Meghan is also the beneficiary of the misconception that she has been a victim of racism and snobbery. She and Harry have been happy to allow these canards to stand, possibly because they have convinced themselves that they are true, though there is every reason to suppose that they know them to be the fig-leaves which they have conveniently clutched at as they conceal their naked deficiency in ways they find inconvenient or intolerable to reveal. Possibly they really do lack insight, and really do believe that their flaws do not exist, that their critics are vicious and prejudiced when in fact they simply see that the Emperor’s new clothes are not the glorious raiments he thinks they are. Either way, it should make little or no difference to the outcome of the fame game as long as Meghan and Harry continue to play it the way they’ve been doing it.
American-style fame is a much easier commodity to float and maintain than British. For instance, when Meghan and Harry informed the world that they and Archie had facetimed with the Queen to wish her a happy birthday, the Americans accepted the confidence at face value, the tone of the stories being, ‘How sweet. Happy families’. In Britain, however, they were accused of hypocrisy yet again, for the Queen had asked that all communications within the family be kept private. Meghan and Harry, despite their avowal of wanting to keep their private lives private, had violated not only their privacy, but hers as well. But the Americans don’t even know about such nuances, their press lacking the interest in scrutiny the way the British do.
To date, Meghan’s management with Sunshine Sachs of her and Harry’s public profile has appeared to be working the way they wanted it to. Doubtless they were all mindful of the tremendous success the Kardashians have achieved on the back of attention-grabbing tactics of dubious taste such as sex-tapes, vaginal displays, and the daily sharing of the most anodyne, mind-numbing detail of their self-centred lives, which, despite its innate vacuity, vulgarity, gross materialism and dullness, nevertheless fires the approval of their many fans. If such offences to good taste can become the successes they have, there is no reason why Meghan Markle and Harry can’t up the ante, trade upon their ‘classiness’ and titles, and become the royal version. All Meghan needs to do is sustain the regard her fellow Americans have for her, with the devoted Harry following in her wake as long as they remain a double act.
At present, they seem to be benefiting in the United States not only from their superficial appeal as royals but also from the fallacy that Meghan was victimised by the British. This mixed bag has enhanced her profile on a variety of levels. On the one hand, there was admiration for her undoubted style and beauty, while on the other hand her admirers sympathised with the fact that she had been womanfully fighting and slaying the dragons of racism, snobbishness, misogyny, jealousy, lack of appreciation and the multitude of other challenges she and Harry have hinted at whenever they have shared their journey with their supporters.
Many of these hints will be given flesh around the time this book is published, because Meghan and Harry have done a Diana. They have provided cooperation to Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand for a panegyric, due to be published this summer. If Andrew Morton’s and my experience are anything to go by, they will be bending the facts to burnish their subjects’ images and settle scores with a skill not seen since Josef Goebbels unleashed his talents for propaganda on an unsuspecting German populace. Already, there are indications from Meghan’s evidence in her lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday that she and Harry will be laying a considerable burden of blame on the doorstep of a malign British press. This will include her fractured relationship with her father, which she has been blaming on the press rather than her failure to engage with him. Doubtless, Harry and Meghan’s struggle will not be represented as that of an ambitious and over-confident woman who has linked up with a troubled and well-meaning but none-too-bright prince, but as brave humanitarian warriors who are fighting the good fight and being unfairly labelled greedy, hypocritical, spoilt and self-indulgent by a jealous and malicious contingent who wish to bring them down and prevent them from doing all the good they can as they change the world for the better.
This is a scenario which will work better in America than it will in Britain. One of the many benefits of fame in the United States is that Americans are much more willing to admire without nit-picking the way the British do. They are willing to take at face value that which the British never would. They don’t want their heroes to have feet of clay, which is why fame in the US is so much easier and headier than it is in the UK.
Another, very important but little acknowledged distinction is the differing roles the tabloids play in each country. In the US, they are more or less disregarded as fantastical organs of nonsense. This is because they often are. In the UK, however, they are serious publications whose content is justifiably taken much more seriously. This is where Sunshine Sachs and the Sussexes have been so clever. Americans think they’re fighting the good fight against maligners and will therefore disregard anything the British tabloids say. This will only change when Americans wake up and realise that tabloid doesn’t mean what they think it means. They’re dismissing the British at their peril.
Despite the differences between the two cultures, and despite Harry and Meghan’s complaints about how much they’ve been suffering from the ill-effects of fame, there is no doubt that they enjoy theirs. If they did not, they would not be so assiduously
