Reason Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s new children’s book is controversial
The subject matter of Meghan’s new book couldn’t be more at odds with how she and Harry live their life.
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Vice President Kamala Harris has done it. Jim Carrey won an award for his. Somehow Madonna managed to come up with ideas for 12 of ’em. And now, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has entered the pantheon of famous names who have turned their hand to creating some sort of children’s book.
On June 8, her debut literary work The Bench will be released, a work which started life as a poem she had written for her husband Prince Harry for his first Father’s Day after their son Archie was born in 2019.
With this move, the Duchess is adding another string to her already impressive professional bow that includes Suits star, blogger, entrepreneur and professional calligrapher. (She did the invitations for Robin Thicke’s, he of Blurred Lines fame, wedding.)
The announcement of this book project should have been an easy win after a tumultuous few months – scratch that, few years – for the Sussexes, a warm and fuzzy press release followed by a collective ‘awwwww’ and lots of warm and fuzzy coverage.
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But this isn’t some book about a magical rabbit or shoes that make you fly. At the heart of The Bench, based on what information has been made publicly available, is the power of the father/son dynamic, which given recent royal events is a very touchy subject.
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And there’s the rub, as Hamlet, another less-than-ideal son once put it. The concept of a book focused on loving paternal bonds being spruiked by a couple whose brand has become synonymous with poisonous family relationships is just a bit hard to swallow.
Meghan has not seen her father Thomas Markle in more than three-and-a-half years with their tattered relationship having been dragged through the press since even before the Sussexes’ 2018 wedding.
Their famous estrangement lay at the centre of a lawsuit brought by the Duchess against the Mail on Sunday after the UK newspaper published an emotional letter she had sent Thomas and which he later gave to the tabloid in question.
(In February this year a London court found in her favour; the Mail’s parent company is currently trying to seek permission to appeal the decision.)
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Then there’s Harry who recently sat on a Martha Stewart-worthy Californian patio and promptly told the world what a rubbish father Prince Charles has been.
The 36-year-old told Winfrey and the cameras that he had felt “really let down” by his titled dad and that Charles at one point had “stopped taking my calls” and “financially cut me off”. He also described his relationship with the future king as “a lot of hurt”.
Days later, a source close to Charles told The Times the royal was “very upset and cut up” over his son’s prime time turn. Another friend of the future king put it more assertively in the same piece saying: “Harry said his father financially ‘cut him off’. What f***ing hypocrisy.
“When Harry and Meghan left last year, they wanted to become ‘financially independent.’”
(Oh to have been a fly on the wall in the Highgrove study when Charles, I’m imagining in the midst of checking his Duchy of Cornwall organic barley crop reports in a leather bound volume, found out about this latest money making move.)
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What is hard to move past here is the incongruity of the Sussex brand deciding to hawk a book about heart string-pulling father/son bonds. The only thing which might have been more discordant would have been Harry putting out a lovely touchy-feely picture book about the power of brotherly love.
What is also worth pointing out here is The Bench, from what we know of it, has already broken the palace mould. Sure, in penning a kids book Meghan is following in the footsteps of her father-in-law Charles, author of The Old Man of Lochnagar and her aunt-in-law ‘Fergie’ (as Meghan called her during the Oprah interview) who has been peddling books to earn a crust since all good deals were done by fax.
In the past 25 years, Fergie has written more than 25 titles including six Budgie books and the Helping Hands series that includes such thrilling numbers as Zach Gets Some Exercise and Jacob Goes to the Doctor and Sophie Visits the Dentist. (Sheesh, what rotten outings these kids have to endure.)
Nice, moving tales for little ones should ostensibly be very safe ground for a member of the house of Windsor, a way to try enjoy a bit of moralising (Charles) or to pay off your millions of dollars in debts (Fergie).
But where The Bench parts ways with Windsor precedent is the fact its creative genesis and part of the marketing pitch lies in the fact that the book is based on Harry’s relationship with the couple’s son Archie, who turns two years old on Thursday.
Charles’ Old Man might be an allegorical tale about the consequences human actions have on the environmental world but that is hardly treading on emotionally sensitive territory; Fergie’s mind-numbingly cheesy Budgie series is hardly a roman-à-clef.
Handily for Meghan and Harry, The Bench will most likely sell like hot cakes and be guaranteed a money spinner, handy given that since their palace flit they have had to pick up their own bills.
And that brings us to another point of potential contention, which is, in putting out a book based on Harry’s relationship with Archie, we arrive at the potentially uncomfortable intersection of the Sussexes’ toddler son and their revenue raising activities.
This comes after, in December last year, Archie was heard speaking publicly for the first time on their debut Spotify podcast, after the couple announced an exclusive podcasting deal with the music streaming giant in a move estimated to be worth more than $30 million.
Russell Myers, the royal editor for the Daily Mirror, said during an interview at the time that the couple had “crossed a line” while Duncan Larcombe, the former royal editor of The Sun said, “because there is money involved, it isn’t a charitable thing. What a surprise that more family silver is out for sale – let’s use Archie as clickbait.”
We’ve got two months to wait until copies of The Bench hit shelves, but this situation does highlight the very tricky line Harry and Meghan need to tread between churning out things of commercial interest and the unfortunate whiff that they might be monetising their lives in the most crass fashion.
Let us hope though that Harry and Meghan’s publishing ambitions aren’t quite so broad (I’m being charitable here) as Fergie’s though.
In 1998 she put out Dining with the Duchess followed by Dieting with the Duchess in 2000, while earlier this year it was announced that the scandal-prone 61-year-old will release a Mills & Boon bodice ripper, Her Heart for a Compass. At least we know the world will never end with Munching with Meghan or Her Heart for a Hashtag … probably.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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