The Royal Grift has posted on YouTube 2 clips showing MM changing her Yasmeen Bleeth story, which she tells in the JKL podcast. It confirms my belief that she's a fantasist.
In the podcast, MM is talking about role models. She refers to some big names from the 1990s and names Baywatch as a big 1990s show. MM tells JKL that when she was 13, she was working in "Humphry Yoghart", took the trash out one day and saw Yasmeen Bleeth. She said she told Bleeth how much she loved her in a deodorant commercial. Bleeth's response was to ask MM her name, to introduce herself (even though she was the famous one) and to be generally friendly, gracious and caring towards her.
MM holds this up as a "pivotal" and "influential" moment for her and an example of (I'm para-phrasing) "what nobody teaches you to do when people recognise you when you are famous" (her usual word salad/leap of logic). She says that that moment with Bleeth taught her how important it was to make people "feel seen and not pushed off". And it's basically allowing MM to say (as validated by JKL) that, all these years later, she always treats her fans with this sort of grace (another "Aren't I great!" story). And also to talk about how courageous she was as a teen, something she also likes to talk about a lot.
However, cut to one of those (pre-marriage/Suits days) Q&A type promotional videos, where MM is asked about the "fan letter you wrote when you were younger". MM laughs uproariously and says, "Yasmeen Bleeth, that's the only one I ever wrote!" MM then says she remembers working at Humphry Yoghart at 13, went out into the parking lot, saw Yasmeen Bleeth. Meghan says she said the most ridiculous thing she could have said, telling Bleeth that she loved her in the deodorant commercial - and Bleeth looked at her blankly and said, "Er, ok, thank you" (ie, go away). And Meghan walked "very meekly" back inside (I assume, embarrassed/chastened by the experience). Meghan is super confident and laughing at herself when telling this anecdote.
I think she probably does this all the time. Takes a nugget of truth and turns it into a fantasy version of what she would like it to be, to make herself look as important/centred as possible, as some sort of pivotal teaching moment or to simply make herself the victim of something where she was nothing of the sort.
I also can't help thinking of all those royal walkabouts when you can see Catherine, William and Harry asking children their names and introducing themselves back to them, even though they are the famous ones. But "nobody taught Meghan" - another common theme with her.