When Familiarity Breeds Contempt: Where Harry and Meghan Went Wrong
I was seven years old when Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles Mountbatten-Windsor on July 29, 1981, watching playbacks of their lavish wedding from a grainy box-television set while I sat criss-cross applesauce on the most garish, hot lava-colored carpet made popular somewhere in the mid-to-late seventies. What I’d remember most about the wedding of the 20th century was Princess Diana’s dress, more specifically her 25 foot train that trailed behind her youthful, statuesque figure.
The 153 yards of tulle veil in addition to the ivory silk taffeta may have looked like a luxurious cream-filled French pastry on someone who was of much shorter stature. However, on the 5' 10" Diana, she’d wear the cream-colored monstrosity well. From that moment forward, I was hooked on The Royal Family, and their over-the-top luxury weddings.
Death of Princess Diana
I was on vacation when the news broke of Princess Diana’s car accident and subsequent untimely death in late August 1997, when I was twenty-three during my last year at university. A few days later, I would be in tears as I, along with the rest of the world, watched her two beloved sons walk solemnly behind their mother’s beautified casket, adorned with a large spray of white lilies and a round wreath of white roses with a card placed in its center that read Mummy from a twelve-year-old prepubescent Prince Harry.
The whole world had stopped to mourn the stunning princess as we watched the televised funeral procession go from Kensington Palace to her final resting place; a lonely, haunting island on the Spencer family’s Althorp Estate surrounded by brown, murky water.
Prince William Marries Catherine Middleton
The next big Royal wedding of the 21st century was Diana’s eldest boy Prince William and commoner Catherine Middleton, who got married on April 29, 2011. Her train was nine feet long, a whole sixteen feet shorter than her late mother-in-law’s. However, unlike Diana’s dress, which had a whimsy, traditional princess storybook-feel, Princess Catherine’s wedding dress was tailored and constructed, especially in the bodice, reminiscent of Princess Grace of Monaco’s — a classic, glamorous style.
I would watch their wedding in absolute awe, this time, however, I was 37 and two months pregnant with my youngest daughter.
Prince Harry Marries Meghan Markle
Seven years later, Prince Harry would marry relative unknown American actress, Meghan Markle, on May 19, 2018, and again, I’d watch replays of their wedding this time from my Brooklyn apartment, and even purchased a small, lemon cream-filled cake to mimic their lemon and elderflower cake that was adorned with white peonies and roses.
I was happy for the newly minted royal couple, and was initially rooting for them from the beginning of their courtship. I thought Meghan Markle was gorgeous, a cross between Demi Moore and Minnie Driver.
When I saw Meghan in her pure white, silk Givenchy wedding dress with its distinct open boat neckline, emphasizing her beautiful neck and squared-off shoulders, walking up the grand staircase of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, I must admit that I was a little underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong. The style was simple yet pretty, purposely understated especially in comparison to Princess Diana’s and Princess Catherine’s wedding dresses, which may have been Meghan’s point all along.
Meghan’s custom-made wedding dress had reportedly cost a staggering $400K to make, taking a total of 3,900 hours over four months — requiring dress-makers to wash their hands every 30 minutes to keep the white silk pristine, lacked embellishments of any kind, and had a sixteen foot silk train. Her hair and make-up was more natural as well with the occasional wisps of dark hair that would randomly fall, framing her sculpted face. I think Meghan favored the modern, no fuss look to Catherine’s more refined, classic take — to each their own.
Tiaragate
Meghan’s first choice of wedding tiara was reportedly the 93.7-carat Greville Emerald Kokoshnik, just under 100 years old, and embedded with green emeralds valued at a whopping $13 million. However, the request for the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik was shut down by HMTQ, who had instead selected a handful of tiaras from her collection for Meghan to choose from, including Queen Mary’s sparkling diamond bandeau, valued at an impressive $2.8 million. Meghan’s choice of the bandeau was a wise one as it complimented her wedding dress better than the more showy emerald tiara.
Rumors soon swirled around the mounting tension surrounding Meghan Markle’s wedding tiara with Prince Harry having been quoted as saying “What Meghan wants, Meghan gets” before Queen Elizabeth had to step-in to set the future Sussexes straight. This was in regards to Meghan demanding access to her wedding tiara, Queen Mary’s bandeau, from Angela Kelly, the Queen’s right hand woman of thirty years in order to practice different hairstyles with her personal make-up artist, who’d reportedly flew in just for the pre-wedding day preparations. Meghan’s request for access was denied by Kelly, which supposedly sparked Harry’s furious tirade.
Six months after Harry and Meghan’s glorious wedding, which was reportedly valued at $45 million, Princess Eugenie would wear the coveted emerald tiara when she got married to Jack Brooksbank at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on October 12, 2018. It had been speculated that it was the same Greville emerald tiara that Meghan had been eyeing to wear, herself, before being denied by Queen Elizabeth. Some say it was denied due to being a gift from Russia, having uncertain origin, while others say that it was denied because Princess Eugenie had preselected that tiara for her own wedding, which she’d already pushed back six months to accommodate The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who were much higher up in the line of succession.
Controversial Announcement
It was at Princess Eugenie’s wedding where The Duke and Duchess of Sussex would shamelessly announce their pregnancy with Archie to family — first to Prince Charles and then to William followed by Catherine, which is considered poor taste at a universal level.
Harry explained in his 2023 memoir Spare that they had announced the exciting news at the cocktail party, right after the ceremony, because they were heading off on a royal tour of Australia three days later, and wanted family to know first before the formal announcement was dropped by the Palace on October 15, 2018. Some had speculated that Sarah, The Duchess of York, commonly known by her nickname — Fergie, was livid at The Sussexs for stealing the limelight away from her youngest daughter on her special day.
In fact, when photos of Meghan walking hand-in-hand with Harry outside of St. George’s Chapel were released preannouncement, wearing a tailored navy coat-dress with its bottom buttons conspicuously unbuttoned, speculations of a looming pregnancy were already running amuck on social media.
Catherine’s Apology
Then there were the rumors of who made who cry first. Some said Meghan’s “bridezilla” demands had made Catherine, who’d just given birth to Prince Louis, break down in tears surrounding Princess Charlotte’s poorly constructed flower girl dress with the wedding just hours away. Another issue was Meghan having the flower girls go bare-legged instead of the customary white tights that Royals have traditionally followed for flower girls for generations, which helped to prevent chafing or even blisters to form from their tight, new shoes rubbing for hours against bare, sensitive skin.
However, in 2021, Meghan claimed during the special televised interview with Oprah that it was, in fact, Catherine who’d made her cry — the complete opposite of what had been reported by the British press. She did credit Catherine for apologizing to her, and for the gifting of a lovely floral bouquet. But why couldn’t both versions be true? Why couldn’t Catherine and Meghan both end up in tears? I think Catherine was being the bigger person to apologize to Meghan, even giving her new sister-in-law a thoughtful peace offering.
My feelings for Meghan Markle began to sway with each new angst and controversy. Her purported victimization seemed bottomless as a black hole while still enjoying the perks of a million dollar wardrobe courtesy of Prince Charles, sudden access to private jets; a gifted Royal residence that cost an estimated $3 million in renovations— Frogmore Cottage, which is located on the grounds of the Windsor Castle Family Estate, and her own Palace staff, who she’d reportedly bullied to the point of breakdowns per a later sealed Royal investigation.
Flower
Nothing about Meghan Markle screamed disenfranchised. She grew up in a nice Los Angeles neighborhood, attending the well-respected Little Red Schoolhouse in Hollywood before attending a private, Catholic all girls high school, where she starred in school plays and musicals with her professional television lighting director father volunteering his expertise. Meghan would even win homecoming queen, a Royal foreshadowing.
Meghan grew up super loved and adored by both of her parents, Thomas Markle, Sr. and Doria Ragland, and had even been given the precious moniker of “Flower.”
Smack and Cream Puff
When I was growing up in a row house in Northeast Philadelphia, a predominately blue collar neighborhood, the youngest of seven children of Italian descent, my father, depending on the day and my behavior, would call me either “Smack” or “Honey Bunny” and my brother “Cream Puff” for his quiet, sensitive nature. We often got spanked, sometimes with the belt, and even had shoes thrown at us from time-to-time by our mother, who, by the way, had excellent precision.
The shoe-throwing was quite common in our neighborhood so much that our mothers back in the day could’ve tried out for the Philadelphia Phillies. I mean shoes thrown that could defy gravity, and even turn corners.
I never knew that feeling of being parentally loved and adored in the same manner that Meghan Markle was by her parents. Most days, I felt more tolerated than loved. So it’s hard to feel bad for someone who has it all but feels this absurd need to characterize themselves as a perpetual victim.
I still love my parents, and believe that they’d tried their best. They often gave us our fair share of reality checks, which kept our ego in line, at least for some of us anyway.
The Royal Hierarchy
I’m sure The Royal Family, or The Firm as they’ve been coldly referred to, have their undeniable quirks and flaws behind the scenes that Harry and Meghan were most likely privy to more so than the average outsider, or casual onlooker like myself. I’m sure the situation wasn’t perfect as they were still finding their footing within the blatant hierarchy, sixth in succession behind Prince William and Princess Catherine’s three children, Harry and Meghan’s niece and nephews.
In reality, healthy families don’t have a hierarchy, or a caste system, as all family members should be loved and treated as equals. There is often transparency and validation within healthy family systems.
Hierarchy, however, is often seen in narcissistic families, where members are assigned unconscious familial roles such as Golden Child, Lost Child, The Mascot, The Surrogate Parent, and the dreaded Scapegoat to name a few. I think there was no mistaken Prince Andrew as Queen Elizabeth’s beloved Golden Child, whom, upon first meeting, Meghan had mistook as the Queen’s “purse holding” assistant.
I imagine that The Firm is akin to a cauldron, cranking the heat for its newest members in order to allow the cream to rise to the top — call it a rite of passage. Diana had struggled for over a decade to find acceptance within the confines of that family, but finally realized in the end that she was, indeed, The People’s Princess, which suited her just fine.
Her circumstances, however, had been quite different from Meghan’s. For one, her husband and Prince, was carrying on an open affair with arch nemesis, the “Rottweiler,” Camilla Parker Bowles for the majority of their fifteen year marriage. She also got married at the tender age of 20 without any real life experience while Meghan, on the other hand, was a savvy 36-year-old when she married Prince Harry, her second marriage; educated at the esteemed Northwestern University, and had been a cast member on the popular cable TV show, Suits, for seven seasons.
“I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter. And I knew it.” Diana recalled “crying my heart out on my honeymoon.” — Diana’s recordings per author Andrew Morton.
Some have speculated that Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, would, at times, cosplay Diana’s personal style, choosing similar outfits and color combinations to wear like that red trench coat worn with the royal purple dress, which she’d continually flick away to show off her emerging pregnancy bump to the press.
It was also reported that Meghan had worn Diana’s favorite perfume, Penhaligon’s Bluebell (Woodland Hyacinth), on her first date with Harry. According to a fragrance review on Bois de Jasmin’s website, the perfume includes notes of citrus, cyclamen, hyacinth, jasmine, lily of the valley, rose, cinnamon, clove, and galbanum.
During the now infamous Oprah interview, Meghan, feeling unbearable pressure from The Firm, would share with the world that she had suicidal ideation while pregnant with Archie, eerily echoing an unloved and pushed to the brink Diana when she threw herself down a flight of stairs at Sandringham while pregnant with Prince William in an attempt to stir a caring reaction from her withdrawn, unfeeling husband.
Meghan Markle was never able to raise her profile on her own in Hollywood until she married Prince Harry, making her a household name overnight. Her wedding was attended by Who’s Who of Hollywood with the likes of Oprah, Serena Williams, George and Amal Clooney, Elton John, and The Beckhams to name a few. Strangely enough, the only family member in attendance was her mother, Doria Ragland.
Prince Charles would walk Meghan down the aisle instead of her beloved elderly father, who was in a hospital back in Southern California recovering from a heart attack that some had speculated was brought on by the stress of the pending, televised nuptials in addition to the subsequent humiliation of those staged paparazzi photos in Mexico by photographer Jeff Rayner, who had reportedly made contact with Thomas first, not the other way around.
It’s important to note here that Rayner was known to have taken photographs of Meghan — pre-Harry — pre-world wide fame, and continues to get credit for “pap walk” photographs of Meghan, today, as The Duchess of Sussex. She’s the common denominator between her father and the questionable photographer.
Some YouTubers in the Megxit community believe Meghan, by proxy of Rayner, had set up her father for that embarrassing fall in the effort to create plausible deniability — a shift in her narrative in order to manipulate the mass global perception of her father from beloved into a cringe-worthy, fame-hungry father worthy of cutting off all contact. They say the devil is in the details, and this may be the perfect case study.
The Cluster B personality disorder is a psychological umbrella term that covers the toxic traits of narcissists, sociopaths, histrionics, and borderlines (more self-harm, directed inward), who often lack empathy, a conscience — exhibiting malevolent traits such as pathological lying, pathological envy, manipulation, false narratives, and control freakery at its finest.
In 2017, The Daily Beast had cited Harry proposing “The Royals were the family that Meghan had never had.” But the truth was Meghan had a loving family, and certainly a devoted father, who had always loved and doted on his daughter since birth. She also had a loving extended family in both The Markles and The Raglands. In fact, Thomas’ elder brother, Mike, who was a U.S. diplomat, stated, according to a 2019 Daily Mail article, that he had “used his influence to secure Meghan a prestigious internship as a junior press officer at the American embassy in Argentina when she was 20 and considering a career in international relations.”
‘Meghan has climbed socially and left us behind — that’s how I feel,’ says Mike, 80, the elder brother of her father, Thomas.
If Meghan had given Harry and The Royal Family a less than savory impression of her life with Thomas and The Markles — sounds like a late sixties band name, then she had to, for sure, keep her father and extended family, including The Raglands, away from the wedding so her two worlds couldn’t collide, which could’ve indirectly exposed her as a liar to her new husband and Royal in-laws, especially if they’d found Thomas Markle delightful.
This is typical M.O. behavior of covert manipulators, who will even engage in behind-the-back smear campaigns to neutralize their threat(s) for when their threat(s) start talking, already five steps ahead like a champion chess player.
Childhood Videos
Meghan’s childhood videos began to leak online. There was one video, in particular, where she was pretending to be a fictional queen at a friend’s birthday party, barking orders left and right at her “subordinates” — the fellow party goers, and even at the birthday girl, herself, who should’ve been made queen on her special day.
Before I’d go anywhere, especially when independent of my parents, my father would pull me aside to point his “fickle finger of fate” squarely in my face while forewarning me in a bass-baritone, reverberating through memory — B-E-H-A-V-E! He never had to add Or else as it was already implied.
More videos would leak online like the time Thomas, Sr. took Meghan fishing and horseback riding, or the time when she graduated the eighth grade, and you see her hugging her father, affectionately calling him “Daddy.” That one warmed my heart.
The videos don’t lie, and showed Meghan to have a loving relationship with her attentive father. Just prior to meeting Prince Harry, Meghan would validate her loving relationship with her father, thanking him for his many sacrifices on her now defunct luxury blog, The Tig, before he found himself markled, too.
Unlike Meghan, I don’t have any memories of going fishing or little getaways with my father. When my father wasn’t working, supporting our large family, or coaching my brothers’ soccer team, he’d spend the rest of his time in his recliner watching his favorite TV shows like M*A*S*H, I can still hear the nostalgic theme music, or Cheers, and especially old Hollywood black and white films, usually with a bowl of cherry vanilla ice cream atop his belly, wearing a wife-beater shirt like the fictional character, Tony Soprano. He would often watch his TV shows while holding his hand up to the side of his face, usually the side closest to where I was sitting, almost blocking me out from his personal space. I never knew if his hand gesture was conscious or not. I just knew how badly it made me feel.
I do have some fond memories of my father taking me to see the Philadelphia Flyers play when he’d get free tickets from work. One time, in 1987, when I was thirteen, he took me to the mall and gave me his credit card so I could purchase a western-style skirt at The Limited, which I held onto well into my thirties before losing it during one of my many moves.
I wondered if Meghan, in those quiet moments, ever thought about all those happy memories with her amazing father, and if she had any regrets?
At weekends there was a routine of Saturday ballet and acting classes followed by ‘our club sandwich and fruit-smoothie’ at an ice-cream parlor or Hamburger Hamlet. Before going in, Thomas always bought Meghan’s favorite comic called ‘Archie’….After the meal, Thomas rented old dance movies to watch at home.”
(Source: Revenge by Tom Bower, page 16)
Megxit
On January 8, 2020, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced on Instagram that they would be stepping back as senior members of The Royal Family. However, their desire to be half-in and half-out of The Firm was immediately shot down by HMTQ. It was either all in or all out — no in between.
The Sussexes were also prohibited to monetize the monarchy, which they had already begun to do with the early launch of their Sussex Royal website and various business deals with Netflix, Spotify, and Harry’s $20 million advance for his memoir Spare not notwithstanding the controversial Oprah sit-down just a year after Megxit. It seemed to me that their one-trick pony — The Royal Family connection, albeit strained, was losing steam with time.
In the four years that Harry and Meghan have called Montecito, California home, we’ve watched their popularity rapidly decline in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain, where The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were repeatedly ranked at the bottom of The Royal Family along with nefarious uncle, Prince Andrew.
Their Downfall
Due to Harry and Meghan’s now loose affiliation with the British Royal Family, they’ve been given every new business opportunity known to man like the 2021 Oprah interview, the Archewell podcast with Spotify that disastrously failed to take-off with listeners, and their own Netflix documentary that made them come off as a couple with a persecution complex bordering, at times, on paranoia notwithstanding the replay of the mocking, Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament curtsy to Queen Elizabeth, her husband’s beloved grandmother.
Then you got the hot mess which was Harry’s memoir Spare, and the countless interviews with James Corden, Tom Bradby, Anderson Cooper, and Ellen, where Meghan made herself look like a total fool doing vapid, cringe-worthy stunts at the behest of reported fellow mean girl Ellen DeGeneres.
And then there was the delay with her home product brand venture with American Riviera Orchard (ARO), which Meghan teased with the limited release of her strawberry jam to a number of celebrities, who were then supposed to rave about its deliciousness on their various social media platforms. That venture was said to be at a standstill at the moment due to copyright issues with the ARO name.
Netflix executives were reportedly “fuming” with the minimal role that Harry had in his anticipated Polo documentary, releasing in December. And according to the New York Post:
“Apart from their documentary series, which had the drama of them quitting the royal family, everything else they’ve produced has been underwhelming,” a Hollywood producer told the outlet.”
Last year, Spotify executive, Bill Simmons, called out Meghan and Harry on his own podcast:
‘The F — Grifters.’ That’s the podcast we shoulda launched with them,” said Simmons on his self-titled podcast. “I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.” — Variety, June 17, 2023
South Park would join in on the Sussex mockery with their popular “World-Wide Privacy Tour” episode. The ending of the episode was actually quite telling with cartoon Harry coming back to his senses, who then tried to get cartoon Meghan to see his new altruistic ways, but when he opened up her wide cartoon-mouth and had a peek inside for himself, he found it was just a dark, dank, echoing void.
And then most recently The Hollywood Reporter, considered a respectable news source in the industry, came out with a damaging article on Meghan Markle after interviewing a host of previous Archewell employees, with one past employee calling her a “Dictator in Heels” who’d made grown men cry, giving credence to the original bullying reports, still sealed, back when she was a full-time working royal.
For the record, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have lost a total of nineteen employees (and counting) since Archewell’s inception (2020) notwithstanding the ten lawsuits they’ve waged since 2019, mainly against the British press.
And they’re no longer “friends” with George and Amal Clooney, The Beckhams, or Elton John, who’d once lent The Sussexes his private plane in addition to hosting them at one of his many lavish homes.
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
My father once warned me after I got too cozy with my first boyfriend, he said, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and boy was he right. I think that’s what we’re now seeing with Harry and Meghan, at least with the movers and shakers in Hollywood and its influential outer periphery. They’ve become a caricature of themselves, and are no longer taken seriously — Box Office Poison as they say in the business.
Like Gwyneth Paltrow’s 1998 film Sliding Doors, I wonder if there’s a separate, parallel reality out there — perhaps, what could have been, where Harry and Meghan had stayed with The Royal Family instead of defecting prematurely to Hollywood, and are raising Archie and Lilibet at their Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor Castle Family Estate, a short walk from William and Catherine’s Adelaide Cottage, where Archie and Lilibet play wonderfully with their first cousins George, Charlotte, and little Louis while the two long lost brothers share a beer and have a hearty laugh in the garden with their chatty wives, who are catching up between world tours. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
I think what captivates us non-royals the most about The British Monarchy is their 1,200 year dignified silence that is shrouded in continued mystery, that tried and true old adage: “Never complain, never explain.” The Royal Family understood at a fundamental level my father’s wise advice to me so many years ago that familiarity certainly breeds contempt — just ask Harry and Meghan.
Where Harry and Meghan go from here is anyone’s guess. Rumor has it that they’re already living separate lives in separate residences as they begin to go separate ways, at least professionally at the moment.
These two could’ve been spectacular royals in their own right as sixth in line to succession of The Crown, if they’d only stayed put back in 2020, allowing themselves more time to acclimate; finding their own path and voice within The Firm — in time. I think the problem peaked when Meghan realized she’d never be Queen, that she’d one day have to, god forbid, curtsy to Catherine, and I think her fragile, misplaced ego just couldn’t handle it.
I think what Harry and Meghan lacked was gratitude and better judgement. Becoming a full-time, working Royal would’ve elevated Meghan’s status in the hearts and minds of everyone, just like her late mother-in-law before her, had she truly served the people of Great Britain and beyond. In addition, that long-standing, Royal mystery stardust would’ve been firmly intact today, endearing Harry and Meghan to Hollywood just like William and Catherine.
Anyone could be an influencer, actress, or a Hollywood extra, but very few could call themselves a bona fide princess from a monarchy spanning 1,200 years. But I’m afraid that Harry and Meghan may have, sadly, torched that bridge over The Royal Family’s castle-moat, and now have only themselves to blame — the worst kind of regret there is.
A poem published in 2022.
DUPER’S DELIGHT
‘Cause darling, I’m a nightmare
dressed like a daydream.— Taylor Swift, Blank Space
A liar tells me
there is no such
thing as truth,
that truth is as fluid
as sex.The liar says
This is my truth
and everyone
believes her.The liar says
I am the victim here
and no questions
are asked.The problem,
she says,
is my perception
as if truth is
something we could trap
under a glass
the way we trap light beams
and insects.Lies, she says,
travels faster
than the speed
of light.She says the truth
has many sides
like a shiny diamond
on the finger
of a Las Vegas
blackjack dealer.She says the truth
has many sides
like a colossal glacier
in the middle of
Antarctica.She says truth
is a shit show,
a dumpster fire
in a tin-roof trailer park
some twenty miles
from the nearest highway
in flood-prone Florida.Truth is ugly,
the fat friend,
the sidekick
who never gets laid.Lying, she says,
is a luxury
I can never afford.
