Big Meghan Markle problem in Kate Middleton’s speech

The Princess of Wales missed one glaring point during an outing in the UK and it’s an issue she and William need to address.

COMMENT

Kate, the Princess of Wales stands at a lectern giving a well-meaning speech, in a Tweedy Bird blazer so bright that she could take a second job redirecting traffic in it. Just how controversial, how problematic, how iffy, could such an outing be? you might be wondering.

After all, all that she and future King, and current titled bin-putter-outer, Prince William, the Prince of Wales were doing on Tuesday was taking part in a youth mental health forum in Birmingham in conjunction with BBC Radio One. All said and done, they were engaging, entertaining and the prince lived up to his Willy nickname revealing how often he uses the eggplant emoji.

Kate Middleton and Prince William mark World Mental Health Day in Birmingham, England on Tuesday. Picture: Kirsty Wigglesworth / POOL / AFP

No, it wasn’t what the princess wore that makes this latest outing so problematic or that she told the BBC hosts she somehow adds heat at the end of making curry, for which she deserves to have legendary food writer Madhur Jaffrey turn up at their front gate to give her some lessons.

It’s the fact that they have effectively just draped an old sheet over the massive ten-tonne elephant in their Kensington Palace sitting room and are operating as if the world will join them in the collective fiction that it is not there. (‘Trunk? What trunk? That’s probably just something great great great great grandmama Victoria nicked when she was Empress of India.’)

Specifically, William and Kate spent Tuesday (UK time) busy leading the charge on mental health awareness – and yet the institution they represent has never addressed claims that one of its former frontline stars was left so traumatised by her experience she ended up experiencing suicidal thoughts.

I’m talking about, of course, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex who, in March 2021, told Oprah Winfrey and the whole world that such was her suffering in her first (and ultimately only) full year of royal duty that she had thought about taking her own life.

Meghan Markle during her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey. Picture: CBS.

With that admission the former Suits star joined the list of royal wives whose experience inside The Firm has left them in an extraordinarily dark place, following on from her mother-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales, and aunt-in-law, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.

While the 2021 statement put out by Buckingham Palace nearly a full two day after their TV bombshell is best remembered for the corker of a line, “recollections may vary,” it actually opened with, “The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.”

That is it, the full and only official acknowledgment that a year on from the Sussexes’ dazzling wedding the duchess was left begging the institution for help.

That Palace statement, today, reads like a slightly apathetic pat on the should and a ‘there, there’, which seems par for the course for a 1000-year-old outfit which has always seemed to view feelings as being suspiciously Continental and to be avoided at all costs like escargot and Princess Michael of Kent.

But William and Kate are a different beast entirely. They have ditched the traditional royal model of having patronages by the hundreds and spending their days opening every biscuit factory and Scout Hall from Hull to Hove. Instead, they have strode off to establish big budget, bright-eyed charity projects of their very own, like the $95 million Earthshot Prize and The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.

Kate Middleton and Prince William carried out engagements across the UK to mark World Mental Health Day and to highlight the importance of mental well being, particularly in young people. Picture: Kirsty Wigglesworth-WPA Pool/Getty Images

However, one of the Waleses’ key pillars is mental health.

My question is, how can their work on this be taken seriously so long as they fail to address in any way with the duchess’ mental health admissions?

It would be a bit like if William was doing all of his earth-saving, climate crisis-fixing work while also simultaneously running a coal-fired power station in the backyard of their Windsor home, Adelaide Cottage.

In 2019, the Sussexes came under repeated – and reasonable – fire for taking four private jets in 11 days right as Harry was launching a green travel initiative. The alliterative combo of his name and ‘hypocrite’ got wheeled out with plenty of hand-rubbing glee by the press.

Yet William and Kate have entirely escaped any similar accusations or bouts of front page finger wagging for spearheading this charity push while continually turning a blind eye to Meghan’s former mental health woes.

I get it, this would be an absolute minefield for the Prince and Princess of Wales to tip-toe through, of them having to find some way of addressing the Duchess of Sussex’s revelations while also not reviving one of the most damaging chapters in royal history. (Don’t worry, the number one spot, by far, will always belong to human doughnut-hole Prince Andrew.)

William and Kate are probably about as keen on drawing attention to the Sussexes’ devastating claims as letting Prince Louis join TikTok. (The boy would be a stahhhhhh.) I’d say they don’t so much want to put the Oprah interview behind them so much as to want to lock it in a trunk to be stored in a secure attic for which they will permanently lose the key.

Still, that does not excuse them from at least trying.

Meghan Markle speaks onstage during Project Healthy Minds' World Mental Health Day Festival 2023 in New York City. Picture: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Project Healthy Minds

The prince and princess are clearly committed to making mental health a foundational part of their work and they deserve gold stars aplenty for taking on what only a decade ago would have been deemed far too controversial an area for an HRH to delve into.

But if they want to be taken seriously then they have to find a way to acknowledge the very complicated, messy relationship between The Firm and its members’ mental health.

If nothing else, it’s going to start impacting the Windsors’ ‘hiring’ ability.

Imagine in the future when Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are all dating and searching for partners. What sane adult would willingly sign their life, their freedom and their autonomy away to join a family and a family business, membership of which has repeatedly left new members feeling suicidal?

Take a thousand-foot view here and I suppose that this mental health situation and lack of action, engagement or acknowledgement sits in exactly the same basket as the Crown’s historical ties to the slave trade, another issue on which very well bred heads remain willingly in the sand.

These things may have been dumped in the ‘too hard’ (or the ‘far too complicated, too fraught, too dicey’ basket) but they have more than 60 staff and are in the process of hiring the first ever CEO of a royal household. Pick a couple of aides and delegate for god’s sake. Create a panel or a working group and a biscuit-sharing clutch of Goldsmiths graduates who can come up with a PowerPoint or seven ti find some way to publicly address these not-going-anywhere issues.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ of experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.