For all her ‘fierce intelligence’, Meghan seems not to have realised that cutting people out of her life the way she was doing made them feel that she had been using them and, when they had ceased to be of use to her, she had discarded them as if they had never existed. One can make a case for the fact that Meghan was being cautious and self-protective, but the fact remains, she was building up trouble for herself. She was arming people who had been her friends, who had wanted to continue to be her friends, and no matter how successful she was or how grand she became should her relationship end in marriage, as both she and Harry already felt it would, the day would come when those chickens would come home to roost.
And roost they did. Although Meghan would later claim to Tom Bradbury during her controversial South African interview, that she had been ‘naive when friends had warned her against the dangers of the media,’ Nelthorpe-Cowne regards her as being anything but naive, and made a point of letting the world know it. ‘She is a very ambitious woman, and when it is time to move on in her life, Meghan has a way of closing the door on the past, as she did with her father, her siblings, her first husband and me.’ Although she has tried to present herself as an innocent, ‘she was no ingénue, but a worldly-wise woman on the mission of her life, the mission to bag not any old prince, but THE PRINCE.’ Nelthorpe-Cowne stated that her experience of Meghan was that she is ‘disingenuous’ and has no compunction about spinning the greatest yarn so that she can hide her calculatedness behind a veil of non-existent innocence. She rejects Meghan’s assertions of purity of heart and purity of purpose when she met Harry. Meghan claimed that ‘being American, she didn’t even know who Harry was.’ This made Nelthorpe-Cowne ‘laugh out loud’, for not only did the young Meghan have books about Diana and she had watched her funeral repeatedly and thereafter used her as a role model, but Meghan had confessed to her when they were having a drink at the Delaunay the day she was due to meet Prince Harry for the first time that she had googled him. She not only knew exactly who Harry was, but had been very excited to meet him, knowing that he would be her ticket to international fame if they clicked. ‘I looked at how stunning she was and I just thought: ‘There’s no way he’s going to be able to resist her.’’
Of course, Meghan would’ve had to be blind and stupid, neither of which she is, not to have seen how Harry could change her life for the better should they bond. But what really made her irresistible to the lonely prince wasn’t really her looks, though they helped, but the fire which burnt bright within her. She possessed a warmth and determination to make her mark that scorched the earth as she travelled over it to her destination. With each rung that she had scaled up the ladder of success, her personality had become stronger, her social skills greater, her presentation more polished. As it did, her patina of softness and vulnerability shone evermore brightly.
In the nearly seven years that she had gone from failed actress to being on the cusp of worldwide celebrity, Meghan had indeed shed all the ‘negativity’, as she put it, which had once held her back. Nowadays, whenever she turned on the heat of that outstanding personality with the goal of melting someone’s defences, she usually managed to do so. She was utterly convincing in her displays of care and sincerity. If there was a hint of the steel beneath the surface, that was a positive, not a negative, for it indicated her tremendous strength of character and purpose. Meghan was so open about being ambitious, about her desire to put her imprint on every situation that was to her liking, about her ethics, that people supposed that the gentleness which she displayed was the only Meghan, and that all the evidence of toughness masked a soft and noble heart. While those Meghan left behind had a cynical view of her, those with whom she remained involved were convinced that she was a truly wonderful, selfless, delightful, loving and giving person, as friends such as Jessica Mulroney have stated. And strong. ‘She is the strongest person I know,’ Serena Williams said.
Upon meeting Harry, and deciding that she liked him, he became the latest in a long line of people to experience her gravitational pull.
They first met for a drink in early July 2016 at Robin Birley’s private club, 5 Hertford Street in Mayfair, and clicked. Harry said, ‘I had never even heard about her’ until Violet von Westenholz
