Photo: Thanks to the publisher
Last week, after months of farms, the definitive book about Meghan and Harry was released. Find freedom, written by two long-time generous reporters, Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie, chronicles the escalating tensions between Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and the rest of the royal family, leading to their unusual decision to step down as senior members of the royal family in January. While the couple was not interviewed Find freedom, it contains a number of revelations and corrections, such as the true nature of Meghan and Kate’s relationship, and the snobbish way Meghan was received by some members of the royal family.
But what Find freedom finally revealed is how much Meghan Markle is set to fail, a victim of an institution that was completely unable to embrace her. What’s more, it turns the spotlight on Prince Harry and his desire to be his own person in an establishment that is not only designed to conform, but that punishes other ways of life. Despite her husband’s attempts to protect her, Meghan was – in her full engagement, marriage and pregnancy – a victim of the British media, who built a racist and sexist mythology around her, one that eventually turned on was by the crown.
Scobie, who has cared for the royal family since William and Kate’s wedding in 2011, says that from the beginning the tabloid stories about Meghan were very different from what he and Durand witnessed as reporters whose sources reached the highest ranks within Buckingham Palace. He spoke with the Cut about how the couple handled the widespread denigration before and after their marriage, and how, ultimately, their decision to retire made the most sense.
In the book, you write about how some of the British press “did little to hide racial undertones in snarky comments and headlines.” Did you expect Meghan to get this kind of treatment?
I’m a correspondent of mixed race with royalty – there are not really many of us, if any of us. I was excited about this new chapter, and there were a lot of people at the time, certainly around the wedding, talking about how Meghan would modernize the monarchy and deploy a new chapter for the House of Windsor soe.
Meghan on her wedding day in 2018.
Photo: WPA Pool / Getty Images
But in the end, it was their differences that became armed against them. All the things that made her exciting at the beginning were suddenly the things that made her annoying as problematic for the institution. Many within the royal press nucleus are the gatekeepers for information about members of the royal family. And that’s why we often find that the story set by certain British tabloids sets the tone for the rest of a royal work career.
But I think what was more worrying was that I noticed that many of the stories that painted themselves in such light often came from the palace itself.
What do you mean “from the palace itself?” Do you mean other royals, as staff?
We have an interesting system in the palace as a whole. There are several households: Clarence House, Kensington Palace, and Buckingham Palace. Everyone has the responsibility to take care of the royal family members where they work. These are the private assistants, the communication staff, the court makers. It’s the characters who work behind the scenes.
Often it is a popularity contest: Members of the royal family compete almost for coverage in the papers. For example, Charles is often frustrated that his children always get more press than he does, because he is often the more hardworking member of the royal family, and there are people in his household working to make sure he gets so much from a productive function for his chalk work as possible. Often this also leads to jealousy within the various households.
What does that mean for Meghan and Harry?
Harry and Meghan are really not considered the most senior members of the royal family, and suddenly they were the most talked about couple on the planet. “People who were not at all concerned about the monarchy found that, with Meghan, there was a woman in the House of Windsor who represented someone she had not seen there before: It changed what it meant to.” to be royal and regal ”- those connotations were no longer associated solely with being white. This made Meghan an enormous draw for the royals – but as a draw, you will also draw envy.
We notice that some of the narratives that were leaked by courtiers as well as employees working in the household were things to make Meghan look bad. It was something Meghan and Harry knew early on, but the royal family has a unique culture that they never comment on. Stories will be published in the press and that’s it. They take on a life of their own and you have to deal with it. You will not receive any comments.
Meghan and Harry with baby Archie during his first royal tour in South Africa, in 2019.
Photo: Toby Melville – Pool / Getty Images
As a newcomer, I think Meghan is suffering. That label “Duchess Difficult” we saw attached to her by some of the British tabloids, the fall of so many ugly, racist and sexist tropes that we often see associated with successful women and successful women of color. She was “too loud, too cumbersome, demanding, too shaky, could not keep the staff on hand.” As someone who had a lot of her work literally a front, I could not match the two characters.
Time and again, Harry and Meghan want to talk. They wanted to say what was true and what was not true and defend themselves. And although the people who immediately for their work loved to do so, the forces that were much higher would never agree with such a thing – it does not fit with the “never complain, never explain” mantra of the institution .
Did you see Meghan and Harry take steps to solve the problems they had?
In the summer of 2019, Harry actually had a conversation between his team and his senior staff at Buckingham Palace about restructuring that press system and making him and Meghan more accessible to a broader, more diverse media landscape. And the answer was right, If you want to do that, you can pay for your own commitments. And that was the first seed of, well, Maybe we will break away, maybe we will do our own thing.
There was that very memorable moment when Meghan did the TV interview in southern Africa, where she talked about some of the difficulties she was going through throughout her pregnancy. At that point, Harry and Meghan were so overwhelmed by the various challenges they had to face – they had begun all three legal actions against British tabloids – and they desperately tried to figure out how the situation could work.
It’s a shame, because the boards were internal for a very long time. They really made it known what their grievances were, but it often fell on deaf ears.
Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images
What was the most difficult period for her that you have witnessed?
It was around this time that there was this obsession with Meghan’s father. There were stories about her parents appearing in some of the tabloids almost every day. They had followed Meghan’s father to a Home Depot and taken a picture of him buying a toilet, and made a joke that it was his throne. There were pictures of Meghan’s mother, Doria, going to a laundromat, and there was a very kind of ugly narrative run. Meghan was already called “straight out of Compton” at the time. We saw editors talk about Meghan’s “exotic DNA” and talk about how she would “water” the royal family’s “blue blood”. There was a commentary about how strange it would be for Meghan’s dreadlocked and nose-ringing mother to sit and have tea with the queen.
And at the same time, the people who were responsible for writing and saying many of these things were somehow enabled to do so. There was almost a thirst for more of it. As a Brit of the mixed race on the generous shame I am ashamed to connect myself with it.
Do you think that for the royal family it can include anyone who is different? And by another I mean: not white, not British, not royal by blood – or do you think these prejudices run too deep?
When we look at the immediate royal family, I think they clearly supported Harry and Meghan a bit. Unfortunately, the institution itself is not built to treat someone who comes differently, or is as dramatically different as Meghan.
And it’s a shame, because I think the royal family had this incredible opportunity to be seen as inclusive and diverse and progressive. And that’s gone now, ending a very short chapter for the monarchy.
Find freedom is available wherever books are sold.
