Bizarre interview where Meghan refuses to call Harry by his name
Meghan Markle has given another big interview, but this time it’s what she does not say that’s the most puzzling.
COMMENT
Do you know that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, former Suits star and Deal Or No Deal briefcase girl has a husband? You probably do because you are a sentient human being with opposable thumbs and a Wi-Fi connection, but reading the Duchess’s latest interview, I am starting to wonder if she thinks we the public might not quite be fully aware of her marital status.
In the Variety story, appearing on the magazine’s cover as some beatific second coming, Meghan manages to use the word “husband” eight times, energetically and repeatedly seeming intent on reminding readers that she is, in fact, hitched.
Inside Variety’s cover story with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex:
— Variety (@Variety) October 19, 2022
Meghan Markle Lets Her Guard Down: On Grieving Queen Elizabeth, Producing With Harry and Returning to Hollywood https://t.co/YDDQTTNR7Hpic.twitter.com/b1ucIdU1eg
If a person didn’t know any better, and did not have those thumbs or that Wi-Fi, they might be forgiven for thinking this “husband” was some intensely private individual who did not want to be sucked into his wife’s PR vortex and to remain out of sight.
Not, that is, the fifth in line to the throne, son of King Charles III and a man whose birth was celebrated with a 41-gun salute – aka Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.
Read the Variety piece and something fascinating comes into view: Harry looks increasingly like an adjunct in his own story.
In less than two months, we have had two biggie interviews with Meghan, both with attendant glam photo shoots, both putting her in designer dresses and photographing her twirling about Gwyneth Paltrow-worthy designer gardens and yet in neither does he figure much beyond as an occasional guest star at most.
Where oh where has Harry gone?
So too, while they both, as a couple, inked those whopping deals with Netflix and Spotify (deals that a one-time cable actress and unemployed former army officer would definitely, cough, have gotten if they did not also happen to have royal titles) it is the Duchess who has been first out of the blocks with her Spotify series Archetypes.
It is Meghan who is charging forth, even if her podcast manages to be both boring and deeply self-involved and is currently floundering in the rankings. (Only two of the six episodes are in the top 100 episodes in the US, coming in the 26th and 90th spots.)
And it is Meghan who we have witnessed coming to the media fore, including even when the duo poses together. In early October they released “official” images taken during the One Young World Summit in which Harry, in what has become their go-to pose, peers over his wife’s shoulder, unintentionally recreating their hilariously photoshopped Time cover.
The bottom line is that, as things currently stand in terms of Sussex output, it’s very much the Meghan show.
Perhaps this is all an elaborate performance piece commenting on the fact that for millennia women have been defined by their husbands and yet when the reverse happens we all sit up and take notice?
Or perhaps Harry is happily tucked away inside their $20 million mansion, beavering away on the plans for the next Invictus Games and secretly brewing his own hard seltzer in their spare sauna? Perhaps this is exactly the division of PR labour that Harry wants, given he has not exactly made any secret of his feelings about the press.
Whatever the reason may be why we are getting so much Meghan, that does not change the fact that the Variety interview should come with a warning over eye-roll injuries.
While Queen Elizabeth comes in for plenty of praise by Meghan (“I feel deep gratitude to have been able to spend time with her and get to know her,” “I continue to be proud to have had a nice warmth with the matriarch of the family”), Her Majesty, like Harry, is reduced to the no-name treatment, with the former Suits star referring to her as her husband’s “grandmother”. Nevermind then that Meghan’s title opens the Variety piece and that she staunchly uses her royal appellation.
Then, we get to the meat and potatoes of thing, with her saying: “What’s so beautiful is to look at the legacy that his grandmother was able to leave on so many fronts. Certainly, in terms of female leadership, she is the most shining example of what that looks like. I feel deep gratitude to have been able to spend time with her and get to know her.”
Interesting that despite the history-making 96-year-old being a “shining example” of “female leadership” Meghan did not see fit to include Her Majesty on her 2019 British Vogue cover.
Also, what of this “deep gratitude”? Where exactly was it when the Sussexes put out a statement in 2020 peevishly retorting that “service is universal” or when their explosive Oprah Winfrey interview came out while Prince Philip was in hospital or when during that Cut interview she threw out the line, “I can say anything”?
When asked, in fluent Californian-ese, about the monarch’s death (“How have you processed this loss as a family?”) her answer is worthy of inclusion in the Smithsonian for managing to take one of the biggest news events of the year and make it about … Meghan.
“In big moments in life, you get a lot of perspective,” she said. “It makes you wonder what you want to focus your energy on. Right now, we feel energised and excited about all of the things we’ve been building toward. We’re also focused on our foundation. So much of the work we do includes the philanthropic space.”
Let’s just pause to gawp at the Olympic-level rhetorical long jump that it takes to go from “processing loss” to feeling “energised and excited”. (Bonus points for managing to get a plug in for their foundation too.)
But I think the biggest takeaway from both the Variety and The Cut pieces is this: Meghan really has nothing to say. Take away her royal journey, take away her titled in-laws and those nasty British press who failed to be impressed by her scribbling on bananas and the miserable time she had for 20 months of Palace-dom, take away her rote lines about compassion and change and the Duchess is a meaning-free zone.
There is an unmistakeable irony to the fact that, if she had not married the Queen’s grandson, it is highly doubtful that anyone would be clamouring to hear her point of view.
Also – she’s just not very interesting. In this piece we learn that she likes wine and Wordle and Beyonce. Well, hold the front page! What the Variety and The Cut stories prove is that the Duchess of Sussex might be one of the most famous women in the world but she is also quite boring.
Here’s hoping that her husband, whatever his name is, does not think so.
Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
Meghan’s BFF spills on their friendship
One of Meghan’s closest friends has shared details of their relationship amid a challenging few weeks for the duchess.
Magazine’s savage two-word Meghan diss
The Duchess of Sussex returned to the spotlight this week, and one US publication had something brutal to say about her career.
King’s unexpected call ahead of Aussie tour
King Charles has made a significant personal decision ahead of his high-profile visit to Australia next week.