With Love, Meghan - criticisms and genuine concern for her mental health

[Lavenderfarmcottage]

I am probably going to be flogged for posting this and chased down the dark laneways of Mumsnet as bystanders yell “Shame Shame Shame”.

I weighed in yesterday about a thread on Meghan and her new Netflix show. I made some criticisms about the trailer and certain cliche’s in the way it was produced. Hypocritical of me to be posting this but I feel guilty and have reflected. I am actually looking forward to watching it on Netflix and my criticisms were pretty minor and not exclusive to her show - it’s a common issue I have.

Meghan has struggled with mental health because of criticism. The reaction to ‘With Love… Meghan’ has been fairly brutal.

I think it would be really good if we refrained from saying anything negative about the series or Meghan Markle. That’s not the point of this thread.

I want to know if you think the criticisms have gone too far. The Princess of Wales is not on the scene and we are protective of her rightly so. That leaves Meghan as media fodder though.

Do you think it’s time Meghan and Harry were given a break ? I do. I think we’ve been far too harsh and the criticisms have gotten out of hand.

I think we also forget the cultural relevance. If we went into the homes or Gwyneth, Julia Roberts etc and I would probably feel the divide too. American culture doesn’t apologise for wealth and hollywoood is highly competitive.

Having a confident demeanour, throwing your head back Julia Roberts style when you laugh and unapologetically selling $$$ vagina products like Gwyneth Paltrow is how it over there. People talk loudly and confidently and are polished and rehearsed especially in the
Competitive world of Hollywood…

Are we all being too hard ?

She is Princess Henry, if she chooses to use that title.

Not Princess Meghan

Who cares. What's the point? She's too scared to come back to the UK where it actually means something that she's Princess Henry and she's living in a republic. It's like the Nigerian title she's got. Really? What's the point of having it if they just dish it out to randoms.

That is the biggest load of rubbish. What if Meghan had (god forbid but he has more sense!) William? Would you then be saying that the biracial benefits more than a white woman? Dear god, give your head a wobble!!!

There's NO DISCRIMINATION whatsoever! The firstborn child is heir to the throne. The End!!!

Never were the words "pot, kettle" more apt!!

William is the heir to the throne and his wife will be Queen Consort one day (one hopes). Their three children already come before the Sussexes. If the new duchess did not understand royal protocol then she had ample opportunity to study it and was given people to help her. She appears not to have listened but wanted to do away with a system she saw as old-fashioned. It is old-fashioned (mostly Victorian afaik), but much modernised compared to the protocol used at the beginning of Elizabeth II's reign. And it was not the Duchess of Sussex's job to undermine protocol. Her job was to support her DH in his job as a working Royal. She didn't want to do that and seems to have had a rather Disneyfied view of being a princess, and that was a pity, because she had a lot to offer both the RF and the UK.
I think also she had a USian view of staff and acted out of ignorance of how things are done in the UK (mostly). I remember watching a comedy sitcom called 'Entourage' which had a lot of insights into how celebrities in the US can treat their support staff - mostly badly, off-handedly and without much empathy. If the duchess did that with her staff here (some of whom will come from families who will consider themselves very upper class) then she will have upset people and made enemies. Unfortunate, but recoverable from with patience and humility.

William is the heir to the throne and his wife will be Queen Consort one day (one hopes). Their three children already come before the Sussexes. If the new duchess did not understand royal protocol then she had ample opportunity to study it and was given people to help her. She appears not to have listened but wanted to do away with a system she saw as old-fashioned. It is old-fashioned (mostly Victorian afaik), but much modernised compared to the protocol used at the beginning of Elizabeth II's reign. And it was not the Duchess of Sussex's job to undermine protocol. Her job was to support her DH in his job as a working Royal. She didn't want to do that and seems to have had a rather Disneyfied view of being a princess, and that was a pity, because she had a lot to offer both the RF and the UK.
I think also she had a USian view of staff and acted out of ignorance of how things are done in the UK (mostly). I remember watching a comedy sitcom called 'Entourage' which had a lot of insights into how celebrities in the US can treat their support staff - mostly badly, off-handedly and without much empathy. If the duchess did that with her staff here (some of whom will come from families who will consider themselves very upper class) then she will have upset people and made enemies. Unfortunate, but recoverable from with patience and humility.

OK bottom line is she's princess of the United Kingdom

According to Wikipedia-
(Meghan became a princess of the United Kingdom upon her marriage to Prince Harry, entitled to the style of Royal Highness.[356])

so I call her princess Meghan, everyone knows to whom I'm referring, I can't keep all the royal titles in my head, providing it's not derogatory I'm sure it shouldn't be a problem if I call her princess Meghan instead of Her Royal Highness princess.......

I recently watched "What a Girl Wants" with Amanda Bynes for some peculiar reason. Its a film about a young naive but plucky American girl thrust into the snobbish world of the british aristocracy and subverting them using her charm and authenticity making everyone fall in love with her. I have a nasty suspicion that Meghan based her "narrative" on that film. It's rather uncanny in how it shows stereotypes of the British upper classes (not good at hugging for example) compared with this free-living American Californian who wears jeans when she's not supposed to, a rival in the shape of a cold unfriendly jealous british stepsister...... It all seemed rather familiar...

Quoting myself as this is for @RockingLock

Insightful post, especially about the ‘help’ in UK being upper class. I do agree that the internet is informative and that anyone dating a Prince would have googled a few things. She also had friends that were in those circles in the UK such as the SoHo house set

I think The Princess Diaries were also part of her research 😂

I totally lost @Lavenderfarmcottage when she started talking about Meghan not having "to stand behind a white woman on the balcony, when they do the same job"

a) No, they don't. Kate will be a Queen and Meghan won't. It is the way hereditary monarchy works. If William had married Meghan, she'd be at the front. She, like Kate now is, would then be in it for life, with no hope of going under the radar for a bit if it suited.

b) Philip, a born Prince and direct descendant of Queen Victoria, stayed a couple of steps behind his wife in public for the best part of a century.

Loathe the whole thing by all means, be a Republican, but don't come out with half baked "reasons" why everyone should suddenly do things differently because Harry couldn't be arsed (or knew how) to let Meghan know the realities of the situation she married into, as a grown woman.

Huge chunks of this thread are utter drivel, in fairness!!

FFS 😂
It was a genuine question (thank you to the poster for explaining)
You really are far down your little rabbit hole, aren't you?
Come up for air a bit lol.

I think she's highly unlikely to be speaking to you.

Well you could have fooled me!

You're just wrong. Embarrassingly so.

Both those names are wrong.

It's pretty rude to keep referring to someone by something that is neither her name nor a version she calls herself.

But I suppose there will always be people who want to do her down by refusing to use any of her actual names or titles

It's the ( roughly) equivalent of referring to the president's wife as ...... Mrs president !

Technically true but totally different.

Titles are mildly ridiculous in this day and age.

However, if you buy into the inherited title spiel, you can't reject the bits you find inconvenient (not with any credibility, anyway!)

You are welcome to call me princess Baital, if it makes you happy!

It is as relevant as princess Meghan.

I’ve just seen the video and whilst it looks a bit disorganised, Meghan doesn’t ‘absolutely ignore’ the woman. The woman has 90% of Meghan’s attention.

Meghan was pregnant sitting on the floor surrounded by mothers and some absolutely adorable babies, it’s natural that her attention was going to drift to the babies.

I agree that the set up should have been discussed in advance. Meghan sitting on the floor talking to a woman in a chair was never going to be natural. It would have been better to have Meghan and the lady sitting together. Maybe she was told she was going to have playtime with some mothers and babies.

There is sometimes awkwardness at these types of events but looks like mothers2mothers were happy with the event and there were sweet moments like this:

Well done on calling out blatant double standards.

Can't get the staff...

Ah ok, so the Queen's nickname was somewhat known to a few.
And George's nickname was known to a very few.
So these two names were absolutely the only ones for their kids, obviously, considering the circumstances. Not awkward at all.

It's the fact that some of them seem to think it's reasonable for them to tell others they can't possibly know anything about Meghan because they don't know her personally - yet they defend her as if they in fact do know her!

Talk about twisted logic!