In September 2014, Meghan was due to have a week off work. She decided to offer her services as a volunteer to the United Nations in New York. There are few bigger names in the humanitarian world, and Meghan rightly saw that if she could associate herself with that organisation in some capacity, considerable benefits would accrue to her down the line. She was careful with the UN to utilise such starriness as she possessed - and there really wasn’t very much: Suits was still a relatively minor cable TV show - in such a way that she came across as modest and willing. She therefore told them she would be happy to serve coffee and answer ‘phones, though once she was there, she shadowed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Executive Director of UN Women, and Elizabeth Nyamayaro of the HeForShe movement, for the one thing above all that Meghan had going for her was her dynamic personality. Within moments of meeting her, people realised that she was exceptional, and while this did not appeal to all tastes, it was enticing to sufficient for it to work in her favour.
Having put her charm and networking skills to good use and acquired a reputation for brightness and cooperativeness, the following year, Meghan was back at the UN, this time giving a speech before the Secretary General of the UN to a packed house as the United Nations’ Women’s Advocate for Political Participation and Leadership. For nine and a half minutes she spoke eloquently, engagingly and movingly about the airing of the now-infamous Ivory Dishwashing Liquid commercial, telling how it had set her on the path of feminist activism. Her speech was a tour de force which garnered her much respect in the political circles in which she now moved. It reinforced her aim of being taken seriously, not only as an influencer through her blog, but as a political activist. To the Suits audience she might have been merely Rachel Zane the ballbreaker who couldn’t pass her law exams but nevertheless had the legal practice and Mike Ross eating out of her hand, but to the Mulroneys and Trudeaus, who were the audience she really wanted to impress, she was growing into a heavy-hitter whose humanitarian credentials established her as worthy of their attention and friendship.
Despite the spectacular way her public profile was progressing, Meghan’s need to be noticed was beginning to affect her relationship with Cory. Although Cory has always been careful to only say positive things about his ex-girlfriend, friends of theirs, who did not wish to be identified, said, ‘She was extraordinarily pushy beneath the soft and sweet exterior. She was always angling for the best table in a restaurant, wanting to sit in the best seat, reminding everyone not so subtly that she was this huge star, when she really wasn’t. Suits wasn’t that big a deal and Toronto is full of actors and actresses. The city gives tax breaks to film companies, so film and TV stars of a far greater stature than Meghan Markle are two a penny. It was just embarrassing. Cory’s not that sort of guy, and I think after a while it began to get on his nerves and he started to lose respect for her.’
Although Meghan could be very loving, she was so impassioned that she sometimes came across as a prima donna. Friends believe that Cory had become increasingly disenchanted as a result of that aspect of her conduct, but what ‘did it for him’ was when she started snatching credit from him for recipes that he had created. ‘Meghan is a good cook, but she’s also extremely vain and always wants praise,’ one of the Vitiello circle said. She and Cory had hosted a dinner party at which she had served pasta with courgette spirals. Upon being complimented on the dish, she tried to take credit for its invention. However, it was Cory’s creation, and ‘this pissed him off royally. No matter how loving you are, once your boyfriend realises you’re a phoney, that’s it,’ someone who liked him but had never liked her, said.
Shortly after that incident, Meghan left for England to watch her friend Serena Williams play tennis at Wimbledon. One of the attributes which friends of hers find endearing is her willingness to cross the world to support their efforts. Her detractors do not regard this as a virtue, suggesting that she promotes herself under the guise of supportiveness. They question why her support is always for the very rich or the very poor, and defile her motives with the observation that a camera is often present to record how marvellous Meghan is. One person who had no such reservations was the tennis ace. They had met in February 2014 when the satellite television channel DirecTV threw a huge, televised party on a man-made beach, created out of a million tons of sand, in a heated tent at Pier 40 on the Hudson River in Manhattan. According to Meghan, ‘We hit it off immediately.’ On The Tig, she described their first meeting, ‘Taking pictures, laughing through the flag football game we were both playing and chatting not about tennis or acting but about good old fashioned girly stuff.’ Serena confirmed that their friendship had grown from strength to strength by saying, after the royal wedding, ‘We have known each other for a long time, but we really kind of are relying on each other a lot recently.’
Meghan’s relationship with Serena would prove to be pivotal in more ways than one. Aside from the fact that she would never have met Harry had she not gone to watch her friend play at Wimbledon, it was the tennis star whose dextrous use of the media inspired her to develop The Tig in the way she did, and even more importantly, whose presence in her life helped Meghan overcome the hurdles she had faced all her life concerning her racial identity. Had Meghan not become as friendly with Serena as
