In the fifth episode of Harry & Meghan, the lyrics to Nina Simone’s “Do What You Gotta Do” play (which Kanye “Ye” West unfortunately repurposed for “Famous”). On a side note, the director of the series (save for episode six), Liz Garbus, also brought us the 2015 documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? In any case, in this particular song, Simone sings, “I just wanted you to know/I loved you better than your own kin did.” For both parties involved in this love story, that’s all too true—but most especially for the way Meghan Markle has loved Harry. Even in spite of his crazy, inbred family. Even so, many still view Markle as a social climber who had only something to gain by “tying herself” to Harry. To that, one must ask: who would want to gain something as famously cold and judgmental as the Royal Family? And all the media smearing that comes with being part of it?
What’s more, Meghan was already rich in her own right before meeting Harry, making roughly $450,000 a year while starring in Suits. But acting was never Meghan’s number one priority—not compared to social justice issues and using her “platform” (whatever that might be at the moment) to spotlight them. In this regard, Meghan’s connection to Harry was always in the bag, even if she’s very obviously lived more lives than him, from being a calligrapher and bookbinding teacher between acting jobs to a “briefcase girl” on Deal or No Deal. Through it all, she has shown her propensity for reinvention and her willingness to pull herself up by her bootstraps, as it were. Alas, rather than this being seen as an admirable quality, it has been met with quite a bit of venom—to say the least—over the course of her relationship with Prince Harry. The one that commenced in the summer of 2016, when Meghan was determined to be single (“I was really intent on being single”) after having recently come out of a two-year relationship with celebrity chef Cory Vitiello. But, as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
So it was that Meghan was directed to Harry’s Instagram account by a mutual friend—though some have tried to cast doubt on their credibility because they’ve said they started messaging on Instagram and that they were set up by a mutual friend… why can’t it be both? Per Harry, “I was scrolling through my feed and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them, like a Snapchat and, um… I was like, ‘Who is that?’” A question that Harry’s family would soon be asking repeatedly. To the point of being “set up” and meeting through Instagram, Meghan being “both”—Black and white—is another thing that people simply can’t “accept.” Can’t “compute.” Especially the whites.
Indeed, the contempt often directed at Meghan does seem to spring from some form of jealousy, particularly on the part of white women (including Meghan’s own half-sister) who perhaps feel some resentment that a Black girl landed the prince in the end. An outcome that goes against essentially every Disney movie ever hammered into one’s head. And oh, how Harry has committed to this love, serving up the ultimate “fuck you” in every sense by severing ties with his family as a business and as an actual family. Though it’s hard to be the latter when the business side of things so frequently takes greater precedence. And, as Harry notes at one point in the limited docuseries, “If you speak truth to power, that’s how they respond”—with “institutional gaslighting.” Of the very same variety that Diana was subjected to.
To be sure, Princess Diana is invoked many times—whether by name or via archival footage—throughout Harry & Meghan, it being rather overt that there’s something of an Oedipus complex at play with Harry being so keen to paint Meghan in the same image as his mother, media hell endurance-wise. But Diana undeniably had to go through more strain, simply as a result of the 80s and 90s being a more tactile time, when paparazzi would actually bombard her in the flesh at every turn. Eventually causing her death in Paris as she was pursued in a tunnel (though, no, it didn’t help to have a drugged-out driver).
While Meghan’s life has been threatened countless times by those odious internet trolls (episode five focusing on how a small group of people coordinating to spread online hate about Meghan amplify it with their determination and obsession to make it seem like far more people actually despise her), it’s apparent that Harry is never going to allow anything to happen to her. Precisely because of what he saw happen to his own mother. Thus, all those exorbitant security costs that did likely help propel making this documentary.
What’s more, it’s very interesting indeed to note that Harry freely uses the footage from Diana’s Panorama interview that William denounced in 2021 after an inquiry into how the interview was obtained by a Supreme Court judge (John Dyson). William’s statement denounced the BBC for aiding and abetting Martin Bashir in contributing to her “fear, paranoia and isolation” during her final years. Of course, a lot of Diana’s fears and “paranoias” were completely valid. Which is perhaps why Harry’s separate statement on the matter strayed from totally dismissing what she said in the interview itself and focusing more on the unethical way it was obtained. Hence, his assessment: “Our mother was an incredible woman who dedicated her life to service. She was resilient, brave and unquestionably honest. The ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life.” But clearly, he feels that a lot of what Diana said in that interview was truthful regardless of what circumstances she was “made” to say it in.
That candor appears to have been passed down to Harry, who addresses everything from his father and brother’s colluding throughout the downfall of his and Meghan’s tenure as royals to the fact that the monarchy has continued to thrive, without batting an eyelash, on the generational wealth that was gained by forcible extraction from other nations (a.k.a. former colonies). Accurately stating that the Royal Family already missed a huge opportunity to remain relevant by “using” (instead of abusing) Meghan—the entire reason for the monarchy still existing being because of the excuse of the Commonwealth (“our great Imperial family, to which we all belong,” as Queen Elizabeth II once billed it)—this docuseries makes it all the more obvious that it’s Harry and Meghan who have a far greater chance of surviving and enduring than the monarchy itself. And that chance for survival is, in large part, precisely because they defected from Britain, where the media is, incredibly, far worse and more ruthlessly underhanded than the one in the U.S. (see also: Spice World). This defection was a choice that Harry maintains was ultimately his own, despite caricatures depicting him as being on Meghan’s leash… literally. Something Harry described eye-rollingly as, “Misogyny at its best.” But no, misogyny at its best came in the wake of this docuseries, with Jeremy Clarkson of The Sun commenting on Meghan, “At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.” Demonstrably, Meghan must be doing something right to be seen as such a threat to pencil-dicked fuckfaces that likely believe “miscegenation” (as it was once derogatorily called) should still be illegal.
In the face of all this hate, Harry’s commitment not just to his wife, but to being an anti-misogynist and anti-racist (yes, he brings up that Nazi uniform “incident” from 2005 as one of the most shameful moments of his life) are what makes him stand apart not just from his own family members, but from most white men in general. And there’s no denying that Markle has been a key factor in motivating his education. Just another “thing” that catalyzed his outgrowing of the role he was “born to play”—second fiddle to big bro. But, like Charles before William, the latter didn’t much care for losing the limelight to someone who wasn’t heir apparent. Although William might have possessed some of Diana’s charisma in the past, it seems as though the second he lost his hair, there was a shift. He became stodgy, old guard. Granted, it is the indoctrination every royal is given to remain stoic and “neutral,” namely with regard to political matters. Meghan was never going to be able to do that, having spent her entire life being political, starting from the moment she wrote a letter at eleven years old to Procter & Gamble informing them that their soap ad was blatantly sexist. So yes, you might say standing up for what’s right has long been encoded in Meghan’s DNA (even if some of that DNA came from her sleazebag father).
With that in mind, another topic (of which there are many) tackled by the couple in this series is the reaction to the “race element” brought up during 2021’s Oprah with Meghan and Harry (a special title that leads one to wonder why the Netflix series isn’t called Meghan & Harry instead of Harry & Meghan). It was yet another example of Meghan thinking that speaking her truth and being candid about the reality of her harrowing few years as a royal would be a useful change of pace, but somehow managed to get contorted into something else. Even her volunteer work with the women who suffered displacement in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire was turned into her linking up with people with “ties to ISIS.” Needless to say, it’s ostensible that she can’t do anything right because she’s at the mercy of a largely white male media that has done things “a certain way” since time immemorial (in The Sun’s case, that means since 1964). So sure, Meghan being a “breath of fresh air” (to slowly choke out of her) was great for their front page, but never something the media cabal’s political leanings actually wanted for their precious Tory country.
All the better for Harry, who seems to have suffered his own version of Get Out (cue the famous photo of Diana whispering in Harry’s ear, perhaps something to the effect of, “Leave Britain as soon as you can”). For far more years than Meghan ever had to. And it is undeniably true that she did spare him a life of further imprisonment in that “institution” (one could say Wallis Simpson did the same for Edward VIII [an actual Nazi sympathizer, in contrast to Harry], the former being, like Meghan, a demonized American divorcee). Harry’s gratitude for Meghan throwing a wrench into his so-called Life Plan is most overt when he declares, “I genuinely feel that I and we are exactly where we’re supposed to be” (#CaliforniaLove).
After watching Harry & Meghan, any viewer with a romantic bone in their body will be inclined to feel the same (though it might be a stretch to fully agree with Meghan when she says, “Love wins”). Regardless of whether the documentary was shot in their real home or a “fake” one. But then, that’s been the jealousy-laden accusation against Harry and Meghan all along: that their love “can’t” be real. That everything about it is phony baloney, posturing, performance, etc. A sentiment so observably rooted in racism that it’s almost too predictable.
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