Within days of that story being published, the prevailing opinion in the British press was that Meghan had not only got her friends to purvey an absolutely false picture of her father and of her relationship with him, but that she had done so in the belief that he loved her so much he would never expose her. The inconsistencies and plain, plumb incredible premise of the People story was not lost on a more incisive and questioning audience in Britain, though they seem to have eluded the American readers and, even if not them, People magazine. The suspicion was that Meghan had deliberately orchestrated the whole story to deflect criticism of her conduct by courting public sympathy. While the American public might not appreciate that five friends of a royal duchess would never behave as they had, without her connivance, the British public was only too aware of how public figures manipulate the press, and had no doubt as to who had caused it to be written, and why. When Meghan failed to dissociate herself from the story, her silence confirmed the suspicion that she had been complicit. Had she not been, she would not only have carpeted her friends, but would also have dumped them. Time would tell whether the more cynical viewpoint was justified, but in the meantime Meghan’s admirers, especially in America, viewed any support for Thomas Markle Sr as yet more evidence that she was being bullied.
As the year progressed and so too did the couple’s own goals, Meghan and Harry found themselves more and more trapped by the exclusionary way they were dealing with those who disagreed with them. All royals need No Men. In a situation such as theirs, the advice was simple. If they wanted to avoid controversy, avoid controversial actions. Do not encourage friends to brief sympathetic publications like People magazine, and if you haven’t, take steps to dissociate yourself from the story and restore what little dignity had been left to your father, rather than colluding with your five friends’ stripping him of its remnants.
The British rebel against press manipulation in a way the Americans don’t. Meghan and Harry should have known that the immutable law whereby each action has an equal and opposite reaction applied as much to the press as to physics. While Harry and Meghan had no recollection of how his mother used to brief the press herself when she did not get her friends to do so on her behalf, British journalists had only too vivid recall on the subject. Meghan’s friends providing America with her side of the falling out with her father might convince readers on that side of the Atlantic that she was being protected by her friends against a bullying press in Britain, but in Britain the view was that she had simply taken a leaf out of her late mother-in-law’s manual of press manipulation. Rather than being convinced of her victimhood, they were now more convinced than ever that she was a pro-active manipulator who was using the press in exactly the same way that Diana had done.
Meghan now showed everyone why Prince Charles’s nickname of Tungsten fitted the strength of character her friends and foes both acknowledge she possesses. Harder than nails, tougher than boots, and anything but malleable, tungsten can withstand most pressures without buckling. Someone, who has known her for a long time and spoke to me under an assurance of anonymity, explained that ‘all those years of rejection [when Meghan was trying to make it] taught her to hang in there, to believe in herself, to ignore what anyone else says and stick to her guns. It took her years to make it, but she stayed true to her vision of herself. She’s doing the same thing now. She thinks the palace crew are a bunch of no-hope suckers. All she needs to do is stay true to her vision and everything will come right in the end.’
It is hardly surprising that Meghan would, with a belief like that, hold her line no matter how rough the ride was becoming. Her track record also showed that she had a real talent for turning everything, whether it be an opportunity, a setback, or anything in between, to her advantage. This would become more and more apparent as she and Harry pulled further and further away from their royal moorings. In the meantime, there could be no doubt, from the comments they both made about how inept the palace were at exploiting their undoubted gifts to their full advantage, that they both disdained the advice and opinions of ‘the palace crew’.
From the disdained crew’s point of view, the issues looked radically different. To them, there were no relevant analogies between an actress stubbornly waiting for her big break and a royal duchess who had started out her royal life with the attitude that she knew better than they did what was in the monarchy’s best interests, was persisting in denigrating the wisdom and experience of advisors who have been in the game longer than she had, was stirring up unnecessary controversy to the detriment of her royal position, and who continued to let them know that she had nothing to learn from them but all to teach.
If you know anything about how publicity works, and how the late Princess of Wales functioned, it was obvious that by this point Meghan and Harry were outmanoeuvring their palace advisors. Although the press did not yet know that their purpose was to lay the ground to expand their horizons in a quest for financial and commercial independence, they knew that something was afoot and whatever it was, it was not kosher.
As far as Meghan and Harry were concerned, they had no incentive to take any of the advice they were being given by their official advisors at Buckingham Palace, because the ‘palace crew’ had been functioning on the premise that this sort of publicity must be dampened down, while the Sussexes were intent on ratcheting it up. In the light of that, it was unsurprising that Meghan ignored their advice to keep her head down, but went behind their back and brought in the big guns to shoot down the British press. Her ploy was simple. Neutralise the uncontrollable British tabloids so that she would have absolute control over her public image. She therefore instructed Sunshine Sachs in the US to assist her in developing tactics to neutralise them.
Meghan could not have chosen a firm better placed to take on and crush the press and supplant the gentlemanly ‘palace crew’. In making the appointment, she was making it clear that she would not be limited by anything the monarchy told her. Sunshine Sachs is headed up by Chief Executive Shawn Sachs and founder Ken Sunshine, whom the New York Times accused of using ‘bare-knuckle tactics’ on behalf of clients such as Harvey Weinstein when he was first accused of groping model Ambra Battilana Gutierez, Michael Jackson at the time of his paedophile troubles, and Justin Smollett following his dismissal for faking a racist, homophobic attack. Ken Sunshine is also known to be an avid supporter of left-wing causes and to be a personal friend of the Rev Al Sharpton and Bill and Hillary Clinton. By instructing Sunshine Sachs to act on her behalf, Meghan was sailing dangerously close to the wind in that Sunshine Sachs’s political affiliations could potentially taint the apolitical stance of the British Royal Family. She, of course, had a defence against that. She was being represented at Sunshine Sachs by Keleigh Thomas Morgan, with whom she had worked when she was on Suits. Nevertheless, the mere act of making this extra-official appointment meant that Meghan and Harry had breached several rules at once. Firstly, no responsible national entity can have two representatives fulfilling the same function, and secondly, by appointing Sunshine Sachs without permission, Meghan was demonstrating that she intended to push an anti-press, pro left-wing, commercial agenda, irrespective of these positions being antithetical to the long term interests of the monarchy.
Any doubt about what this appointment meant was cleared up by Ken Sunshine’s comments. ‘We don’t play it safe. We’re not genteel. We name names and battle the media when we have to.’ He insisted that his clients had a ‘right to privacy’ and that he regards press photographers as the ‘stalkerazzi’.
Because Sunshine Sachs is known within the industry for the hardball tactics it employs in maintaining its clients’ privacy against their adversaries, that company’s appointment was a direct challenge to the press from Meghan and Harry. While such tactics on behalf of Sunshine Sachs’ Hollywood clients might work with the American press, an adversarial approach when adopted on behalf of a British royal would be unconstitutional and liable to bring the Crown into conflict with one o
f its lynchpins.
Nor was this the only threat the palace spotted. This was the second overtly political appointment Meghan had made that year, the first being the appointment of Sara Latham as Meghan and Harry’s head of communications. A former senior advisor on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and special advisor to the late Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport under the previous Labour government, Sara Latham was adjudged to be too party political a figure to serve in such a sensitive position.
However, Sara Latham is a respected figure, and the appointment proceeded. By this time though, the palace were so concerned that Meghan and Harry’s actions, some of which were impulsive in the extreme, would damage the monarchy, if only by bringing them negative press, that anyone who could gain the air of her boss would be a Godsend. Although Meghan’s critics and the American public might not realise it, the palace wanted her and Harry to enjoy the approval of the press, the British press in particular. The difficulty, so far, had been to convince the royal couple that they should modify their conduct and be more sensitive to the concerns of all segments of the public as well as the media. To ensure that the couple would not be able to run riot and damage the monarchy by overt politicising or any of the other infractions which they seemed hell bent on pursuing, a term of Ms Latham’s appointment was that she was to report directly to the Queen’s Communication’s Secretary. ‘That [term of employment] had Christopher Geidt’s fingerprints all over it,’ a prince told me, meaning that the recently ennobled Lord had set things up in such a way that the Queen and her senior advisors would be able to exert some control over Meghan and Harry, which really meant Meghan, for while he was an active and willing participant, she was the main tactician and architect.
Within months, the palace would learn how completely ineffectual their attempts at control were. Meghan simply went behind Sara Latham’s back and brought Sunshine Sachs in to assist her and Harry in blowing the most popular newspapers in Britain out of the water.
Hard on the heels of Sara Latham’s appointment came an application by Meghan and Harry on the 21st June 2019 to trademark over 100 items under their brand, Sussex Royal. They were casting a very wide net. Although they claimed to be doing this in furtherance of their humanitarian work, the categories covered were so extensive that the only reasonable conclusion to come to was that this a straightforward endeavour at commercial exploitation with possible political overtones. There were items such as materials; printed educational materials; printed publications; books; educational books; textbooks; magazines, newspapers; periodicals, diaries; art books; notebooks; greeting cards; even stationery and office requisites. On a more commercially mundane level the items included clothing; footwear; headgear; t-shirts; coats; jackets; trousers; sweaters; jerseys; dresses; pyjamas; suits; sweat shirts; caps; hats; even bandanas; socks, neckwear and sportswear. More overtly political were such items as campaigning; promotional and public awareness campaigns; organising and conducting community service projects; and a host of other activities, some specifically charitable, others less obviously so, but all ‘information, advisory and consultancy services relating to the aforesaid services, all of the aforesaid services also provided online via a database or the internet.’
There was little doubt by this time that Meghan and Harry were planning a move into the world of commerce, despite such activity being strictly forbidden for senior members of the Royal Family. There was rather more doubt as to whether she and Harry understood the significance of trademarking a name containing the word royal. It is a word restricted by law in the United Kingdom. No one can use it without the permission of the Crown. The question was: Were Meghan and Harry even aware of this, or did they know it and were they canny enough to register the trademark while they were still working royals, in the hope that they had a better chance of retaining the ability to use a royal description to which they would have no right once they embarked upon commercial activity?
Even before Meghan and Harry’s attempt to trademark the Sussex Royal brand was known, it was obvious to the palace, the press, and all sophisticates what Meghan’s aim, and with her Harry’s, was. This was summarised by the Guardian columnist Mark Borkowski, a PR expert and author of two books on publicity stunts, who voiced the universal viewpoint that Meghan intended ‘to build a global brand’.
He also cautioned against the aggressive approach she and, through her, Harry were taking with the media, contrasting it to his mother’s policy of ‘charming’ the press into coverage Diana had wanted. He foresaw trouble for the couple as ‘American PRs don’t get charm. They get size and power. And they don’t understand the world outside America.’
These warnings would come true only too soon. Although it would take another few months for Meghan and Harry to sue the British press, Meghan’s guest editorship of the September 2019 issue of British Vogue quickly resulted in yet more criticism from the British press rather than the praise she had hoped for. Sunshine Sachs had helped her with the project. On the face of it, it was a golden opportunity to shine, but once the magazine came out, becoming the bestselling issue of all time, excitement turned to disapproval, demonstrating just how totally lacking in appreciation of British culture and British sensitivities Meghan and Sunshine Sachs were. The cover, of fifteen women in boxes, with the sixteenth box left bare for the reader to insert herself in it, or anyone else of her choice, was deemed to be a good idea highjacked by superficiality and woke bias to such an extent that it had become a bad idea slickly executed.
By common consent, Meghan’s editorship was judged to be too Hollywood. Where among her choice of the fifteen most important Women for Change was a heavy-hitter like her grandmother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth II or the female British Prime Minister Theresa May? Why, in an edition dedicated to women who were forces for change in society, were most if not all of the women connected to Hollywood? Why were most of them actresses, models, celebrities or left-wing activists? Yet again, the clash of British and American culture was apparent. In Britain, Hollywood is viewed as the slickest and most famous source of entertainment in the world, but beyond that, it has no gravitas. Very few people in Britain care one iota about the opinions of Hollywood personalities. They are there to entertain, not to instruct, and those who get on the bandwagon, such as Vanessa Redgrave or now Meghan, turn the public off. They prefer to obtain their instruction, elucidation and education from more conventional sources such as educationalists, writers, politicians, newspaper editors, even television pundits. This contrasts sharply with the respect Hollywood and its representatives generate in the United States.
What further reduced the respect of the public reaction was Vogue editor Edward Enninful’s confirmation that Meghan had approached him rather than the other way around. This immediately removed all the cachet of an invitation and replaced it with a degree of pushiness which might earn respect in the United States but did the opposite in the United Kingdom. In the British scheme of things, royalty acquiesces to invitations; it doesn’t seek them out. Doing so converts those who are in a position to endow into supplicants. As such, there is a loss of stature and with it, concomitant esteem.
Also, in Britain the fashion industry is regarded with less reverence than it is in the United States. Although it is viewed as glamorous, it simply does not have the solemnity it possesses across the Atlantic. Here, it is regarded as frothy and frivolous, so dedicating an issue to a sociological subject like women who are forces for change in society became, in British eyes, a bizarre mixture of the superficial and the profound. Had Meghan guest edited a serious publication like the Economist or even a newspaper like the Telegraph or the Guardian, and had she chosen really hard-hitting women like her grandmother-in-law, Angela Merkel the German Chancellor, Christine Lagarde (President of the European Central Bank) or even the incoming President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, she would have gained respect rather than criticism.
Then it emerged that Enninful had of
fered Meghan a cover, but she had declined it on the grounds of ‘modesty’. This was taken to mean that Meghan was implying that Catherine Cambridge, who had recently been on the cover, and with whom she was known to be on the outs, was vain and immodest, while she, Meghan, was retiring and modest for declining the honour. She was condemned for casting shade on her sister-in-law and for supposing that declining a lesser position, while requesting a greater one such as the guest editorship, indicated modesty.
Mr Borkowski had been absolutely correct. Sunshine Sachs and Meghan simply did not understand that what works in America doesn’t necessarily work in Britain. Not only was Meghan’s guest editorship mocked for being shallow and puerile, but it was also condemned for having revealed political bias, unnecessary prejudice, woke pretentiousness, and unregal behaviour. From a public relations point of view, it had been a disaster, demonstrating how out of step both Meghan and her media management team were with their target market. They had demonstrated such insensitive overkill that they had managed to turn what could have been a golden opportunity into a rout. In the process, Sunshine Sachs had made their undoubtedly intelligent and capable client look silly.
The guest editorship also confirmed the worst fears of those who believed that Meghan was intent on making herself into a global brand. There were real concerns at the palace that she would damage the reputation of the monarchy for being above commerce as well as politics unless a way could be found to redirect her energies into something less controversial.
The reasons are obvious why constitutional monarchy needs to ban members of reigning royal families from political activity as well as from engaging in commercial activity for personal gain. Yet Meghan and Harry seemed oblivious to the fact that you cannot on the one hand represent all the people of a country while on the other hand you are espousing only one political persuasion, nor can you be above the hurly-burly of finance while at the same time getting your hands grubby making deals. Even if your commercial activities are beyond reproach, the overlap between commerce and politics is self-evident. There is always a segment of the population who might disapprove of your monetary activities and in doing so, draw you into a political argument. Having politically and commercially clean hands is like being a virgin. It is an absolute. It’s either/or. You can’t be above the hurly-burly of trade and politics while being an entrepreneur or a politician, any more than you can be almost a virgin.
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