gathering of old friends, with their own ways of communicating. She should have voted with her feet if she hated it so much.

The stuff about the Vogue issue is interesting. I’d assumed Meghan was having a pop at Kate by choosing not to go on the cover herself, but according to this book, that wasn’t her decision.

I agree with previous posters: whilst this is quite obviously a hatchet job, and I’m sure there will be inaccuracies as there always are in these books (like the Omid Scobie one), it’s illuminating about the extreme culture clash between Harry’s family and circle and Meghan’s outlook.

I imagine he probably used to partake in that type of culture too.

We don’t need to imagine this, we know he did from what he’s said in public. And I agree it was brave of Meghan to challenge it, but there are ways, and there are ways, in any situation. I wonder, did she not wonder about who she was dating, given this was his closest circle of friends?

Roussette I used the term 'our leaders'' intentionally. We may not like it but they are our leaders. We are in an unequal but symbiotic relationship with all of our structures of governance. The decisions that those in leadership positions make and don't make, and how they behave and don't behave, affect our lives. These effects range from the taxes that we pay to who our allies are to how patriotic we feel.

Im not a great Meghan fan but I’d have stood up & applauded her for calling these people out. Good for her

It's an interesting point. I get the impression from the extracts that Bower may be showcasing M's lack of suitability for the role that she married into. Public castigation of others is a very delicate business.

All these people who haven’t read the book coming on with ways to spin what they want us to think it contains!! It’s very amusing 😂

Bower doesn’t say Meghan was the one who twisted the truth about her Proctor & Gamble campaign. He says that Vanity Fair talked to P&G and concluded they could not prove her story. He then writes that “Thomas Markle knew that Hilary Clinton and P&G had not replied to Meghan. The success of her “campaign” was fictitious, invented by an adoring father”. Aged, 11, she doubtless would have repeated what her father had told her about her starring role in the matter.

And Meghan was under contract with Reitman’s and from the post that someone posted upthread it was a contract that was clearly working out well for the company. Why would they ditch her? I imagine that they had a completely different team for her next shoots though. Since the director of the second commercial posted later on instagram that Meghan was the meanest person she had ever worked with, I imagine that she wasn’t that keen to be involved again.

Another one who thinks well done to Meghan for challenging Harry's ghastly friends, and if that guy has to make that into a negative then he must be desperate.

wow. just shows how she can do nothing right. if she hadn't said anything she would have been ripped apart for that.

So you consider being with people, and one of them makes a racist comment and a person picks them up on it... is an obnoxious thing to do?

I don't. I've done it.

I used the term 'our leaders'' intentionally. We may not like it but they are our leaders. We are in an unequal but symbiotic relationship with all of our structures of governance. The decisions that those in leadership positions make and don't make, and how they behave and don't behave, affect our lives. These effects range from the taxes that we pay to who our allies are to how patriotic we feel.

So you honestly consider the Queen to be 'your leader'?
The Queen is toothless unless it comes to protecting her own interests (taxes and laws). Look at prorogation of parliament which QE went along with quite happily, which was then ruled unlawful in the courts.
Says it all.

She's not my 'leader', nor will Charles be.

This is a book, not an interview.
You cannot just print an BS you are given, because you have time to 'fact check' as Bower keeps mentioning. Yet, he does not check if it's true that MM did not do any charity work. He would have challenged the guy and said, what about all these pictures of her and interviews since she was a child. If anything, he should at least have a line that says, despite what the person says when we interviewed them, we did actually find the opposite - you know, just to make out as if he has journalist scruples.

Haha.... even Kevin Maguire who writes for the DM is on Jeremy Vine now and calling this book 'a complete hit job'. He says it has no substance and then carries on with saying 'Well done Meghan for calling out that obnoxious behaviour'.

😂😂
Spotted a mile away with his lies.
Just caught the last bit of that conversation just now.

Well done MM for calling out bigotry on the spot. She probably is helping Harry keep himself in check too. You leave bigots to bigot in peace, it spreads and you are enabling.

I think this part of the book will make people like her more- takes guts to stand up to that crap- why she didn’t run for the hills on discovering what Prince Harry was really like is a mystery….

Why would you be married to someone you have to ‘keep in check’ though- sounds exhausting

I think you misunderstand the author’s job here. This is a book that is, in some of the passages that have been printed, sets out what other people have told him happened at various points in time. He is recording their firsthand accounts, not himself establishing what was true or not. It’s not a judgement.

So in the VF instance, he reports what he was told by the author of the story - that what they found out about Meghan’s charity work as at the date of the interview meant they did not feel comfortable about presenting her as a philanthropist as she wished. She had, at the time, spoken at a couple of North American events and taken one trip to Rwanda earlier the same year. That, presumably, did not convince the team at VF that it would be appropriate to describe her as a philanthropist, so she was presented as an actress with a strong social conscience (“One of the strongest bonds Prince Harry and Markle share is their philanthropy” the article did say, without going into details).

Tom Bower is under no duty to challenge Sam Karshner on this, anymore than Oprah Winfrey was under a duty to challenge Meghan on some of the ridiculous things she said in her interview. Oh, and when Tom Bower finds conflicting versions of a story - who approached whom about Meghan guest-editing Vogue, for example - he has included both versions, and lets the reader decide.

Being as they sue the ass off anyone saying or doing something they don't like I doubt he'd take the risk of printing lies.

Kevin Maguire is Assoc Editor at The Mirror - he'd be horrified by the DM accusation!

I did mean the Mirror actually. I should have distinguished from the Fail.

I agree with pp - good on Meghan for challenging those privileged buffoons.
I bet first contact with the aristocracy was illuminating.