Meghan believed that once she got her foot in through the Vitiello door, the establishment was hers for the taking. And so it proved. Before too long, Cory had moved into the three bedroomed house at 10 Yarmouth Road in Seaton Village where Meghan had replicated the stylish pale colours, modern paintings and contemporary furniture of the cosy, yellow-painted marital home she had shared off Sunset Boulevard with Trevor. ‘She lived here very quietly,’ said Bill Kapetanos, a Greek native now in his late seventies who was her next-door neighbour. They had a cordial relationship, and he occasionally helped her out when she needed neighbourly assistance. When he met Doria, she did not merely thank him for being such a good friend to her daughter. She thanked him for helping out ‘her angel’, which shows the level of parental adoration Meghan was used to receiving.
Meghan’s quiet lifestyle lasted ‘until Harry came on the scene.’ Only then did she start to entertain, having dinners, throwing large parties, and generally having a social buzz going that was actually uncharacteristic of the way she normally functioned.
In reality, Meghan was a homebody who loved hunkering down with her man when they were not out on the town partying. Her main company on a day-to-day basis was her two rescue dogs from LA, Guy the beagle and Bogart the Alsatian/Labrador cross and, ironically enough, her blog, to which she dedicated so many hours that it was like a living companion.
This homely, loving side to Meghan’s personality meant that the parents of the men with whom she was involved invariably liked her. Trevor’s parents David and Leslie Engleson had treated her as their own daughter, which was quite something when you stop to think that Jews often want their sons to marry Jewesses. So too did Gerry and Joanne Vitiello, who described her husband as ‘my high school sweetheart’ and declared that ‘family is everything.’ They hosted their son and Meghan, whose relationship Joanne Vitiello would later characterise as ‘serious’, during Christmas 2015, at their home in Brantford, two hours outside of Toronto. She believed that Meghan ‘was very interested in being with the people she was with. She has a good sense of humour and is very personable.’ Meghan and Cory ‘were living together. They were in their thirties. They weren’t kids,’ and while she never actually said it, she intimated that marriage was a possibility.
Not everyone, however, had a rosy view of Meghan as she was ascending the greasy pole. The social columnist Shinan Govani regarded her as ‘just a cable actress’ who ‘didn’t mean much’ when she met Cory Vitiello. He, on the other hand, was a huge star locally. He was known by everyone and well liked too. ‘Within the confines of the city, being with him was definitely a useful platform for her.’ He was much bigger ‘in terms of the Establishment in Toronto. He was leverage for her.’ He was also friends with people like the Mulroneys and Markus Anderson, global membership director of the elite private club Soho House, which has a branch in Toronto. Although Meghan’s path had crossed theirs, she now became close friends with all of them. Their homes, and Soho House, became like her second home. Govani believed if she had never come to Toronto, she would never have married Prince Harry. ‘There was something about coming to Toronto, becoming friends with the Mulroneys, and having a high social cachet. It was the perfect storm that created the opportunity.’ Govani thought that there was an element of deliberateness about the way Meghan advanced herself socially, and that ‘she took advantage of the opportunity that came her way.’ He also felt that she ‘wasn’t content with just being an actress. I mean, what would happen after Suits? She wasn’t getting any younger.’
Through Cory, Meghan’s star ascended exponentially. Not only were they a glamorous couple who functioned in the most elevated circles, but the power of two, and the connections she made through him, allowed her to spread her wings in a way that a cable show like Suits never could have done.
While Cory was vital to Meghan’s progress, it would be a mistake to ignore the role her effort and ambition played in her growing success. The Tig was her creation. It was, in some ways, her baby as well as her platform, and it was proving invaluable in raising her profile while giving her gravitas and access that she would otherwise not have had. She ensured this by shoring its content up with features that were heavyweight as well as aspirational.
According to Meghan, a part of her new-found ascendency was the realisation that she had been standing in her own way by failing to jettison her misgivings and just let herself rip. She had decided to do just that and had, in the process, strengthened herself. Having consciously resolved to let go of all the negativity that had been holding her back, she began embracing aspects of herself that had previously been problematic. Chief amongst these was her racial identity.
In Canada, Meghan had been discovering that being bi-racial was more advantageous than it had been in the US. Canadians are much more relaxed about issues like race and status than Americans, and aside from using her race in a way she had never done before, she began using her sex through the blog to branch out into areas where race, gender, and activism could be utilised positively. Meghan was on a mission, and the mission was to ‘thrive rather than survive’. She would use everything she had to make her life better and richer. She
