Tellingly, Meghan never disbanded her trio of commercial representatives when she married Harry. Then the palace discovered that pregnant Meghan had instructed them to drum up commercial opportunities for her to exploit. And not small time things either. Each project should be worth millions of dollars.
Insofar as Buckingham Palace was concerned, royals cannot be both fish and fowl. You cannot be a British royal and an American businesswoman at the same time. The word trickling back to England was deeply ominous as far as they were concerned, for it appeared as if Meghan intended to breach one of the cardinal rules under which royalty functions, namely that it cannot involve itself in commercial activity for personal gain. Not only were they being told that Meghan had articulated an interest in maximising her earning potential, but she and Harry were also rumoured to have cut deals which, if true, were decidedly beyond the ken for royalty. A princess told me in 2019, ‘There are rumours - hopefully untrue - that Meghan has been entering into deals with all sorts of people on behalf of herself and Harry.’ Meghan was rumoured to have even asked designers to give her credits for dresses which she had worn and which the Duchy of Cornwall had paid for. She was also alleged to be making deals with suppliers - people like jewellers - for promoting their wares. ‘It is to be hoped that these stories are untrue,’ the princess said. ‘But the mere fact that they exist is disturbing.’
Perturbing as those rumours were to the Royal Family and the people running it, they were less shocking to Americans than to the British. Partly, this is because Americans admire an entrepreneurial approach even if it has covert elements, and partly because it is a well-known fact that Jackie Onassis used to run through her dress allowance of $30,000 per month from Aristotle Onassis as a means of ‘exploiting’ - again that word with such differing connotations depending on which side of the Atlantic it was being used - it to feather her nest. Sometimes she wouldn’t even bother to wear an item before sending it to the resale shop. She would then pocket the money, and repeat the whole process month after month. When her husband found out, he accused her of being a ‘cheap hustler’ and ‘little better than a thief’. This was no rumour either. Ari himself told his first wife Tina’s sister-in-law Lady Sarah Spencer-Churchill, who was a close friend of mine and at whose 72nd Street townhouse in New York I used to see both Onassises, as well as Jackie alone at Sarah’s Jamaican home, ‘Content’.
If Meghan was doing a variation of a Jackie, the British needed to appreciate that she would not have been viewing her conduct as anything but entrepreneurial and resourceful. ‘Double recovery’ and ‘double dealing’ might be the height of dubious behaviour in Britain, but in the circles whence Meghan originated, they were commendable resourcefulness. Nevertheless, commercialism, whether overt or covert, was anathema to the powers-that-be at Buckingham Palace. But it was nowhere near as bad as politicism. And they had been told that Meghan had let it be known that she had political ambitions. Nor were her ambitions modest. Characteristically, her ultimate goal was to be President of the United States of America. She had even told people that she saw no reason why she couldn’t ‘do a Reagan’.
Aside from the constitutional conflicts inherent in a member of the British Royal Family seeking political office in a foreign country, even the country of her birth, there was the question of Meghan’s suitability for the American presidency. To the courtiers, with their British attitude towards political office which is at variance with the American, she was not qualified for any political office, much less one of the magnitude of President of the United States of America. She hadn’t even passed her State Department examinations, yet here she was voicing ambitions to be the Commander-in-Chief. Self-belief does not have the magical quality in Britain that it does in the United States, so to them this was something to be suspicious of, rather than to celebrate. The fact that Meghan had voiced the belief that her career as an actress put her on a par with the late 40th President of America, because Ronald Reagan had been, like her, a moderately successful actor before moving on to greater things, struck them as incomprehensible.
To the courtiers, whose colleagues had had dealings with the late President and had a great deal of respect for his wiliness as well as his sophisticated overview, Meghan seemed not to realise that the limited success as actors which she and Reagan had shared was the full extent of what they had in common. She was confusing the role playing she did when she appeared in soup kitchens and gave speeches to the UN about having changed the face of advertising at the age of eleven, with actual political experience. Meghan had never held down a political role of any type, much less one of any significance. Reagan, on the other hand, had had an extensive political background even while he was a jobbing actor. He was first elected to the Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the powerful actor’s union, in 1941. In 1946, he was elected their third vice-president. In 1947 he was elected president and would subsequently be re-elected six times, the last being in 1959. He successfully steered SAG through the McCarthy Era and
