The great Dolly Parton once quipped “get down off your cross, honey, someone needs the wood”. This remark, aimed at attention-seeking self-described martyrs, could almost have been dreamt up for the Duchess of Sussex. Meghan, along with her ever-subservient husband Prince Harry, is currently bringing the gospel according to Meghan to Australia.
During her quasi-royal tour to promote a wellness weekend that she is the keynote speaker at, Meghan has invented a new catchphrase – “Call me Meg” – and has been photographed smiling and looking appropriately radiant. The Netflix cash might be drying up, but enough has been banked for her to look a million dollars in the various Instagram-friendly outfits she has been sporting.
However, it is very important to realize that Meghan is not just a clothes horse, but a very serious public figure. One of the key themes of this visit is to emphasize ideas of mental health – how very 2026. The Duchess, speaking at the charity Batyr in Melbourne, has declared that “Every day for ten years, I have been bullied or attacked, and I was the most trolled woman in the entire world.”
This sounds almost reminiscent of her enemy Donald Trump in its grandiosity. She railed against social media, which she claims is “that billion dollar industry that is predicated on cruelty to get clicks.” Her Instagram account (and its 4.5 million followers) that offers her the opportunity to connect with a wider public on her own terms went unmentioned.
Of course, there has to be an element of uplift amidst the moaning. She announced, like a Broadway diva, that “I’m still here”. And, of course, there is a life lesson. Meghan talked of how a friend gave her a little bag with an inspirational quote on “which I look at every day”. I was briefly agog at what this rousing statement of intent might be. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”? “Another suitcase, another hall”? “I think, therefore I am”? Alas, the quote – which must have taken quite a considerable sized bag to have this banality emblazoned upon it – is “my wish for you is that you continue, continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness and to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.”
It is not exactly profound wisdom, despite how Meghan has couched it. This rather fortune cookie-level sentiment indicates everything that is wrong with both the Duchess of Sussex’s PR campaign and the lack of anyone offering her (or her husband) serious advice.
Meghan has undeniably received an amount of racist, misogynist and personal abuse via social media that would send anyone into a paroxysm of depression. And few would begrudge her the chance to make a living as a public figure by monetizing her considerable fame.
Yet the greatest difficulty is that, even when she says things that are empirically true, she remains extremely hard to warm to. It is hard to forget that she had a former career as an actress. Her public persona, which alternates between little smiles of solidarity and near-tearful expressions of sorrow at the bullying she has faced, feels less sincere and more the carefully curated display of someone who is calculating how much attention this particular remark of hers is going to get worldwide. (Including, of course, this article.)
There are countless ways in which she could help people with mental health issues that do not have to be so self-regarding and so very public, but I cannot see any of those being pursued. Instead, we have the public face of Meghan the Martyr, the much-abused survivor who is coming out stronger and better for all those awful internet trolls. As one of her many nemeses didn’t quite put it, opinions might vary.
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