Reconciling the opposing perceptions of Meghan is well-nigh impossible. To those who know and love her, she is almost the ‘angel’ her mother calls her. Rather more controversial is the opinion of a psychologist to whom I spoke. While her admirers consider her an extremely sensitive person whose every thought and feeling are governed by a sweet-nature and a good heart, he concluded that descriptions of her correlate with sociopathic as well as narcissistic tendencies. Meghan has pronounced charm, charisma and social skills, all of which narcissists and sociopaths possess in greater measure than the average person. But what tipped the scales for him as the decisive factor was her propensity for wanting sympathy. People with sociopathic tendencies evidently possess a greater need for sympathy than the general population. As one in every twenty five individuals falls within this spectrum, and few of them typify the popular view of murderous crazies while many are high flyers in high functioning roles, sociopaths, or people with sociopathic tendencies, proliferate far more than the public realises. In his opinion, Meghan’s interview with Tom Bradby was a dead giveaway not only of her hunger for sympathy but also of another sociopathic trait, namely lack of insight into how inappropriate her requirement of having her needs fulfilled, even in disproportionate circumstances, can be.
Possibly it was not Meghan’s fault that the tape was cut the way it was. Maybe ITV was responsible for how self-obsessed and self-pitying she seemed as she complained about her great pain, in not receiving the emotional support and attention she required while adjusting to her new life of even greater privilege and opportunity than her old life, which had not been exactly underprivileged either. But her complaints seemed weirdly disproportionate to this psychologist, made as they were while she and Bradby were surrounded by South African women with genuinely significant daily struggles for life, liberty, health, food and safety. These women and these issues were meant to be the true focus of the programme. Yet, so complete was Meghan’s self-belief, so pronounced her need to obtain the support of viewers by gaining their sympathy for the hardships she was enduring in her difficult life, that she did not stop to question whether a royal duchess, happily married to a man who adores her, who has a beautiful, healthy son and a life of extreme privilege, should be maintaining in the face of so much genuine deprivation that her own suffering was so great that it could even warrant a mention alongside poverty, rape, mutilation, murder, starvation, and the many other issues that had been addressed by the programme as the South African women’s lives unfurled in their full horror.
Harry acquitted himself with equal emotional fervour during the interview. While his admirers may have been filled with sympathy when he confessed how every time he sees a flash bulb he is catapulted back to his mother’s death, those who take a more measured view of the responsibilities and privileges of a prince had cause to question whether he too had started to wallow in rather too much hyper-emotionalistic self-pity when a healthy dose of gratitude for his advantages might have been a more appropriate response to the many privileges that went along with his position. It is interesting that no one to date has questioned whether Harry has narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies commensurate with those questioned about Meghan, when, in every respect save intelligence, he has mirrored her, as his conduct throughout the Bradby ITV programme demonstrated. He too came across as someone who wants sympathy intermingled with admiration, all of which is offset by a notable lack of insight as to how blessed he truly is. Every criticism levelled at Meghan could be fairly directed at Harry. The only member of that triumvirate who justifiably escaped criticism was Tom Bradby. A journalist, who asks a question that pushes the boundaries of an interview into terrain it has no business occupying, cannot be fairly criticised, nor can his producers and editors when they come to compile the programme, if a couple as experienced in PR as Harry and Meghan decide to compare their own anguish with the Golgotha of others.
There are moments in life when people open their mouths and in a few choice words reveal more than they intend to. This happened to Oscar Wilde during his second trial for sodomy, when the prosecution barrister Sir Edward (later Lord) Carson asked him if he had ever kissed a certain servant boy. Wilde, who had been maintaining that he was not homosexual, truthfully and revealingly replied, ‘Oh dear, no. He was a particularly plain boy - unfortunately ugly - I pitied him for it.’ Just as how the jurors were able to conclude that no heterosexual man would have answered that question with reference to the looks of the boy, and thereby found Wilde guilty of the offence for which he was being tried, so too did many viewers of the ITV interview leap to an elementary conclusion when Meghan said that she often tells Harry that the purpose of life is not to survive, but to thrive. To her admirers, she was being her frank, honest self, articulating one of the guiding principles of her life. Her admission was not merely a sign that she has the healthy appetite of someone who appreciates a fully laden table, but that she is honest and up-front about her desire to have the best and the most of everything. In doing so the way she did, she also confirmed that she does not regard it as shameful to want more. This
