Meghan and Harry: The Real Story

indeed individuals who have admitted to suffering deep emotional pain, and who are also considerably more emotional than the average person. Although both have laid the blame for their misery at obvious doorsteps - his at his mother’s death, hers at her racial identity - their critics have some justification in maintaining that such suffering as they have admitted to is also tied up with more fundamental aspects of their identities such as their excessive emotionalism and tendency to over-personalise. Harry was always slated to be much more emotionally unstable than William, not because of his mother’s death but because of the way his mother spoilt him, while Meghan’s anguish appears to owe more to having been over-indulged by her father from a young age, resulting in her having difficulty even as a child with coping with the frustration that comes from not getting her own way. As one of the friends she left behind when she became a success on Suits put it, ‘I don’t for a nano second accept that Meg ever experienced any racial prejudice. I may be doing her a grave injustice, but I am sure as I draw breath that it’s all false memories. No one can remember one instance of her experiencing any of the suffering she now lays claim to. The only pain Meg ever suffered was to have to wait for her ambitions to be achieved. That must have been pretty painful for someone who’d always got everything she ever wanted while growing up.’

Of course, if Meghan is prone to self-dramatisation, which her demeanour suggests she is, her suffering would still be heart-felt, so to that extent she is still deserving of compassion. Recent studies have shown that there is little psychological difference between the effect of real and false memories, so someone who lies to himself and others about having suffered as a result of an incident he invented, ends up being almost as badly scarred emotionally as someone who actually suffered the experience. This is a lesson Meghan should have learnt, for she was effusive on her blog about how effective self-hypnosis was when she was telling herself that she was a booker. If she failed to understand that blaming her racial identity for her own failures would inevitably bring her misery rather than the comfort she sought, that does not make her present suffering any the less real. All it means is that she is ultimately responsible for the pain she has entrapped herself into experiencing, at least on one level. However, she is no more responsible for having been over-indulged than Harry is. A parent who spoils a child does it no service. Diana and Tom Sr deserve the blame, and while the former never lived to see her handiwork, the latter has. Had he brought his daughter up to have a slightly lower opinion of herself and to accept that boundless ambition is not necessarily the road to happiness, she might well have accomplished less, but she would have also have been spared a lot of pain. Yes, she might have ended up the waitress her sister Samantha has said she would’ve been without their father’s input, but a happy and satisfied waitress might have been a better fate than the miserable duchess she became.

Like many people whose parents’ destructively indulged them, Meghan and Harry are prone to blame everyone and everything but themselves and their own character defects for their inability to experience the fulfilment in life that they yearn for and believe they are entitled to. It should not have come as a surprise to anyone that they would end up blaming the British press for their inability to enjoy the plenitude with which they have been blessed. The fact is, the press have given them a hard time, and they would not have been human had they liked it, but she and Harry have nevertheless conveniently conflated the issues and in attributing blame unjustly, have confused the public as to where responsibility really lies. A handy enemy is always a useful tool to chide rather than accepting responsibility for one’s own failings. This is especially useful when one is breaking new ground and trying to win popularity contests with the Hollywood elite, the way Meghan and Harry were. While Meghan and Harry’s supporters have bought their explanation that it is the British press that has caused their problems, the better informed and more knowledgeable observers on the other side of the fence understand that they are ultimately responsible for their own happiness. The idea that one cannot lead a constructive and fulfilled life even while being subjected to adverse publicity is nonsense. I am the living proof. Nor am I unique.

Irrespective of one’s point of view, there can be no doubt that the most damaging course of action Harry and Meghan embarked upon once they arrived in California was declaring war on the majority of the British press. The day before the Queen’s 94th birthday on the 21st April 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when most of the world was in lockdown and everywhere people were dying or suffering serious hardship, they got their ‘people’ to issue a declaration to the editors of the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror. In pure Sunshine Sachs lingo, they were informed:

‘As The Duke and Duchess of Sussex now settle into the next chapter of their lives and no longer receive any publicly funded support, we are writing to set a new media relations policy specifically as it pertains to your organisation.

‘Like you, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex believe that a free press is a cornerstone to any democracy - particularly in moments of crisis. At its best, this free press shines light on dark places, telling stories that would otherwise go untold, standing up for what’s right, challenging power, and holding those who abuse the system to account.

‘It has been said that journalism’s first obligation is to the