Meghan Markle’s explosive next move

The Duchess of Sussex is working on a “huge money-spinner,” according to two well-spaced sources. And it’s set to be explosive.

COMMENT

I’d put some reasonable money on Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex being a cracking poker player given how closely she has been keeping her cards to her chest. For months now there have been claims the duchess is set to launch some sort of digital business, of which there are fewer publicly available details than there are about US nuclear armaments.

However, now the possibility of another career option is gaining steam with prospect that out there, somewhere, in a Google Doc in a land far, far away, the 42-year-old could be working a book.

While there has been no confirmation or any self-tooting press releases from publishers, still, in recent weeks two veteran and highly-regarded royal biographers have separately claimed that Meghan may be working on an autobiography.

First Tom Bower, author of last year’s Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors, appeared on the conservative UK channel GB News, saying “My view is that [the duchess] is writing her memoirs and it will be a huge money-spinner.”

Then came royal historian Andrew Lownie, whose biographies of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson and Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife were nothing short of devastating. (And meticulously researched, it must be noted.) He has now told the Daily Beast that not only Meghan but her other half Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex “both have more books coming.”

What’s the noise you can hear from Montecito? The sound of two sets of hands vigorously, cathartically, and ominously tapping away at MacBook keyboards? It just may be.

Is Meghan Markle in the midst of writing a book? Picture: Netflix

Previously, there have been a number of reports suggesting that Harry’s deal with Penguin Random House was for multiple books.

And, while Harry has already treated the world to 400-odd pages of him laying bare his psychic wounds and traumatised “todger” for the world’s literary delectation and emotional voyeurism, Meghan has yet to cross that particular Rubicon. Yet.

Because really, the duchess penning some sort of book looking back at her royal stint feels like all but a fait accompli, right?

And if this is the case, if the former actress is writing tell-all, let’s all spare a thought for the aides, private secretaries and Oxbridge-educated underlings of The Firm who just might be about to face a totally unprecedented, epochal event.

Royal wives have gone rogue on the page before but I would wager they could all pale in comparison if Meghan decides to wholly unburden herself and hold forth.

The Duchess of Sussex appears to have made her position on returning to the UK and having anything to do with the House of Windsor very clear, skipping both the coronation and not joining Harry for his brief charity foray on home soil last month.

So, here we would have a woman who has been put through the truly bizarre ringer of royalty, who has publicly shared more about her suffering than anyone who came before and who would seem to have little if any interest in persevering her relationship with her in-laws.

Add it all up and what could you get? KA-BLUEY. A possible page-turner of a purging of every slight, every hurt and every time the duchess picked up the wrong fork for partridge; it could be an insider account like no other, ever, in history.

The Duchess of Sussex appears to have made her position on returning to the UK clear. Picture: Odd ANDERSEN / AFP

If Meghan does go down this path, she would be far from the first royal wife to put Mont Blanc to paper.

In 1956, fellow exile Wallis Simpson, the Duchess Of Windsor wrote The Heart Has Its Reasons.

In the early ‘90s, Diana, Princess of Wales fed Andrew Morton tape-recorded answers to his questions, ferried by bicycle by her former flatmate from Kensington Palace to the royal scribe. The resulting 1992 book was a thunderbolt that rocked the Palace far more than any of the Nazi bombs that had hit it during World War Two.

Here was the supposed future Queen revealing that life inside the royal family was so horrible she had tried, repeatedly, to commit suicide. Today, it’s hard to express just how breathtakingly cataclysmic this book was, like finding out that Cinderella had actually been held captive by Prince Charming.

Then in 1996 came Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York’s My Story. (In 2011 she followed that up with Finding Sarah.) In later interviews she revealed the monumental psychological toll being married to a member of the royal family had taken, resulting in a “breakdown” after the end of her marriage to Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.

Fergie was in such a bad way that friends were concerned she might harm herself, she revealed in 2016: “There was a moment when I did not want to come out of the room. One of my good friends who was looking after me, she did think every time she came into the room that I would have committed suicide.”

(When Meghan told Oprah Winfrey in 2021, “I just didn’t want to be alive any more” she became the third royal wife in modern history to have been driven to suicidal thoughts by her Palace tenure.)

Meghan Markle is not the only royal wife to have found royal life incredibly hard to bear. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation

In 1994, King Charles co-operated with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby for an authorised biography in which he painted his parents, the late Queen and Prince Philip as neglectful and who largely abandoned him.

(Philip obliquely fired back in an interview with the Telegraph, saying: “I’ve never discussed private matters and I don’t think the Queen has either. Very few members of the family have.”)

However, all of these were done with the handbrake, if you will, of the late Queen in place. Diana, Fergie and Charles only went so far, all of them having repeatedly expressed their deep respect for Her late Majesty.

Even when Harry decided to start writing Spare, in April 2021, the legendary nonagenarian was very much alive and there is every chance it could have come out while she was still ruling the roost and the Bendick’s mint chocolate box. Which is to say, he wrote his tome knowing that his Gan Gan might read it.

So what could a book written now by Harry, without any of the emotional curbs or guardrails that Her late Majesty represented, look like? A book written by a duke no longer able to wield his HRH and who has been bluntly disregarded by his family?

Which is to say, what do Harry and Meghan have left to lose?

Now the Queen isn’t around Meghan and Harry can truly take the gloves off. Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

After all, they have been evicted from Frogmore Cottage, had their attempts to hold The Firm to account ignored wholesale by the institution, and Harry’s recent request to stay one night in one of Windsor Castle’s 52 royal and guest bedrooms was declined. Brutal.

Meanwhile, with their podcasting careers at standstill and no new Netflix series confirmed, books have proven to be one very successful avenue for the duo. The duchess’ children’s book The Bench reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list and the duke’s Spare broke the Guinness World Records for the fastest selling nonfiction in history.

It has to be said that while they might be writing books that is not to say they are necessarily writing autobiographies. Maybe Harry is working on one about attracting hummingbirds and hedge maintenance (their Montecito estate looks like it has quite a few) and Meghan is penning some self-helpery full of Rumi quotes and cod psychology.

Adding weight to this possibility is that the Sussexes making an about face and going back down the royal family warpath would be risky, potentially further eroding their support base in the US and reinforcing the perception in some quarters that they are over-privileged whingers.

A hell of a lot has changed since Charles told Dimbleby about his miserable childhood in the 90s. When the book came out Philip, who had come off badly in account, obliquely fired back at his son in an interview with the Telegraph, saying, “I’ve never discussed private matters and I don’t think the Queen has either. Very few members of the family have.”

The mind positively boggles at what he might say about the situation now. Hang on, is anyone allowed to swear that much from behind the pearly gates?

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