Harry claiming that Meghan can make her own clothes...

[GeordieGoals]

"He asked, “How much could it possibly cost to house and feed Meg? I wanted to say, ‘She doesn’t eat much, you know! And I’ll ask her to make her own clothes, if you like’.”"

(Page 370)^
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For me, this was one of the strangest passages in the whole book. How could a self-made millionaire (Meghan) be so poor she would either need to have her FIL buy her clothes or she'd have to make them herself?

I'm not slagging off Meghan here BTW, as these are Harry's words, not hers. Why didn't Harry take responsibility for buying Meghan what she needed? Any decent husband would get a job to support his wife rather than see her not eat much and make her own clothes!

I only gave the example of a local figure skater as nota mentioned having 2M followers on SM as being a money maker.

My daughter is a figure skater (v local & midlevel) so it came to my mind as a comparison. The skater I'm thinking of isn't a national champion, and won't be known really outside the UK. She might get a discount on boots & blades but she's not getting loads of money.

Yuna Kim has just over a million followers but she has a contract with Dior and with Nike. Yuzuru Hanyu doesn't have a massive personal SM presence but he will have sponsorships coming out his ears.

Followers on SM don't equate to money is the point I was making.

And my original point wasn't disputing Meghan had made a lot of money, but I do doubt she was a multi millionaire.

And she also looked beautiful during her pregnancies. She usually always does - has she had some fashion missteps - definitely, but who hasn't frankly.

Do I think she has expensive tastes that she totally indulged after she was engaged - absolutely.

Wow, that's stunning, isn't it?
I've never seen a "tent" look so elegant.
But then again I find all pregnant women beautiful.

Yep, horrible as well. Not being fucking bitchy, just my opinion. But probably cost 10% of the Dior creation. That much money on something to be worn once, in a poor country like Morocco, was fucking obscene.

And that would be my opinion WHOEVER was wearing it.

@Maireas I think it’s a particularly low blow to comment on how pregnancy doesn’t suit you (as one poster said upthread about MM, what does that even mean), or how you’re dressed as a tent.

Yeah, just as saying a new mum has baby brain.

@OnlyOpenMouthToChangeFeet we agree then on the obscenity of the cost for a one off piece of clothing. Or shoes, clutch, earrings, whatever.

@MrsFinkelstein yes, I agree, a common phrase which has been “cancelled” long ago.

Harry received millions via his father and millions more from his mother's inheritance and KC continued to give them substantial money after they left the UK.

This is all documented in the various Clarence House and other financial reports.

His whining about being paupers and being dramatically cut off is just that.

I wonder if some of the issues around this for Meghan is the different approaches to clothes taken by Hollywood stars and the Royal Family.

Lots of the most expensive clothes and jewellery worn by stars are loaned. In these circumstances they are essentially walking adverts for the things they are wearing. In the Royal Family, lots of jewellery is loaned to individuals from the family collection and clothes for public appearances are funded as work expenses. In addition, the public care more about excessive cost of Royal Family clothes than they do Hollywood star clothes.

Meghan's normal was different to Harry's normal. And also, women are judged much more heavily on their clothing choices. For example, people comment on Kate re-wearing clothes but not William.

Having had to pay for working wardrobes for Diana, Camilla and Kate over the previous 30-40 years, Charles probably had a good idea of how much it was likely to cost to add Meghan as well.

I also think that there was quite a bit of control from Charles over the money they got. From what's in Spare and from other evidence, it's unlikely that William and Harry got a £2.5mill sum of money at the start of the year to spend on being a working royal, with no other oversight or scrutiny. That might have been as simple as the kinds of budget controls that other similar sized organisations have. But the setup Meghan was used to was that all the money coming in was controlled by her without constraint.

@Peverellshire

I don't dislike Megan at all she's one of the only actual self made people in that family...

But this is a absolutely glorious 🤣❤️

@limoncello23 true. .
I must say I've always thought Charles a very natty dresser.

William is so mundane in comparison, he never looks good.

I think he should make more effort really.

Charles is a sharp dresser, but certainly gets wear out of all of his clothes! I understood him to be quite generous, eg paying for very expensive wedding receptions etc.

I thought that beige dress she wore in Morocco was nice, and I thought fitted and not tent like. It was culturally aware and very appropriate for a Muslim country.
I wouldn't have paid £90,000 for it, though! Bloody hell!

Paying for your own child's wedding when you are a billionaire is not generous. It is the bare minimum expected.

I don’t think it’s expected that any parent pay for their child’s wedding, no matter how rich.

Especially a ‘child’ who is in their mid thirties.

But Charles is not any father. And Royal weddings are also public occasions. I absolutely would expect him to pay.

But it didn't have to be a public occasion. That was their choice. I agree William's wedding needed to be public - he's a future king.. But Harry, no. As he keeps going on about, he's sort of irrelevant enough that it didn't matter what he did. There was no expectation from members of public that it would be public. I remember them talking about it on the news when still no one knew if it would be private or not. They broke sufficient other traditions like birth and godparent details. So I'm sure, they'd have had no problem saying no. In fact, didn't he initially ask for an even bigger occasion by requesting Westminster Abbey, but the Queen said no?

He could have had a wedding like Zara or Beatrice. Of course he could. Or a wedding like Charles and Camilla!

All I can say is if you think it is generous of a billionaire to pay for his child's wedding, you have a very different idea of generosity. If I was a billionaire I would do this without blinking and I would not consider it generous at all. Most of us love our children and want to make their life better, including on big occasions.
And if Charles thinks he was generous paying for this, then that does not paint him in a good light.

He did pay for the wedding though! What is the issue? Harry was moaning about not being kept for life by his father in his mid thirties! He walked away from his ‘job’ but still expected all the perks without having to work for anything. So now he’s selling out his family for money. He lives in a massive house with huge running costs, staff and security. He doesn’t work
and neither does his wife. He’s not deserving of anyones pity. They live in luxury but still find things to moan about .
He has millions of pounds in inheritances from his mother and his great grandmother. I’m sure he also inherited from the Queen. He’s no pauper.

The point is the argument being made in this thread that Charles was generous for paying for some of his son's wedding.

He paid for all of it!