Candace Owens And Others Mock ‘Disingenuous Clowns’ Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Over Spotify Misinformation Statement - "U.K. based journalist Nick Stylianou hinted at bigger issues between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the streaming platform. He wrote: “This is an interesting angle on the current issue Harry & Meghan have with Spotify, which is that the platform paid them £18 million [$24 million] in December 2020 to deliver original podcasts but published nothing in 12 months and now Spotify is having to take over production to make content.”"
Scientists take a jab at Sussexes’ attack on pharmaceuticals not sharing vaccine recipes - "Pharmaceutical companies sharing the Covid-19 recipe free of charge would not solve the world’s vaccine equity issues, experts said, despite what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex may believe... Mr Cueni added that the real challenges are trade barriers, supply chain bottlenecks, a lack of raw materials, and a reluctance among rich countries to share doses."
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle demand world leaders share vaccines to 'restore faith in humanity' - "it emerged that Harry and Meghan's popularity ratings have fallen again to their lowest-ever levels following Prince Philip's funeral. The couple's popularity previously plummeted in the wake of their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which they made accusations of racism within the Royal Family. And they have not regained favour with the British public since, with Prince Harry's popularity falling another three points following the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh on April 17, a YouGov survey found... both Prince Edward and Prince Charles have experienced a growth in popularity since March 12. And, in an unwavering sign of support following the death of her husband, the Queen saw a sharp boost in public favour from an 80 per cent positive view to 85 per cent. She remains the most popular royal. Prince William and his wife Kate also remain very popular, according to the latest poll, with about three quarters of Britons giving them favourable reviews. Prince Andrew remains by far the least popular royal, with an 79 per cent negative view.. public opinion of Prince Harry has remained largely negative despite his return home for the funeral of his grandfather this month. The latest figures show 43 per cent of Britons now have a positive opinion of Prince Harry, while 49 per cent regard him negatively. This gives the once popular prince a net score of -6 in terms of popularity - a drop of three points from March 12."
Meghan Markle’s fun-free children’s book may put an entire generation off reading - "I’m certain the book will do very well among parents wanting to have an inclusive book by an eye-wateringly rich celebrity in their playrooms. Among kids, I’m not so sure of its success. Children don’t always take well to soupy stories about love and kindness. The reason why scary books work so well, from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are to Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo, is because a child’s imagination is limitless. They certainly don’t like to be lectured - if there is a moral to the story, every good writer from Aesop to Roald Dahl knows you’ve got to disguise it with a bit of fun... it looks like Meghan’s entry into children’s literature has more to do with her drive to nurture her and Harry’s new role as activist celebrities than a desire to connect with children."
MEGHAN MARKLE MOCKED! Book called 'pious, hectoring gibberish' | Toronto Sun - "the book is about relationships between fathers and their children which is ironic given the Duchess of Sussex’s own tumultuous relationship with her father... "Meghan seeks to highlight the undoubted bond between Harry and Archie, but it is common knowledge that she is publicly estranged from her own father, Thomas, whom Harry has never met.” He added: “Also, the fact that Harry recently revealed to the world on Oprah that there was a rift between him and his father and that he had been cut off financially, was one of many shocks which that unfortunate interview provided.”... Royal author Penny Junor told the U.K. Sun she thought the 39-year-old was on “dodgy ground.” “It’s very easy to talk about relationships between fathers and sons when they are two-years-old,” Junor said. “But problems come when the children are older — as Meghan found out with her father and Harry with Prince Charles.”... given the damaging Oprah interview, a book about families is rich indeed. “It is the most extraordinary time for Meghan to choose to highlight the relations between fathers and sons, as though she, the main participant in one of the most divisive interviews ever given, was actually a healer,” he said... “When it comes to flogging her book, what author name does Meghan Markle use? Ah, of course: ‘Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex’,” Morgan wrote in the Daily Mail. “Yes, she continues to cynically exploit her royal titles because she knows that’s the only reason anyone is paying her vast sums of money to spew her uniquely unctuous brand of pious hectoring gibberish in Netflix documentaries, Spotify podcasts, or children’s books.”"
Markle accused of plagiarizing 2018 kids' book, but defended by author - "“Before you run out and waste money on the book by Harry’s wife, read ‘The Boy on the Bench’ by Corrinne Averiss and Gabriel Alborozo … The original”... Dozens of others soon complained on Twitter that the Duchess of Sussex’s book, “The Bench,” didn’t only share a similar title to UK author Averiss’ 2018 book — but also similar artwork from Christian Robinson."
Meghan Markle's The Bench fails to make the bestseller list - "Meghan Markle's first children's book The Bench has been slated by critics as a 'vanity project' on the day of its release - with one calling it a 'bland self-help manual for needy parents'... Critics have panned the book, with The Telegraph's Claire Allfree calling it 'semi-literate' and writing: 'One wonders how any publisher could have thought fit to publish this grammar-defying set of badly rhyming cod homilies, let alone think any child anywhere would want to read it. But that's planet Sussex for you, where even the business of raising a family is all about the brand.' Meanwhile The Times' Alex Connell described it as a 'self-help manual for needy parents', adding: 'The story [is] so lacking in action and jeopardy you half wonder if the writing job was delegated to a piece of furniture...'... Critics slated the work online, with the Telegraph's Allfree offering the children's book a one-star review. She wrote: 'The Duchess's first children's book is all bland parenting 'wisdom' and no story – and it's hard to imagine any child enjoying it.' She said it appeared to show 'Harry's role in this marriage is to sit on his bench holding the baby while Meghan gets on and conquers the world'... readers widely panned the book online and questioned the grammar within the work. Posting a one star review on Amazon, one person, from the UK, commented: 'We didn't enjoy this book at all - I have no idea why the author thought this story would appeal to children. It's incredibly boring and uninspiring. 'Clearly based on the author's life, it would have perhaps been better as a private project kept within the family that they can read themselves, and then treasure in the future. For anyone else, it's just completely irrelevant. The grammar is also questionable at times. Absolutely do not recommend.' Another wrote: 'Not really engaging. Apart from the bad grammar, my grandson, who is 3 years old, was not at all engaged when reading this book together. Will stick to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Very disappointed.'"
Meghan Markle to 'Nourish the Community' with Free Copies of Her Book
Master satirist CRAIG BROWN pens a mischievous re-write of Meghan Markle's The Bench
What Meghan's $4.99 Sizzler salad letter didn't say - "Meghan Markle's claims she lived on $5 Sizzler salad as a child and her family was poor is a world away from the $14million LA mansion she lives in with Prince Harry and their two children having built up a $100million-plus fortune over the past two years... critics have also questioned one of the most astonishing parts of her letter, that she suggests her family were impoverished but fails to mention her father was an Emmy award-winning lighting director and she was educated at private school from kindergarten including the $16,000-a-year private Immaculate Heart High School - all paid for by Thomas Markle's salary and his state lottery win... Meghan's very public statement is likely to ruffle feathers and add fuel to speculation that she has political ambitions despite her insistence it was sent as an American 'mom'. Many have said this is yet another step into the US political arena for the Duchess of Sussex after the furore she and Harry caused by urging Americans to vote in the last presidential election - angering Republicans including Donald Trump... Thomas Markle this week suggested the Sussexes were only worried about cash. He said: 'Well, money isn't everything, but the book he's writing should be not Finding Freedom - it should be Finding Money, that's all they seem to care about right now.'... 'Harry's coming out with a book and that can't be anything but cruel and to insult his grandmother the Queen, it's a ridiculous idea. And it's just something for money, that's all they're doing - everything they're doing is for money. But to do that to your grandmother and the Queen, who is 95 years old, is shameful.'... experts have long predicted she will pursue a career in politics after a series of interventions this year. This year Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's were accused of 'violating' the terms of the 'Megxit' deal the couple have with the Queen after repeatedly urging Americans to vote, an unprecedented situation for royals. Their comments were said to have further bruised relations with Harry's family, with sources claiming that senior courtiers are discussing how to further distance London royals from the couple... Republican Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri sent a letter demanding the Queen strips them of their titles in a request to British Ambassador to the United States, Karen Pierce. Smith pointed out that the British Royal family has a long tradition of staying politically neutral and notes the United States has expressed concern about foreign interference in its elections.
‘Thank God Prince Harry wasn’t born first’: Rita Panahi - "Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been “cashing in” on Princess Diana’s name in a classless attempt to launch their US career, according to political commentator Calvin Robinson... Mr Robinson said there was a stark contrast between the way Prince Harry and wife Meghan handled themselves and the way in which future king, Prince William, does. “Prince Harry moved to America for privacy to get away from all the press all the media in the UK, and what have they done since they’ve arrived in America, they’ve courted the media to no end,” he said. Mr Robinson said the runaway royals were “cashing in on poor Prince Harry’s late mother” while Prince William delivered a “really classy statement” to the media on the Diana scandal. “What’s even worse than that is Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are trying to use this as a parallel for their own life,” Mr Robinson. “They’re saying Meghan is the new Princess Diana. They’re trying to cash in on Diana’s name in order to up their fame. “That’s what all this is about, it’s all about upping the fame of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as they launch their US career. “There’s no class there when we look at the statements released by Meghan and Harry, really crass cashing in on the late Princess Diana. When we look at his big brother Prince William – really future king statements.”"
Prince Harry says: Give me back my bodyguards - "Prince Harry is taking legal action against the Government over its decision to remove his UK police security... Harry's argument is that his private protection team in the US does not have access to UK intelligence information, which is needed to keep his wife and children safe. The Queen is understood to have been made aware of her grandson’s action, which is thought to be the first time a member of the Royal Family has brought a case against Her Majesty’s Government... The couple were living in Canada – guarded by publicly funded British UK and Canadian security – when ‘Megxit’ was announced in January 2020. At the same time, the security section of their new website – on which they detailed their notion of a ‘new working model’ – described them as ‘internationally protected people’. But the ‘working model’ had not been agreed by the Queen and the section was swiftly removed... Like Harry, Andrew will no longer use his ‘HRH’ title. The Queen’s second son could also lose his security, estimated to cost £2 million annually. Princess Anne and Prince Edward receive protection only when they are conducting royal duties. During a previous review of security spending in 2011, Andrew’s daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie – then fifth and sixth in line to the Throne – had their police protection removed on the grounds they were non-working Royals."
Harry and Meghan’s popularity plummets to a new low | Toronto Sun - "Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were once adored by the royal’s homeland — but that has significantly changed. A new poll shows the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s popularity sits at an all-time low... YouGov, found that Harry’s favourability score dropped to -26, which works out to 32% of respondents who see him in a positive light compared to 58% who view him negatively... Meghan’s score dropped from -39 in March to -42 in the most recent survey, with a mere 23% of the public positively favouring the former actress while 63% hold her in a negative light. Respondents aged 25 to 49 are no longer — or never were — fans, giving the Harry and Meghan a score of -4 and -20, respectively). Their popularity declines the older the respondents, with Harry and Meghan receiving a net score of -42 and -61, respectively, from those aged 50 to 64 and -65 and -79 from people 65 and up. The Sussexes remain most popular amongst the younger demographic but even that margin has narrowed over the years, with 42% of those aged 18 to 24 seeing Harry positively (versus 33% who view him negatively), giving him a score of +9. Meghan holds a score of +2, splitting the age group (38% viewing her positively and 36% who view her negatively). Unsurprisingly, the Queen, who is celebrating her 70th year as monarch, is the most popular royal, with more than eight in 10 Britons holding a positive opinion of the monarch, versus the piddly 12% who see her negatively, which gives her a score of +69. Prince William and Kate Middleton aren’t too far behind, with scores of +59 and +55, respectively, while Charles and Camilla are closer to Harry and Meghan with ratings of +19 and +9, respectively. Hanging on by a thread as least popular royal is Prince Andrew, with a net score of -80."
Damn racism and sexism!
Meghan Markle wanted to be Hollywood version of Princess Diana, book claims - "A fame-obsessed Meghan Markle was convinced by husband Prince Harry and her Hollywood team that she could be as beloved as Princess Diana, according to a new book that details Megxit blow-by-blow... Harry lied to the future king and said his wife did not know how to reach her father. The Sussexes then bristled at Queen Elizabeth’s request that Meghan fly to Mexico to speak with her dad, Harry began to “sympathize with her rejection of the palace’s deference and hierarchy”... The “increasingly fragile” former actress began to lash out at critics and blame the palace for not defending her. Tensions heightened when she decided that Princess Eugenie’s wedding reception was an appropriate forum to announce she was pregnant... The Sussexes failed to consider that Diana’s mass appeal was charged by her vulnerability and cultivated over many years of humanitarianism and even behavior, according to the excerpt. They begin to surround themselves with Hollywood insiders who assured them they could be as popular as the late princess on their own... The Palace was unnerved by the couple’s ensuing independent PR blitz and set up “The Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex” not as a foundation but as a charity run by trustees — which Meghan viewed as a slight. In November 2019, Hillary Clinton threw fuel on the fire by telling Meghan the way she was being treated by the royals was “heartbreaking and wrong”"
Prince Harry ‘very frosty and upset’ since US Meghan Markle move - “When I was just sitting a few feet away from Harry and Meghan, when William and Kate came in, and Charles and Camilla, there was no eye contact whatsoever.”
Meghan Markle called out for 'ghosting people' - "Royal author Tom Bower claimed it was "difficult" to get in touch with sources close to Meghan Markle to hear the "good side of her" for his book. The author claimed that he was being "cut off" by Meghan. Speaking to ITV's Lorraine, Mr Bower claimed: "I know when people are cutting me off. "It was ridiculous how difficult it was to get to people who I genuinely wanted to hear the good side of her for his book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors. "She is a person who controls the narrative. She ghosts people like her father or the Royal Family when she doesn't like them." Tom Bower went on to say: "She's a very determined woman and she thought she could cut me off and she failed.""
Meghan Markle denies allegations she lied about 'growing up as an only child' in Oprah interview - "Meghan Markle has claimed it is a 'feeling' and not a 'fact' that she grew up as an only child after being accused by her half-sister Samantha of lying about her 'rags to richest' upbringing in new court documents... Samantha, the daughter of Thomas Markle, Meghan's father, claims the Duchess of Sussex launched a 'premeditated campaign to destroy' her and her father's reputation. She claims her sister tried to ruin their credibility so 'they could not interfere with or contradict the false narrative and fairy tale life story concocted by the defendant'. She also alleges Meghan lied when she claimed she 'essentially raised herself from virtual poverty' and from 13 had to take on low-paying jobs to 'make ends meet'. Meanwhile Samantha, 57, launched an astonishing broadside on her sister's friend and biographer Omid Scobie as she blasted Finding Freedom as 'a book of lies'... Samantha also hits out at Scobie and Carolyn Durand's book Finding Freedom, which she dubs her sister's 'fairytale life story'. She claims the book caused 'substantial and irreparable prejudice, injury, and harm' to her reputation. She listed a series of texts in the biography she disputes, including that she dropped out of high school."
'American woman' Meghan Markle is driving everybody 'nuts': 'Shocking' - "Meghan Markle is accused of jeopardizing the sanctity of the royal family, after hurting her own. The Duchess of Sussex is called out for her 'shocking' move by Princess Diana's designer in a fresh confession. Speaking to GB News, David Emanuel said: "We've got Prince William who's doing a splendid job and we've got Harry Windsor in America with an American woman who is driving everybody nuts." Emanuel added that Meghan had "messed up her own family, now she's over here trying to mess up the Royal Family". "It's shocking"... When asked if Diana has approved of Megxit, Emanuel confessed: "I think she would be deeply shocked," the designer said. "I think if she was alive it wouldn't have happened with the two brothers. She wouldn't have allowed it. She'd have smoothed the waters""
Don Lemon says he is 'shocked' by Meghan Markle's race admission - "CNN anchor Don Lemon expressed his 'shock' on Wednesday at Meghan Markle's podcast admission that she only recently began to 'understand what it's like to be a black woman.'... [Mariah] Carey declares that Meghan has 'diva moments sometimes.'... she used episode one of Archetypes with Serena to take a veiled swipe at life in the Royal Family. She also recounted her horror at a time a small 'fire' broke out in son Archie's room during a tour of South Africa. The then-four-month-old was not in the room at the time that a heater began to smoke but it left duchess 'shaken' and 'in tears', she told her friend. Despite her upset, she said she was forced to continue with the couple's official engagements. On Monday, in a 6,400-word magazine article to promote the podcast, the Duchess of Sussex made a series of apparent swipes at the royals, warning she could 'say anything' now that she has left the Firm. Meghan, 41, even suggested Prince Harry felt he had 'lost' his father over his decision to quit his public duties. But in an extraordinary clarification last night, allies of the couple said the duchess had actually been referring to the breakdown of her relationship with her own father... In further shock claims, Meghan said the couple felt forced to leave Britain because 'just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy', while Harry, 37, made his own jibe at the royals, saying: 'Most people that I know and many of my family, they aren't able to work and live together.' And the duchess also claimed a South African member of the cast of the West End production of The Lion King told her: 'When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.'... just two years on, there are worrying signs that America may be beginning to tire of it all. Worrying, that is, for the Sussexes, who need to keep milking public interest in them if they are to pay for that lavish lifestyle in Montecito... Could it be that Americans are waking up to the fact there may be little more to the Sussexes than their seemingly bottomless well of grievance about their treatment in the UK?... the venerable Washington Post cautioned her that 'to succeed in the media, [she] needs to leave royal traumas behind'. And one U.S. TV insider claimed 'some of the lustre' has gone... the interview was, in fact, quite negative about her. The Cut is part of New York Magazine, which is about as woke as you get in the mainstream U.S. media — a fact that no doubt weighed heavily in the Sussex camp's decision to grant its journalist an audience. And yet the undercurrent of disapproval in the 6,400-word piece — by African-American feature writer Allison P. Davis — was hard to miss... there is the delicious irony revealed in the grandness of a pair who rejected royal life, but who work from two plush club chairs behind a single desk 'facing into the room like thrones', and where 'an invisible hand' lights a Soho House candle. As for the interview, Davis reports every remark, no matter how nonsensical, while repeatedly hinting that Meghan is far more calculating and self-absorbed than she'd have us believe. Davis writes — in reference to the cheesy and contrived U.S. dating reality TV series The Bachelor — that the Duchess 'sometimes converses like she has a tiny Bachelor producer in her brain, directing what she says'. She describes how, instead of answering a question, Meghan at one point suggests how her interviewer 'might transcribe the noises she's making'. (Guttural, by the way.)... She's similarly sarcastic when Meghan tells her she and Harry initially couldn't afford their new home — a revelation Davis finds 'utterly humbling'. Granted, the interview is hardly a Jeremy Paxman-style encounter, but it should have rung warning bells for the Sussexes. Such U.S. media mockery of the former Meghan Markle would have been unimaginable a year ago... The couple were reportedly able to afford their home only after they had signed two huge media deals — one for $25 million to produce podcasts with Spotify, and another with Netflix, said to be worth $100 million, to make films, documentaries and TV shows. On top of the house, they have to finance a lifestyle that stretches to private security and private jets. However, both deals depend on the Sussexes producing 'content' and, so far, that has been very much lacking. Compounding the pressure for results is the fact that both deals were made in 2020 when the media companies were far healthier than they are now. Some industry insiders have wondered whether the couple are struggling to find anything noteworthy to say beyond their split with the Royal Family. In May, Netflix abruptly cancelled Pearl, an animated children's series that had been a passion project of the Duchess. According to entertainment industry website theankler.com, the news set off 'a fire alarm at Archewell', the Sussexes' production company. 'Harry and Meghan called an all-hands meeting,' an Archewell insider told the website. 'They were deeply concerned about the optics of this. Meghan wanted to talk to Ted [Sarandos, the co-chief executive of Netflix].' Sources told the website that the company's underwhelming output is partly down to a 'lack of urgency' from a couple with so many other interests (Harry's polo and their charity work), but also down to the Duchess's alleged vacillation. 'She's terrified of making a decision because she's so concerned about her image, and so they can't pull the trigger on anything,' said a source who has spoken with Archewell about its content strategy. 'She wants to be seen as this world leader, but they don't have any strong ideas.' Netflix claims there are Archewell projects on the horizon, but won't say more. Similar uncertainty hangs over the couple's other big potential money-spinner: Harry's autobiography with its apparent bombshell revelations — now reportedly delayed until next year. Will it ever come out and, if it does, will it just be another retread of their life of suffering in the Royal Family?... even the fiercely progressive Washington Post, once one of the Sussexes' staunchest defenders in the U.S. media, lost patience. In an editorial, the newspaper pointed out that the couple's entitled existence made them ill-suited to lecturing others. 'The more the pair talk about what they suffered in England, the more it seems that's all Americans want to hear from them'... 'The only way for the Sussexes to build a truly new life, and have a wider impact on the causes they care about, is to stop making themselves the centre of the story.' The waning support for the Sussexes and their one-note narrative was, in fact, starting to become evident soon after the Oprah Winfrey interview in March 2021... In May this year, another YouGov poll found that her popularity among fellow Americans had tumbled further: 46 per cent now said they had a 'very or somewhat unfavourable' view of her — up 13 points. Last month, a different survey found that only a quarter of Americans were 'very or fairly interested' in reading Harry's memoirs. That's still rather more enthusiasm than in the UK (14 per cent), but the gap is surprisingly close. Interestingly, the couple do not have to look too far to find their rivals for transatlantic affection. As one U.S. TV insider reportedly said this week: 'We are more likely to do something on William and Kate now.'"
Meghan Markle and the aristocracy of victimhood - "‘What is truth?’, wondered Pontius Pilate. Finally, 2,000 years later, we have an answer to that grandest of philosophical sticklers – it’s whatever Meghan Markle says it is. Something extraordinary is happening in a Florida courtroom right now: Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, seems to be trying to redefine reality itself. She is being sued by her estranged half-sister Samantha Markle for defamation. One of Samantha’s claims is that Meghan was fibbing when she told Oprah Winfrey in that volcanic interview last year that she ‘grew up as an only child’. What about me, and your half-brother, Thomas Jr, Samantha is asking? Do we not exist? The response of Meghan’s legal team to the ‘only child’ controversy has been astonishing. Meghan’s comment ‘was obviously not meant to be a statement of objective fact that she had no genetic siblings or half-siblings’, her lawyers say. Rather, it was a ‘textbook example of a subjective statement of how a person feels about their childhood’... This isn’t the first time Meghan’s ‘truth’ has gone into battle with actual truth. Also in that Oprah chat, Meghan infamously said she and Prince Harry got married in a small, private ceremony three days before the showy wedding millions watched on TV... Isn’t it striking that the Trump administration was continually slammed by liberals for its promotion of ‘alternative facts’, whereas Meghan is loved by liberals despite also seeming to deal in ‘alternative facts’? The Trumpite Orwellian category of ‘alternative facts’ really means pushing ‘claims that do not conform to objective reality’, raged USA Today. ‘Traditionally known as false or misleading claims; also, lies’, it continued. Does that apply to the Duchess of Sussex, too? Are her claims about being an only child and getting married three days before she actually got married also ‘alternative facts’, false claims, misinformation?... This is not to say Meghan Markle is a liar. It is more complicated than that, and in a sense more sinister. She appears to be a product of the end of truth. She seems symbolic of a postmodern culture in which self-definition now takes precedence over objective reality. In which our narcissistic description of ourselves carries more weight than any anchored, measurable facts about ourselves. In which one can ‘identify’ as anything one chooses, however estranged your identification might be from material reality. A man can be a woman, despite having a penis, and Meghan Markle can be an only child, despite having siblings... Tom Bower’s new book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, suggests there has long been a post-truth element to the Meghan Markle phenomenon. Actually, this is less a book than a bulldozer. It lays waste, in chapter after chapter, to Markle’s carefully constructed image of herself as a survivor of racism and mental ill-health who now just wants to ‘do good’. After six years of Meghanmania from the woke establishment, the book feels like an act of heresy, or at least like one of those 18th-century monarchy-bashing pamphlets in which John Wilkes or some other upstart would take wild, satirical potshots at a pompous royal. I loved it. Bower takes us from Markle’s comfy childhood to her rather unillustrious acting career to her ascendancy first into the new aristocracy of Californian celebs who are woke, philanthropic and almost pathologically self-obsessed and then into the actual aristocracy. He captures brilliantly what appears to be Markle’s driving obsession: to be an influencer... Long before Harry, Meghan seems to have been obsessed with the idea of becoming a physical embodiment of active righteousness... Her second visit to Rwanda, in January 2016, sounds even worse. She flew there first class, with fashion photographer Gabor Jurina, and a hair stylist, stayed in Kigali’s best five-star hotel, and then drove in an ‘air-conditioned mini-van’ to the dirt-poor village of Gashora. She chatted with the locals about their daily struggle to get water, but not for long: ‘To the villagers’ surprise, she disappeared… For hours Jurina photographed the perfectly coiffured actress hugging, squeezing and smiling with the village children. Each pose was followed by a change of clothing.’ Africa as backdrop, hard-up kids as props for a photo shoot – these are the deranged levels of self-regard celebs who Do Good have reached. When she meets Harry, in mid-2016, her mission to deliver salvation to a world that’s lost its way, to be a one-woman religion essentially, intensifies... Harry’s friends bemoaned Meghan’s ‘wokery’. She’s a ‘dampener’, they told him. Now her party-pooping has gone global... Together Meghan and Harry have become globe-trotting moral reprimanders, with often unwittingly hilarious results. Meghan guest-edited Vogue, using it as a pulpit to preach about the evils of climate change. Yet she takes private jets the way the rest of us order Ubers... at a press conference in Amsterdam to promote an eco-travel campaign (!), Harry is outraged when a journalist asks him about his private jet-setting. Ninety-nine per cent of my flights are commercial, he says. Actually, at least 60 per cent of your flights are private, he is informed. ‘No one is perfect’, he replies. A few days later the pair flew by private jet to attend the wedding of a close friend who was getting hitched to the son of an oil billionaire. The new elites are laughing at us, aren’t they? They instruct us to travel less, have fewer kids, stop being so greedy and polluting, and yet they’re hopping on hyper-luxurious airplanes to fly to Elton John’s swanky pad in the south of France, as Harry and Meghan did in 2019. Our behaviour is fine, said Harry, because we ‘plant trees to offset the carbon’. ‘Where and how many trees?’, a journalist asked him. Judging by Harry’s face, he clearly believes that being asked questions is a form of ‘persecution’, writes Bower: ‘Whatever he said, Harry believed, was “the truth”.’... Like ‘lived experience’, ‘my truth’ is something you are not allowed to interrogate. Observe what happened to Piers Morgan: elbowed out of Good Morning Britain for having the temerity to question Meghan’s ‘truth’ about feeling suicidal in the palace. The sanctification of subjective feeling over objective reality nurtures a deeply censorious and intolerant climate in which any questioning of a person’s claims about themselves – that they are non-binary, or a frequent commercial flyer, or an only child, or whatever – is treated as a species of blasphemy... Meghan has recently spoken of experiencing racism at school, yet she went to a school that was mostly non-white. Only 30 per cent of the kids were white. ‘Most [students] assumed Meghan was Italian.’ Bower argues, convincingly, that Meghan has only recently started talking about race, and possibly started to reimagine certain childhood experiences as instances of racism, because race has become one of the ultimate cards in the game of woke. It is indeed striking that Harry and Meghan seem to see racism everywhere – in every critical article, every difficult question, every allegation of bullying against Meghan... That Meghan seems to be reimagining her life as a victimised one is not surprising. Victimhood is the most prized cultural asset in the new aristocracy of celebrities, influencers and activists... when a UKIP dimwit made racist remarks about the couple on Instagram, ‘that single post would be repeatedly cited by the couple to suggest “palace officials were overwhelmed by threats made from multiple sources”’, says Bower. In fact, replied palace officials, we are ‘overwhelmed by demands from Harry and Meghan to remove any criticism [from social media], rather than a few threats’... in the woke ‘religion’ of Hollywood celebrities, ‘the concept of “universal truth” [is] false’. Indeed, Meghan herself has said that ‘life is about storytelling, about the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we’re told, what we buy into’. We all have the right to ‘create our own truth about the world’, she says."
Truth is whatever liberals decide it is
Similarly with wokebaiting, one or two examples of racism or sexism are equated with torrents of abuse and harassment
