The supposed Meghan’s body looks very much like what we can imagine hers to be, except that the breasts are mercifully larger than the ones Meghan presents us with nowadays. This, however, did not deter her detractors, because if one examines photographs taken of her in her early twenties while she was starting out in the industry, one observes her breasts in halter necklines being much fuller towards the armpits than they are nowadays. This suggests that she might well have had her breasts augmented, then had them reduced once she became more successful, as Victoria Beckham did. Because the timeline of the sex tapes dovetails with Meghan’s penurious period, doubting Thomases took comfort from the coincidences which allowed them to remain convinced.
This was anything but a desirable scenario for any respectable institution, much less a royal family. In some ways, it didn’t even matter whether the tapes were authentic or fabricated: their very existence was a problem. The idea, that any member of the British Royal Family could have had a past that permitted a sex tape, real or fake, to exist, that it was out there on the internet for all to see, and that there would always be a percentage of people who believed it to be genuine even if it was not, was anathema. The one thing that kept all critics of the marriage at bay was Harry’s determination to marry Meghan, no matter what.
Nevertheless, there was great concern because Meghan herself is the sort of personality who people either love or loathe. While some people, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Harry himself were convinced of Meghan’s sincerity, others worried that she might be an opportunistwho trots out the lines that work to her advantage. Was she just too glib, too practised in the art of conveying convincing vulnerability, too adept at portraying herself as Little Ms Wonderful, for red flags not to be raised? One critic noted that her performance was uncomfortably ‘like all genuine phoneys, she has perfected the art of projecting a convincing display of sincerity. That in itself would’ve raised hackles even if we didn’t have access to all the other information’ emanating from those she had crossed over the years, ‘not to mention the gobbledy-gook she’d been spouting for years. Many of her statements were all the evidence we needed. Those blogs hoisted her on her own petard.’ Meghan’s statements about how desirable self-love was, about how you could be anything you wanted to be, about how it was okay to lie to yourself as long as you were doing it to achieve your ambitions, rang loud bells of caution. ‘She’s obviously never heard the maxim: A word once uttered cannot be recalled. Nor the one about never putting pen to paper. She definitely raised our hackles.’
Her avowed humanitarianism, mixed up as it was with political activism, also caused pauses for thought. The British Establishment is one of the most sophisticated in the world. Its more intelligent members are infinitely less gullible than most of their counterparts situated elsewhere. Although these people are often highly principled, their guiding light is realism. They are refreshingly free of prejudice, very up-to-date with the zeitgeist, interested in workable solutions rather than cant and hypocrisy. They know that humanitarianism is often a mask put on by hypocritical attention-seekers to disguise their true intentions as they seek to gain approbation through pretending to be more wonderful than they are. To use an example, I witnessed Sir David Eady, the senior judge of the Queen’s Bench Division who used to preside over defamation cases, dismiss the attempt of a billionairess to impress him by declaring her occupation as ‘philanthropist’ when in fact she is known as a rampant social climber. ‘Philanthropist?’ he said bitingly, conveying in that withering question what he thought of her pretensions and, by implication, her character.
No one actually cared whether Meghan’s humanitarianism was genuine or not, as long as she was prepared to do the job of royal consort as and when she was required to do so. But her avowed politicisation was a real worry. It could taint the Crown if she and Harry married. The British monarchy, like all the other constitutional monarchies in Europe, is resolutely apolitical. All of them appreciate that their survival depends upon absolute apoliticism; their very raison d’être rests upon their ability to provide society with the protection only apolitical heads of state are capable of giving against the encroachments of ambitious politicians. Privately, it is no secret that most of the royals are either extremely centrist or slightly left of centre politically. They are, in reality, liberal conservators. This has come about in the last century because reigning royal families appreciate the need for change. They desire the improvement of their citizenry’s lot. However, they also appreciate that it is necessary to retain elements of
