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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.

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.

It’s disappointing that Megan is happy to repeat a misogynistic insult in the name of proving that she was treated in a worse way. There is a lot of casual misogyny slung around like this in the media and it doesn’t need to be repeated. Clearly, the racism that Meghan experienced is not ok, but mother is all the sexism and the denigration of women and what they do.

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

For me this is precisely the point, since the very nature of being anti-recist involves a commitment to dig out such things and deal with them

I'm another who's deeply sorry about the filth spouted in your presence, skullbabe, and I do get your reticence about challenging the mangager in those particular circumstances. However I honestly don't feel it chimes with Meghan's current MO of calling things out, especially when the evidence of what was allegedly said just doesn't appear to be there

She told her agent she had done a deep internet dive on Harry

Though a much lesser issue, can I ask where this came from StartupRepair?
Because once again it hardly matches what has been said before

@FoggyCrumpet I agree with every word of your 10.53 post regarding "Kate" and M's unnecessary spite towards her in the OW interview. I hadn't really thought about it in such detail.

Also I think Meghan (and Harry) are convinced Meghan deserves to be adored and feted in the same way Diana's memory is now. They seem not to realise that Diana had to die tragically in order for that to happen. I do wonder if Harry believed his own hype and thought the public could never turn against him or his wife because of his iconic mother, the public reaction to her death and subsequent drastic dip in RF's popularity.

I also thought it was a complete minimisation of what Kate went through. As the nature of media attention had changed in the decade and more between their being in the scenes, Meghan did not have to live through the physical paparazzi harrassment at all hours of the day and night, having her phone hacked more than 100 times and William’s voicemails published, having slurs about her printed on the side of a bus and driven through her home village, having topless photos of her published etc.

Meghan said she got that being called “Waity Katey” must have stung, but…. In reality, that nickname was about the mildest thing Kate lived through.

Well yes, that could also be the case! At the time, it was reported that it was because of the press attention, but the info that's come out since about Harry's awful temper makes you wonder how attractive he really was as a partner. I bet he blamed the press though and not himself!

@Puzzledandpissedoff this is from Gina Crowne(? ) who has put this on the record.

The other things is, the RF don't actually want to be modernised.

@Farmageddon I agree with you. Modernisation takes place very slowly and carefully, over many years - and with good reason. The RF knows that a big part of its attraction is that it stands for tradition and stability, not rushing to embrace every passing fad.

Meghan's California-style woke agenda and empty empowerment speak is the polar opposite of the way the RF communicates and quite honestly, some C-list American actress who'd only lived in the UK for five mins is the last person the they'd take advice from.

Without the RF they are irrelevant and are desperately trying to remain so by slagging them off and hinting at dramatic revelations. How utterly stupid.
Anyone who even has a hint of sympathy for MM should read Tom Bower's book Revenge.

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

I am not a POC, as I stated, but have experienced racism here in the U.K. all my life. I wonder why you are only interested in the views of POC, not everyone who has experienced racism?

Most of my paternal family were imprisoned and then killed because of racism, so I am very, very aware of how poisonous racism can be. Asking only for experiences of racism from a specific group makes me feel like our experience is being dismissed.

Very true.
Diana was younger than me and I clearly remember that she went though all sorts of things written about her, said about her, intrusion, photos. But it all seems like that's been washed away because people turned out in large numbers when she died so she must have been treated well. How people view her now does not reflect the reality of the 80s. Sarah Ferguson was criticised for her weight, her clothes, how she walked, how she talked. Everything. There was no balance.
There was a journalist on a recent Diana story, the last episode of which was about the conspiracy theories around the crash. Both the French and British police did thorough investigations and came to the conclusion it was an accident. The journalist was looking at the headlines he'd written and half laughed that they'd all been lies. No consideration that a grandfather and father had been accused of murder their children's mother. No consideration for what the children might go through hearing that. That the things he'd said had kept the matter alive for investigation after investigation so her children were forever being faced with it. As he said, it was his job to come up with stories, no matter if they were true or not, to get people to pay a pound to buy the paper.
No royal person is going to have an easy time in the press because people don't pay to read nice things.

Interesting reading how the podcast isn’t quite as popular as Spotify was trying to make out.
It’s all just smoke and mirrors isn’t it? Spotify paid a ridiculous amount for the podcast and then had to work hard to promote it and make it seem like it was top of the charts. But in reality it isn’t attracting as many listeners as the genuine top podcasts.

having slurs about her printed on the side of a bus and driven through her home village

Whaaatt??? I had no idea. That's appalling and I hope someone was on the sharp end of legal action for that.

And when Diana died, her popularity was definitely on the wane.
Early editions Sunday newspapers printed before the news of her death carried articles that were highly critical of her and the extended holiday she was on with Dodi.

during that holiday, there were times when she seemed to be deliberately engaging the press, setting up photo opportunities - eg posing at the end of the diving board on the yacht

Yes, what happened to Fergie was merciless and went on and on. She was literally pitted against Diana by the Press and found wanting most of the time, apart from the odd reverse ferret to mix things up.

All this was long before she had done anything that could really be construed as "wrong" (apart from breathing) and at the time was I think trying to make a go of it. She's said since that she made the mistake of reading the papers and it almost destroyed her. This is not to say Diana didn't also get a good share of stick at different times and I'm sure that had an impact too.

Sorry, quoted wrong post!

Also she referred to C as Kate, when she should have been calling her by her actual name - Catherine.

I thought Catherine was her “official” name but that she’s known as Kate to family and friends and basically everyone else except Wills

During that holiday, there were times when she seemed to be deliberately engaging the press, setting up photo opportunities - eg posing at the end of the diving board on the yacht

To be honest I think that it was Mohammed Al Fayed who was behind all the press coverage of their final cruise, as he wanted his son and Princess Diana in the press. Diana had been holidaying on Rosa Monckton’s yacht the week before her last trip with Dodi, and there was literally only one photo taken of her the whole trip - a tourist on a Greek island who recognised her, took a quick snap and sold the photo.

By contrast the Al Fayed yacht was followed everywhere it went and they were swarmed with photographers at every port. Diana played up to them, because why not, I guess, but she told her friends that she wasn’t enjoying the lack of privacy.

(She had definitely courted the press on her first holiday with Al Fayed earlier in the summer though - doing swan dives off a raft in front of the Al Fayed villa in front of the press on Camilla’s 50th birthday. That probably was deliberately engaging them!)

I think it is a lot about how women are treated in the media especially the tabloids. Women are seen as fair game. They build them up only to knock them down. Not just the royal family but women in general.

There's always a Diana v Fergie, Kate v Meghan narrative going on. Until Diana died there were many critical stories about her from allusions of affairs to having cellulite on her thighs demonstrated by a close up photo. Kate is only receiving more favourable copy because they have a new victim in their sights. But all that could change at the drop of a hat.

I don't doubt there is a racist element to their stories about Meghan, lapped up by the racists who are drawn to these articles. Given that every time Meghan and Harry talk about their woes they just give the press more ammunition to beat them with. Every word is dissected and turned against them so there is a lot of wisdom in the never complain never explain.

I also think that part of Meghan and Harry's problem was thwarted ambition. They were not happy to be part of a team but wanted to use their position to promote their own causes and interests and not do the run of the mill grunt work like visiting waste recycling sites and sewage treatment works (done by Princess Anne).What they wanted was never going to happen within the confines of the monarchy and its rigid hierarchy.I am a republican but can see that the Monarchy treads a fine line in our society, that it's survival isn't guaranteed.

I was pleased when they left because they had the opportunity to realise their ambitions outside the royal family to shine a light on discrimination and other issues I feel quite disappointed so far. The podcasts put me in mind of something like GOOP, superficial and celebrity waffle. Too much talk about themselves. They could be doing some real good focussing on gritty issues.

Interesting tweet from the author of the article in The Cut - tweeted within days of the article coming out.

twitter.com/allisonpdavis/status/1564319695129518083?s=21&t=B3PGX40Vis5SozewvHpgLw

Thanks, StartupRepair - as you say it was Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne, Meghan's agent, who made the remark about her having researched Harry, though how reliable this is I couldn't say since she's another Meghan appears to have fallen out with and might have had a grudge?

She appears to have fallen out with, or ghosted, quite a few people over the years, doesn't she?

Interesting reading how the podcast isn’t quite as popular as Spotify was trying to make out

I thought it was supposed to have been at number one, though interestingly the crowing about this seemed to die down after the second podcast?

Someone said the Maria one wasn't anywhere near the top by actual viewing figures and they couldn't understand why the No.1 was still there, but then I don't know how these stats work either and would love to hear from anyone who does

One of the replies says that the author has been sacked because of this article! Very interesting replies.

Wasn’t she a freelance writer, though?

it’s such a confusing piece of writing. It’s so fawning in its tone, I would not be surprised if Meghan or her team even approved it, oblivious to the subtext. The reception must have horrified them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they took that anger out on the author.