OK Meghan, you can drop the act now
MEGHAN Markle does seem genuine and in love with Prince Harry. But every so often, she slips into actress mode, making it difficult to believe her, writes Claire Harvey.
Rendezview
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rendezview. Followed categories will be added to My News.
MEGHAN, stop acting.
Please. You can be yourself now. You’re there. In real life. Being real.
Except you’re so busy playing the part of a humble mixed-race actress in love with a Prince that you’re forgetting it’s not a role.
You’re gazing up into Harry’s eyes in exactly the same way you used to gaze into the eyes of your on-screen boyfriend Mike Ross in Suits.
You’re pretending you’d never heard of the House of Windsor before being set up on a blind date with Harry: “I had one question. I said: ‘Well, is he nice?’ Because if he wasn’t kind, then it didn’t seem like it would make sense.”
Mmm-hmm. That’s exactly what I would have said if someone wanted to set me up with a millionaire prince.
In that BBC engagement interview, between the carefully rehearsed adoring gazes at Harry, Meghan implied she had no idea about his mother’s tragic death and the ensuing whirlwind of tragedy that consumed the Royal Family and the western world.
“Because I’m from the States, you don’t grow up with the same understanding of the royal family. While I now understand very clearly there is a global interest there, I didn’t know much about him.”
But didn’t you pose for a picture in front of the gates of Buckingham Palace in the ’90s? Who did you think lived there? Postman Pat? And who hasn’t heard of the most famous woman of the 20th century? I’ve got garden snails who can talk intelligently about Princess Diana’s style evolution.
Oh yes and really Meghan is happy to make the enormous sacrifice of giving up the only acting job that has ever paid her a living wage if it gives her a bigger global platform to pursue her work of making a happier world.
“(Social activism) was really one of the first things we connected on,” she said of her first meeting with Harry. “It was one of the first things we connected on. It was one of the first things we started talking about when we met, the different things we wanted to do in the world and how passionate we were about seeing change. That’s what got date two in the books probably.”
I want to like this woman.
I want to love her.
I loved Princess Diana and still do. I love Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge. I have a pair of very uncomfortable and obstinately squeaky LK Bennett nude pumps to prove it.
I love Mary, Princess of Denmark. A few weeks ago when my husband went out I spent more than an hour on YouTube watching archival footage of Mary speaking Danish. I loved Princess Margaret down to every tobacco-stained fingertip.
I even love historical princesses like Charlotte, the queen-to-be who died in childbirth in the 19th century. She’s the best Queen we never had.
And now, in a typically impressive gesture of his intelligence and independence, Prince Harry is confidently expecting his hidebound and stuffy Royal Family to accept an African-American divorcee actress because he genuinely loves her.
It’s a remarkable development in the monarchy’s slow transition from power to symbolism, and demonstrates something utterly cool about the new generation of Royals, who really do appear to care about the world they live in, and want to live up to their mother’s legacy and exceed the world’s expectations.
I think Meghan, once she relaxes into the role, will be remarkable. And she seems like a cool, independent and intelligent woman, based on my research of consuming six seasons of Suits, plus the whole engagement interview including outtakes and every story ever published about her tequila-sodden first wedding and her early work as a barrel-girl.
For most of that engagement interview, Meghan seemed genuine and fresh. She certainly seems genuinely in love. But every so often, she remembers how she would look and act if she were playing herself in the straight-to-TV miniseries of her own life, and she slips into actress mode.
You know the most annoying part? It’s totally working for the middle-aged men out there. Every bloke in my office is red-hot for the soon-to-be Princess Harry of Wales. They love how authentic she is.