Meghan markle

Thursday

Cockburn

Prince on pre-order: Harry’s memoir release date announced

From our US edition

Cockburn has a few vacations coming up in 2023, so is on the hunt for some new light reading material. Thank God that Prince Harry has announced that his long-awaited memoir, Spare, will hit shelves globally on January 10. The cover features a close-up of the man fifth in line to the British throne, staring down the barrel of the camera, blue eyes glinting, beard tidily trimmed. His expression says, "this is my story." Publisher Penguin Random House said in a press release: “Spare takes readers immediately back to one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow — and horror.

prince harry memoir spare

Thursday

Cockburn

Style blog rates Meghan Markle’s funeral ’fits

From our US edition

Whisper it — but Cockburn can’t help but love a funeral. Old churches, black clothes that take a few inches from the waist, the spread is always great and the wake is single-handedly the best after-party anyone, dead or alive, could ask for. But there are a few rules. The first, one that should be glaringly obvious, is not taking smiling selfies for Instagram. Now, Cockburn knows that for a funeral such as Queen Elizabeth II’s, photos are unavoidable. But it seems that the people at Meghan’s Mirror, the style blog devoted to Meghan Markle, are lacking in basic etiquette. A little over a month after the death of the Queen, Meghan’s Mirror has splashed photos of Meghan’s outfit at the events surrounding the Queen’s death on their blog's homepage.

meghans mirror blog

Friday

Cockburn

Great! Another podcast about feminism 

From our US edition

Politics, feminism, sex, TikTok. These four topics will form the heart of Emily Ratajkowski’s new podcast High Low with Emrata. Doubtless Cockburn speaks for everyone when he says: praise the gods, a podcast about feminism is just what the market is missing. The new Sony-produced series will consist of two episodes per week. One will see the model and swimwear entrepreneur sit down for intimate conversations with special guests. Perhaps she'll diverge from the Meghan Markle playbook and actually let her guests speak. The second will have Ratajkowski’s own commentary on current events. Cockburn is sure you’re just as excited as him to hear what the model has to say about the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and ballot harvesting.

emily ratajkowski

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Meghan Markle’s podcast is about the word ‘crazy.’ And it’s barking mad

‘Calling someone crazy or hysterical completely dismisses their experience,’ says Meghan Markle in her strangely throaty professional podcast voice. ‘It minimises what they’re feeling. And you know it doesn’t stop there. It keeps going to the point where anyone who has been labelled it enough times can be gaslit into thinking that they’re actually unwell. Or sometimes worse to the point where real issues of all kinds get ignored. Well that’s not happening today.’ Cue the intro music – ‘I am woman, I am fearless, I am sexy’ etc. – to the latest episode of Archetypes, the Duchess of Sussex’s Spotify series. ‘I feel pretty strongly about this word crazy,’ says Meghan. She does.

queen elizabeth ii
Alexander Larman

Queen Elizabeth II made a difference — to Britain and the world

From our US edition

“The Queen is dead, boys, and it’s so lonely on a limb.” So the ever-provocative Morrissey sang on the title track of the Smiths’ 1986 album. At the time, his wishes were regarded as little more than republican throat-clearing, shot through with satirical wit. In the same song, he imagined an unlikely encounter with the Queen, who remarks caustically, “Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing.” Some of his detractors might agree. But now, thirty-six years on, the Queen really is dead. Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history, died on September 8, 2022 at the age of ninety-six. The second Elizabethan age — one that surpassed the first for both achievement and longevity — has come to an end.

Wednesday

Teresa Mull

Even the Queen’s clothes evoked her sense of duty

From our US edition

Queen Elizabeth II was a bright spot in the world in more ways than one. She was, by all accounts, a warm and gracious monarch who led her country through storm after storm with “timeless decency and an enduring calm,” as Australia’s prime minister put it. Yet despite her reserved demeanor and steadfast sense of duty that harkened to a much more modest age, the Queen had what appeared on the surface to be a surprising sartorial sense. Do a quick Google Image search for “Queen Elizabeth style” and you’ll see what I mean. Her outfits were often brightly colored and recognizable. Despite this, though, she wasn’t known, as Princess Diana was, for being a trendsetter, exciting fashion magazines and red-carpet commentators with “look what she wore!” moments.

london
Cockburn

Cockburn’s letter from London

From our US edition

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II last week, every national TV network in America dispatched crack squads of producers to London to cover the aftermath. Staff shortages meant that The Spectator opted to send Cockburn over on an economy flight, although he bets that if it was anyone else, they’d be flying classy. After Cockburn got over the screaming kids and bad liquor on his JetBlue plane, he decided to start at Buckingham Palace. This was, in hindsight, a huge mistake. In fact, Cockburn would go as far to say that the British royal family’s HQ is host to a cabal of the worst humans on earth. Loud, crying Americans, British oiks taking smiling selfies, Instagram moms laying flowers down seven times to make sure that their dutiful camera man got the best angle of their ass.

Friday

Cockburn

How to drink like the Queen this weekend

From our US edition

Cockburn joins the rest of the world in mourning the good Queen Elizabeth II, a stalwart figure of grace and warmth who endured much during her long life and seventy-five-year reign — often, incredibly, with an impish twinkle in her eye. The Queen worked as a truck mechanic during World War II, served alongside fifteen prime ministers, including Winston Churchill, lived through fourteen US presidencies, and weathered the marriage scandals of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, the heartache of Diana’s tragic death, Meghan Markle’s endless attention-seeking antics, and an exhausting schedule of public appearances. It's no wonder the woman liked to enjoy a drink — or four?

Matt Purple

She lived her best life

From our US edition

CNN and Fox were fine, but you had to tune in to the British news channels to get the full weight of the Queen's death on Thursday. Every anchor, every reporter, spoke in a voice burdened by grief. So it was easy to forgive one Sky News commentator when she said, "At a time when it's all about having a brand, the Queen stood in defiance of that trend." In fact, it's hard to think of anyone who had a more cultivated brand than Elizabeth II. Her every public appearance, every utterance, every twitch was carefully calibrated toward the image of a stately monarch. Yet you can also understand what the Sky commentator meant.

Thursday

Cockburn

Britain reeling after Queen’s health announcement

From our US edition

Cockburn is saddened by the news emerging from Britain about Queen Elizabeth II earlier, after Buckingham Palace announced that they were "concerned for her health." The Palace statement said, “Following further evaluation this morning, the Queen's doctors are concerned for Her Majesty's health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision," adding, "the Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral." After the news, king-in-waiting Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall made their way to Balmoral, the Queen's Scotland home. They were followed shortly after by Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. The Queen's other children, Anne, Andrew and Edward are also on their way to Balmoral.

queen elizabeth ii

Tuesday

Steerpike

Meghan Markle’s self-centred psychobabble

Move over Liz Truss, the real leaders of our global future are in Manchester this week – not Westminster. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, having apparently got bored of their LA exile, appeared at the One Young World Summit to speak to the next generation of ambitious strivers. The event, described as ‘a chance for the individuals responsible for shaping the future, to come together to confront the biggest challenges facing humanity,’ had Meghan down for a speech about gender equality. What they got was a lecture about… Meghan. Leadership tomorrow means talking about yourself today. In seven short minutes, the duchess managed to squeeze in 54 references to herself In seven short minutes, the duchess managed to squeeze in 54 references to herself.

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Gorbachev dies, Gibraltar becomes a city (again) and Meghan’s Mandela moment

Home Liz Truss, the contender for the Conservative party leadership who is expected to become prime minister next Tuesday, resisted temptations to say what she would do about the national energy price crisis. But she was said to have in her pocket licences for new drilling in the North Sea. Nadhim Zahawi, the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being, said that even people earning £45,000 a year would need help with their energy bills this winter. The price cap for energy set by the regulator Ofgem will rise by 80 per cent in October, with electricity going up from 28p per kilowatt hour to 52p and gas from 7p to 15p, making a typical annual energy bill currently £1,971 rise to £3,549.

Freddy Gray

Drama queens: the return of Meghan and Harry

We’ve all spent months bracing ourselves for what our leaders assure us will be a dreadful winter. As the weather turns, we can look forward to ruinous energy bills, runaway inflation, collapsing health services, strikes, blackouts, more strikes, violent crime, and perhaps even – why not? – a nuclear war with Russia. As if that weren’t bad enough, Meghan and Harry are back, wafting over all the way from Montecito, California on billowy clouds of bonkers publicity, self-pity and self-help mumbo-jumbo. On Monday, as Britain announces a new prime minister, Meghan and Harry will attend a ‘One Young World’ summit for youth leaders in Manchester, where Meghan will deliver the keynote address.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Meghan Markle vs Mariah Carey: who’s the biggest diva?

It’s Tuesday. That means that once again, it’s time to listen to Meghan of Montecito talk about herself on her new podcast Archetypes. This week, to pad out the hour, Meghan brings in Mariah Carey to talk about the ‘complexities’ surrounding the word diva.  Oh great, more words that Meghan doesn’t like! Steerpike was starting to think she had run out of so-called ‘labels’.  During the episode, pop star Mariah opened up about the difficulties she faced growing up, saying (in a slightly garbled confessional tone): ‘I didn’t fit in, it would be more of the black area of town, or then you could be where my mom chose to live, where the more white neighbourhoods, and I didn’t fit in anywhere at all.

Steerpike

Six of the worst bits of Meghan Markle’s interview

'I have a lot to say' claims Meghan Markle 'until I don't.' But there's no sign of such silence happening anytime soon, given the Duchess of Sussex's latest sally in the pages of an American magazine. Whatever happened to all that privacy, eh? In a 6,400 word cover piece for The Cut, the Duchess certainly had plenty to say on everything from the British media and royal family to how little girls see her as a 'princess' and of course the similarities between her wedding and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. Already the Mandela family have hit back, with the great man's grandson declaring that 'overcoming 60 years of apartheid' cannot be equated with 'marrying a white prince.

Monday

Matt McDonald

Di another day

From our US edition

I was reprimanded by my parents for talking during the minute’s silence at Princess Diana’s funeral. In my defense, I was six years old at the time. Almost twenty-five years have passed since that fateful night in Paris, when the People’s Princess was pursued by the press one last time. In the years since, Diana’s legacy has hung over not just the British royal family, but the relationship between society and celebrity. Her death marked one of the first real moments of global introspection: was our paparazzi too invasive, our press too dogged? We now look back at the media’s treatment of Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Lindsay Lohan and ask the same questions. But it all goes back to Di.

princess diana

Wednesday

Cockburn

Prince Harry’s ‘toxic’ mental health startup tied to royal ventures

From our US edition

For a man that supposedly wanted to cut his connections with the Big Bad Royal Family, Prince Harry still appears to be reaping the rewards of his blue-blooded lineage. Last week, Cockburn discovered that BetterUp, the mental health company that named the Duke of Sussex as its “chief impact officer” in 2021, has been branded by people purporting to be former employees as a “psychologically unsafe place to work” on Glassdoor, a website where posters can review companies. Posts on the site allege that the leadership “lie, play games, test/watch/spy on employees” and say the company “a pretty nasty underbelly.” BetterUp did not respond to a request for comment regarding the claims.

betterup

Tuesday

Steerpike

Did Meghan Markle terrorise a three-year-old?

When it comes to bullying allegations, Meghan Markle is well versed. But in Tom Bower’s latest book, Revenge, the claims are so damning that even Steerpike was gobsmacked. Reducing a royal aide to tears is one thing, but investigative journalist Bower now claims that Markle’s wrath knows no limits. Meghan reportedly picked on Princess Charlotte, who was then aged three, causing her mother Kate Middleton to burst into tears at Meghan’s bridesmaid fitting. It’s long been rumored that Meghan made Kate cry over the unacceptable length of the bridesmaid dress that Princess Charlotte was told to wear during Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry, which was not in line with royal protocol.

Tuesday

Amber Athey

Prince Harry should stop lecturing Americans

Washington, DC Prince Harry is once again mouthing off about American politics despite a rudimentary understanding – at best – of our founding principles. The pampered Brit delivered a speech at the United Nations on Monday insisting that we are witnessing a 'rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States'. Prince Harry, who only lives here because his wife dreams of doing animated voiceovers for Netflix, routinely opines on our constitution with all of the British pomposity that led to the Revolutionary War. Newsflash: Americans do not like it when foreigners tell us what to do or how we should feel, and yet Prince Harry (do I even have to use his title anymore?) is too arrogant and lacking in self-awareness to sit down and shut up.

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

Does Meghan Markle know what ‘guttural’ means?

When the Duke of Sussex heard about the Supreme Court judgment revoking the ruling in Roe vs Wade, ‘His reaction last week was guttural, like mine,' said his wife Meghan Markle. ‘Men need to be vocal in this moment,’ she told Vogue magazine. If we are to take her at her word, the Duchess of Sussex was saying that Prince Harry vocalised his reaction by growling. This sounds quite unlikely. But she added that her reaction was the same. It is impossible not to wonder whether she meant that theirs was a gut reaction. Of course one can say gut reaction, but it is impossible to say a reaction is gut. You can say that it is gutsy, but that has a different meaning from ‘heart-felt immediacy’.