Meghan markle

The banality of Meghan the Martyr

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.

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Spare us the girls’ weekend, Meghan

I almost spat out my toast (smothered with the As Ever, The Raspberry Spread Trio – "Made To Keep On Hand And Enjoy Often," $42 – naturally) in pure molten anticipation when I read that my role model in spreading jam to flour, sorry, speaking truth to power, will be hosting a women-only weekend "retreat" in Sydney during her forthcoming Australia jaunt, with tickets "a steal" at $2,699 AUD ($1,930 USD). I already had my credit card in my hot little hand until I remembered that, though I love to lunch tête-à-tête with one lady, being in the company of many women at once – with not one awful toxic man around – makes me feel like drawing crude approximations of penises on fragrant toilet doors after around half an hour.

Is Prince Harry about to spend a lot more time in Britain?

For lovers of self-destructive hubris – a quality that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex surely possess in spades – the saga of Prince Harry’s security is surely the gift that keeps on giving. His attempts to obtain British taxpayer-funded armed protection whenever he brings his family back to the UK have been expressed with much fervor and repetitiveness. And now, in this season of miracles, it looks as if he might have got his wish after all.  It seemed certain, after various expensive and amusingly humiliating courtroom defeats, that Harry’s desire to hire members of the London Metropolitan Police as his private security detail whenever he is back in the country of his birth would be denied.

Why shouldn’t Trump deport Prince Harry?

There are many things Americans admire about Britain – Shakespeare, Churchill and parliamentary democracy (on a good day). Above all, we admire the monarchy: that ancient, faintly miraculous institution which maintains its dignity even as the rest of the West dissolves into hashtag-fueled hysteria. What we do not admire, however, is being used as a backdrop for Prince Harry’s increasingly frantic attempts to remain relevant. No, I do not actually wish for President Trump to deport Harry to the Tower of London – although the image is, I confess, delicious, and might conceivably enjoy rare cross-party support on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Is Meghan Markle making a thespian comeback?

As Britain's royal family attempts to maintain a "business as usual" approach in the aftermath of the biggest scandal to have engulfed the institution in decades, the pair responsible for its last existential embarrassment have been notably silent. You might have expected, as Andrew was showily stripped of all his titles, some sanctimonious comment on the Sussex Instagram account, some hashtag-laden exhortation always to stand with the victims of abuse. But no. Those of us who were wondering why this has not happened now have an answer, of sorts. Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has returned to her old profession: acting. In truth, it is unclear as to whether Meghan’s appearance in the forthcoming picture Close Personal Friends will be the greatest test of her thespian abilities.

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In, sigh, defense of Meghan Markle

Here we are again, Meghan’s latest cringe-inducing social media offering: an 80-second video of her twerking in a hospital delivery room while heavily pregnant with her daughter Lilibet. The clip, posted to mark her daughter’s fourth birthday, shows the Duchess of Sussex doing what can best be described as suggestive dance moves beside her hospital bed, complete with shimmies and rowing motions, while Haz joins in wearing a hoodie. It’s peak Meghan, really – simultaneously oversharing and attention-seeking while complaining about the invasion of privacy.

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Americans cheer William and Kate over Harry and Meghan

America was born of revolution, a republic forged in defiance of monarchy. Yet despite our founding mythology of liberty and self-determination, we can’t seem to resist the allure of royalty – so long as it is authentic and dutiful. That is why, even in a land that rejected monarchy, public sentiment favours hands down the Prince and Princess of Wales over the rogue runaways who swapped Buckingham for Beverly Hills.A recent YouGov poll confirms what intuition already tells us. Prince William enjoys a 63 percent favorability rating among Americans, well ahead of Harry’s 56 percent and miles beyond Meghan’s dismal 41 percent (with 25 percent viewing her unfavorably). In the UK, the Sussexes fare even worse: Harry’s approval languishes at 27 percent, Meghan’s at just 20 percent.

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Being Mr. Meghan Markle is no honeymoon

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are finally enjoying their “honeymoon period.” Or they are according to the Duchess of Sussex, who made the statement on a fawning podcast as part of a brand building media blitz – and who certainly seems to be enjoying herself.But has she asked her husband if he’s reveling in their belated honeymoon quite as much as she is? Once the spare to the throne, his presence as her forlorn shadow at events to honor her now appears largely surplus to requirements even to Meghan. “That man loves me so much,” she gushed on Montecito neighbor Jamie Kern Lima’s podcast on Monday. She likened their relationship to a video game where you "slay the dragon, save the princess.

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Is Kamala Harris turning into Meghan Markle?

Somewhere atop the sun-drenched hills of coastal California, failures go to rebrand themselves, and rebrand their rebrands as "pivots." There, Kamala Harris and Meghan Markle are busy writing the next chapter in the book of blaming the system for the personal failures of wealthy and powerful people. Harris, fresh from discovering that Democratic strategists had invented the America that was enthusiastic about her, now contemplates her political afterlife. She does so from the same region of the same state where Markle, having learned that royal traditions don't yield to Instagram aesthetics, crafts multi-million-dollar deals to explain why it's everyone else's fault. Welcome to the Golden State, where yesterday's rejections become tomorrow's empowerment memoirs.

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Security-consumed Prince Harry chooses war-torn Ukraine as latest backdrop

Prince Harry’s clandestine dash to Ukraine this week, trailing last year’s faux royal tours to Colombia and Nigeria, lays bare a brazen hypocrisy. He bangs on about the UK being too perilous for his family, waging legal crusades over security provisions, yet here he is, swanning into war zones and countries with travel warnings, trading on his fading royal luster to clutch at relevance – all while dodging the duties he willingly jettisoned. Bereft of official standing in America or Britain, his quest to play maverick royal smacks of pantomime, one that jeers at his claims of craving a secluded, secure existence. Take his Ukraine jaunt to Lviv’s Superhumans Center, where he mingled with wounded soldiers and civilians.

With Love, Meghan is a nightmare ending to a fairytale

“Has anyone in the world ever been so tickled by the sight of lettuces?” Meghan titters to chef Alice Waters, on the final episode of her new “lifestyle television series,” With Love, Meghan. Meghan’s latest venture is an exercise in how many inspirational quotes you can simper out in five hours. She’s less duchess, more Instagram influencer. She doesn’t have the pissed-off husband half-arsedly holding the camera while she explains, in excruciating detail, how to make a balloon arch. Instead, she has a plentiful Netflix crew and reported $100 million budget.  I’m trying my hardest to find something nice to say and, well, the guests aren’t too awful and the food looks alright.

with love, meghan intentional living

The Sussex Squad comes for Larman

I am not, nor ever have been, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein. Yet, after I wrote a piece earlier this week commenting on Meghan Markle’s peculiar decision to change the name of her lifestyle brand America Riviera Orchard to As Ever, this was merely one of the things I was accused of being. Within hours of the story being published, I was inundated with a level of online abuse that swiftly went from the intimidating to the unintentionally hilarious, so vitriolic and overblown was its content.

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This month in culture: March 2025

With Love, Meghan Netflix, March 4 If there were an award for the year’s least eagerly awaited show, Netflix’s With Love, Meghan would have to be in the running, if not quite the clear front-runner at this early stage of the year. Even the synopsis — “Meghan Markle invites friends and famous guests to a beautiful California estate, where she shares cooking, gardening and hosting tips” — summons up gasps of horror. The footage that has arrived via trailer indicates that this will be as vacuous as an Instagram reel brought to full, unlovely life, with its uniquely dreadful hostess conveying nothing so much as an onscreen vacuum where any kind of charm, grace or likability should be.

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The royals coming after American free speech

The British royals are coming after American free speech, just days before Donald Trump is set to take office as president for the second time. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle expressed outrage that Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, changed policy to rely on community notes versus a dedicated fact-checking department. Ironically, the pair suggested Meta’s policy change “directly undermines free speech.” How exactly? Because, according to Harry and Meghan, Mark Zuckerberg is, allegedly, prioritizing those using social media “to spread hate, lies and division.

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Are you looking for a man in finance?

“Did I just write the song of the summer?” twenty-seven-year-old Megan Boni, an aspiring New York-based singer-actress known on social media as “Girl on Couch,” asked her public a few weeks ago. Days before, she suggested that her TikTok followers set to music a thirteen-word satirical musing she had improvised about her undersexed Gen Z peeresses’ lofty romantic expectations. Known simply as “Man in Finance,” the song’s lyrics easily divide into four short verses that unfold like shallow ads in the “Personals” section of an old newspaper: “I’m looking for a man in finance/Trust fund/Six-five/Blue eyes.” Adaptations have gone viral on social media, gathering more than 80 million hits and earning Boni more than $300,000 in revenue.

Why is the UK and US treatment of Kate Middleton so different?

There is no possibility, if you consume any kind of media, that you will not be aware of Kate Middleton’s absence from public view over the past couple of months. For a time, it was possible to put the various rumors and speculation down to over-excited people on the internet with too much time on their hands and over-vivid imaginations. Then, in an apparent attempt to quell speculation, Kensington Palace released a strangely Photoshopped image of the princess on Britain's Mother’s Day, and all hell broke loose. Even those who would normally have sighed at the increasingly prurient stories found themselves saying things like, “I’m not a conspiracy theorist but...

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The frustrating rise of celebrities ‘writing’ children’s books

When you are next visiting a bookstore, and find your way to the children’s section, you might be forgiven for thinking that there is no longer such a thing as a children’s author. Instead, you will be ambushed by piles of books blazoned with the names of actors, singers, comedians, DJs and people who generously exhibit themselves on social media. “Writing” a children’s book has become another string to the celebrity bow. Imagine the scene. You’ve married a prince, and opened a shop that sells vaginal eggs. What more is there to do? A-ha, thinks the celebrity, perhaps while she is sitting on a bench. All those untutored minds, eager for moi! My personal brand will bring them such joy, such self-worth! They will all feel seen!

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Seb Gorka, MAGA exile

It looks like Sebastian Gorka has been booted from the MAGA movement. The self-proclaimed “dragon of Budapest” first raised eyebrows a few weeks ago when he needled Human Events editor Jack Posobiec for suggesting the FBI had planted pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC on January 6. Posobiec had pointed out that the recovered bombs looked awfully similar to those used in FBI training. “Right Jack. Because are soooooo many different types of plumber’s end caps out there,” Gorka snarked. On his show he then made a point of rehashing Posobiec’s absurd Pizzagate allegations.Now, Gorka has really kicked the hornet’s nest by not-so-subtly accusing journalist Tucker Carlson of being an “agent of the Kremlin” for choosing to interview Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Our culture of cheapness and vulgarity

There are many things in short supply these days, but cheapness and vulgarity are not among them. They’re everywhere right now — in politics and pop culture, among the royals, within the legacy media and across social media. Most obscene is the cheapness and vulgarity that has pervaded the conflict between Israel and Hamas and its accompanying explosion of global antisemitism.  It would be easy to attribute this collective rot to mere coincidence, but it’s more a case of compounded indecency. And nowhere more so than at the top. The coarse bravado of then-candidate Donald Trump a decade ago metastasized during his presidency into the corruption and cravenness that now dominates — and could possibly derail — his third stab at the White House.

Being curious about race does not make you racist

When you exist in a mixed-race family like I do — black dad, white Jewish mom, Asian uncle, Latino ex-husband — race is something that’s hard to escape. We talk about our similarities, explore our differences and consider how the experiences of one generation might be similar or different for the next. Race is somehow always on our tongues. But that doesn’t necessarily make my family racist. Nor does it make the royal family racist either.  Back in March 2021 during Oprah Winfrey’s sit-down with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, I was horrified by their now infamous exchange over the alleged concern by unnamed Windsors about the skin color of the Sussexes’ first kid. We all know what supposedly went down.

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