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With another podcast set for release this week, The Sunday Times has a piece addressing Harry and Meghan's apparent strategy:

Courtiers are bemused by the Sussexes’ determination to rage against the past. As Davis observed of Meghan in her article: “She has taken a hardship and turned it into content.” A source who knows the Sussexes questions why Meghan “is constantly looking back at how awful it was to briefly be a royal. What does success look like, is it a number in the bank? Is it that they’ve killed off the monarchy?” Another Palace source says: “Ultimately they are bashing the institution that has put them in the position they’re in, the longevity of that strategy is not sustainable.”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/harry-and-meghan-keep-bashing-the-monarchy-because-its-good-business-royals-believe-nq29p6g7z

I'm curious about their strategy, too. They seem to think that criticizing the royal makes them look better - it really doesn't. Instead, it just makes them look petty and increasingly irrelevant.

It won't just be the reporter, though, will it? If a newspaper printed an article referring to Archie as the N word then that newspaper needs to be held to account.
Surely it would have caused an uproar?

The sausage factory can be interesting if you are interested in other people. Meghan is not.

@derxa I so agree with this. It infuriates me when people think that jobs or professions that are not “glamorous” or making mega bucks are inherently dull, boring and worthless. The world would grind to a halt if someone didn’t do these jobs. And things are only as interesting as you make them, so as you say being interested in people and also in the way things work really helps. It makes your own life so much more pleasant if you make an effort to enjoy what you do. Obviously that doesn’t always work, but you have to at least give it a fair chance and not just dismiss it.

I agree with you and have already mentioned these incidents on this and other threads . I can almost understand not naming the family member but the reporter(s) allegation is shocking and should not be brushed aside .
Slightly off topic but I do hope M’s speech today is focused and relevant and doesn’t contain sly digs and “ poor me” comments .

She made a bad choice. It’s obvious by the interview in South Africa that she was struggling ( you may be annoyed because you may feel she should have suffered in silence like the rest of them but we know she was struggling regardless) and that is when Harry decided to get them out.

The trouble is with having empathy for the Sussexes is that that was not the original narrative - their first position was not that they had to “get out”, but that they wanted to keep doing the job but on their own terms and monetising their positions. It was only after they found out that that was not possible that they had to “get out”, and suddenly the story changed to it being an unsurvivable environment. This is another reason why trust in the couple has eroded. It’s difficult to keep giving people the benefit of the doubt when they have demonstrated they are happy to manipulate you.

I’m another one who’s sorry that you had to experience being in a work setting and having appallingly racist language used. I am astounded (but, sadly, also kind of not astounded) that people in positions of authority think that is acceptable. And I know it’s tough being in the meeting and wondering what to do. I recall once being in a meeting with a new, very senior joiner and he said something that was a clearly discriminatory. My heart sank as I pondered that I would have to be the one to call him out (and be “that” woman) and I was relieved beyond measure when a male colleague spoke up to protest. It’s a shitty position to be in.

the Uk is not a perfect place but I would put the chance of a journalist saying the n-word about her child in an official capacity about as likely as political commentators and journalists using the n-word and the p-word about members of the current cabinet

And this is where Meghan’s American phraseology come into play - if you read the sentence in her voice she did not say that a journalist said something in an official capacity. I didn’t read that sentence as that. What she said is why would I expose my child to people who I believe are racist? Who have been calling me all sorts of things behind closed doors?

I may be wrong but this is how I read this - perhaps the other POC can chime in and say if this is what you heard.

Again - you may not like it but I have said time and time again that there are sections of our media who are racist by what they write and how they write it. I think Meghan is correct in her assessment- is it everyone? No. But it is enough and many people do not call it out when it happens (Marcus Rashford, Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler, Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel - more recently Rishi Sunak). Do I know if these journalists who write these things have said slurs - no I do not, but I absolutely suspect that they are racist.

And if she felt she wanted to protect her child from them - she is right to do so? Can she protect her child from racism in the US? No but she feels more comfortable there and understands the hidden and quiet things better that she ever did here because she’s from there.

I will ask you a question - if this is subsequently proven to be a rhetorical device on her part and every person in the media denies ever having said such a thing, do you think that victory will be all that you think it will be? The UK media will be vindicated as not being racist because they don’t say the n- word? Ok - you’ll have a Pyrrhic victory.

Again not all criticism of Meghan is racist. Some of it is sexist. Some of it is anti-American. And some of it is about her perceived behaviour. And the last one is valid to critique.

I wonder how Meghan heard about Waity Katie? William and Katherine married some years before Meghan came on the scene.
I doubt many Americans had heard of the monicker and if they had it would have been long forgotten. Yet somehow Meghan picked up on it and remembered to mention it on her Oprah show (whilst claiming it wasn't that mean after all).
I highly doubt any of the RF would have told her about it, except maybe Harry. Someone must have been doing research.

I know, I loved Mariah as a teenager and she sounds like she's great fun!

skullbabe
I tell this story to remind people that there may be very real reasons for people not to name and shame - mine was pragmatism.

The thing is, if their intention was to not name and shame, they should have just said nothing. But putting the story out there in cloak and dagger style, dropping hints, suggestions etc. spreads suspicion over the entire RF. Which I believe was their actual intention. That way they get to smear the whole lot of them.

They are not naive to the fact that saying something like that in public will cause a bad reaction, as it well should.

this is what she said in the cut interview.

“There’s literally a structure by which if you want to release photos of your child, as a member of the family, you first have to give them to the Royal Rota,” the U.K. media pool, she explains. Usually, the photos would be on media outlets before she could post them herself. That didn’t sit right with Meghan, given her strained relationship with the British tabloids (“Harry’s girl is [almost] straight outta Compton” is how the Daily Mail introduced her to the British public), and especially since she would soon have a child of her own to protect. “Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?” she asks, still ruffled. “You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.”

she clearly says all photos have to go via the royal rota. She then says why should she give those people the photos before she shared it with her friends. Ie the derogatory remake was made by the royal rota at first instance or the British media secondly. Either way, she can’t slur the individual royal rota journalists/media outlets on such a vague imprecise way without being called out on it, especially given her Archbishop of Canterbury marriage comment etc. the British media needs to urgently investigate such racist remarks but can’t do so if she doesn’t provide a truthful and accurate story.

"We are carving out a progressive new role...we will continue to collaborate with the Queen" was the statement on the short lived Sussex Royal website.
It was a different role, not that they had to leave or were pushed.
However, looking at factors inducing them to create an alternative role is tricky and often contradictory. I do believe that the situation they were in was not sustainable for either of them.

Again not all criticism of Meghan is racist. Some of it is sexist. Some of it is anti-American. And some of it is about her perceived behaviour. And the last one is valid to critique.

And that last one is what many on this thread are very careful to discuss and what the US & U.K. progressive and liberal press are now reporting…..

To be fair, I think the public would have had, and did to an extent have sympathy for them coming out and saying something like 'we're finding it harder than we imagined' etc. I would lay the blame more on Harry for that as he grew up in the RF and would know the protocol very well. Meghan only had a short time to adjust, and it seemed like a whirlwind romance, which can make everything seem rosy.
But it's not that they didn't fit in that makes people frustrated, it's how they acted afterwards. Once they realised it wasn't going to work for them (and some of the blame is on RF, and some on H&M for that), instead of walking away in a dignified fashion, they lashed out at everybody. So it was everyone else's fault that this fairytale didn't come to pass. And they continue to refuse to take any responsibility for it not working out.
Added to that, they keep bringing up stuff, like the truth bombs, like inferences and accusations, even years later. So they are not moving on at all. They keep dragging stuff up and venting about how hard done by they were.

Mantras

"We are carving out a progressive new role...we will continue to collaborate with the Queen" was the statement on the short lived Sussex Royal website.

Does anyone "collaborate" with the Queen though? Isn't the whole point that the Queen is served and not collaborated with? Collaboration implies an equal status but the whole point of monarchy is that it is a hierarchy.
Is it not disrespectful to the Queen for M&H to say they will collaborate with her ?

"Waity Katie"
hardly the worse thing to be called. she was waiting.
I don't get why people bring that up and compare it to the racism M has had to endure.

This tactic also gives the story “legs” and extends its lifecycle and reach.

Imagine if Harry had dealt with / educated his relative at the time (it was said to him before marriage / pregnancy) maybe 2018 - 4 years ago …. or even since - would that have not been constructive? Whereas it seems that it serves them to leave it unresolved allowing 4 years of speculation on repeat - it’s all “noise” / tension and agitation which fuels their system.

Yes, I agree. I also think that their rushed courtship didn't help and that William was right to a) be worried and b) encourage Harry to take his time. For all that Meghan could (and almost certainly did) Google Harry and find out all about him, she couldn't have understood the way the British media would intrude on her and their life and privacy once she was a fully-fledged member of the RF. And that's because she's American and had never lived in the UK before she came here as Harry's girlfriend.

Those of us who are British and have lived here for decades know the score, but however much Meghan had done her homework (and I have no doubt whatsoever that she had), she still couldn't have really understood it. And Harry wasn't going to tell her, was he?! He'd already lost Chelsey and Cressida because neither could cope with the idea of living in the royal goldfish bowl. He'd snagged his dream woman and she seemed up for the challenge of being his wife, so he was hardly going to dissuade her by being truthful about the reality of life as a royal wife.

And one final point - which is nearly almost missed by anyone talking about Meghan - is the difference between US and British culture and the misunderstandings that can take place as a result. Meghan's way of doing things - her 'hit the ground running' style, firing off emails to staff at 5am, just because she was up and wanted to get a jump on the day - was always going to cause problems. I think the Queen tried to mitigate this by providing her and Harry with an American (Jason Knauf) communications director who was already working for the RF and who knew the ropes, to try and help her to blend in and avoid those faux pas that are so easy when you're outside your own culture for the first time. I believe Meghan being an American in Britain was actually a much bigger issue that her race and she even said that herself in The Cut interview.

No but the point Meghan is hates being critiqued in the press but was quite happy to slap Kate down with that moniker on a worldwide platform with the OW interview. So she either looked at old social media reports or was happy to listen to media gossip and use it.

maranella
And one final point - which is nearly almost missed by anyone talking about Meghan - is the difference between US and British culture and the misunderstandings that can take place as a result. Meghan's way of doing things - her 'hit the ground running' style, firing off emails to staff at 5am, just because she was up and wanted to get a jump on the day - was always going to cause problems.

The other things is, the RF don't actually want to be modernised. So someone coming in trying to change things up (even with the best of intentions, which she probably had in the beginning) would not have been met with positive responses. The RF runs on tradition and legacy, it's the only thing it really has of merit. If it modernises too much, it risks making itself redundant (which many of us think would be a good thing...), so for all the optics of modern stuff, it will never happen - not in any meaningful way.
She probably wanted to bring fresh ideas/ approaches in, but it was all going to hit a brick wall. And maybe she saw the pushback as a personal thing, and took it badly. Again, I blame Harry for not stepping in and being clear on what was expected/ allowed.

In the OW interview MM talks about writing letters to HMQ and the rest of the RF to say how determined and delighted she is to serve them - no mention of collaborating, remodelling / restructuring etc.

I think there is a different narrative evolving over time that was not the reality at the time.

To someone coming in trying to change things up (even with the best of intentions, which she probably had in the beginning) would not have been met with positive responses.

“I know absolutely nothing about how or why you do things - I didn’t even google! - but I’m going to change how you do things because my way will be better” is not a message that is really going to win the hearts and mind of the people who are going to be working for you, no matter the context.

The narrative has shifted. From 'we don't like this, we want to make millions from Sussex royal and do what we want' to ' the family is toxic and racist and so is the Media'.

Did Meghan mention other insults that other Royals had to suffer? Did she remind everyone about the Duchess of Pork?
No, she chose to have a spiteful and disrespectful dig at her sister in law.

And personally, at the time, I thought the Waity Katie was not only mean but also lazy and uncurious. William stated at some point (was it their engagement interview? Can't remember) that he had wanted to give Catherine plenty of time to see what she was getting in to and have the chance to back out. Which always seemed obvious to me, way back when they were doing what lots of other couples do, living together before getting round to tying the knot. In the case of someone marrying into the RF it meant she got to enjoy a decent amount of young adulthood as a single woman without having to get stuck into Royal duties as would have happened if they had married, not to mention endless press speculation about babies. Sophie and Edward were together a long time before getting married too. They first met in 1987 and started dating around 1993 and eventually got engaged in 1999.

It was entirely sensible and many posters on these threads have commented that things might have worked out differently for Meghan if she had had more time to learn what she was getting into before marriage, although I recognise at her age getting on with babies meant she didn't have the luxury of time.

All the more reason for her to recognise how unfair it was on Catherine. She had no business bringing that up in the interview.
And clearly she had been doing some digging into the past, or someone had done so on he behalf, and she latched on to it.
Also she referred to C as Kate, when she should have been calling her by her actual name - Catherine.

It wasn't for MM to decide that "waity katey" wasn't disrespectful or hurtful.

But MM decided on TV in front of Oprah that "that was different".

Yeh, different person, different insult. But not for Meghan to pronounce categorically that insults aimed at kate were "different" and insults aimed at her were racist.

So arrogant and lacking empathy for other incomers to RF

Do you think Cressida / Chelsey got out because they didn’t fancy living in the royal goldfish bowl, or because Harry was already a very,very difficult personality? I have been wondering

At the end of the day they are incredibly privileged, wealthy beyond any of our ability to comprehend and attention seeking, but always as victims.

I'm not surprised by the reports that W&K won't see them as they don't want any conversations showing up in books or interviews - to me that makes sense. Charles still desperately trying to have a relationship also makes sense.

I genuinely just wish they'd stop complaining, work hard at something meaningful, and stop trying to lecture everyone on 'their truth' and how to live. They get a reaction, because they want a reaction - they stoke the fires constantly.

Maybe MM won't make digs during todays speach...maybe the backlash from Mandela comparison will have humbled her a bit...I fear they will end up coming back here more and more, as the coverage in the States becomes more and more critical.