By Sheila Mckenzie-
Meghan Markle may have wanted to depart the royal family because of sexist and racist comments in the press, according to royal staffers.
Following interviews of some of meghan’s staff by the media, the Duchess of Sussex appeared to want to be rejected from the royal family because they perceived the royal family to have been silent in its criticism of sexist and racist press coverage.
No specific examples were given, but allegations of racist press coverage have been widespread in many circles.
According to reports, Meghan Markle was always always seeking clarification about one matter or the other from the royal press team, which were never forthcoming.
One source stated: ‘The way I see it, their view of not getting institutional support was that they were not getting permission to blow up the [royal] institution’s relationships with the media.’
This view fails to address the allegations of sexist and racist media coverage, which many of meghan’s critics believe to be inaccurate,
However, there has been evidenc eof some racism against Meghan markle in the media.
In June, 2021, Julie Burchill, a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, was fired for a racist tweet, shortly after the birth of their second child, Lilibet.
After the Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed that they’d named their daughter Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor on Sunday, Burchill tweeted out, “What a missed opportunity! They could’ve called it Georgina Floydina!”
If Meghan Markle disagreed with the press reports, then it is impossible to fully accoiunt for the bitter feeling she endured in that respect. In that light, claims thatshe never really wanted to be accepted by the Royal Family may not be accurate.
The Sussexes’ private secretary Sam Cohen told two key courtiers — the private secretaries to both Prince Charles and the Queen — that if it all went wrong with Harry and Meghan, the palace needed evidence of the duty of care the institution had shown them.
The ‘duty of care’ was crucial: ‘[Sam] was a broken record with them on that,’ said a source.
By the time Meghan gave her interview to Oprah Winfrey, however, the palace had lost the argument over duty of care.
”It also stung that Meghan had been dubbed Duchess Difficult because of the high staff turnover in their household, Valentine Low reports for The DailyMailOnline.
”The duchess had hijacked the narrative by making it all about her mental health, which meant everything the palace had done to support the couple — including giving them a team who’d have done anything to help them succeed — was simply forgotten”, she writes.
”Instead, the duchess was able to point out all the times that the organisation had failed her.
”One of them was when she went to the palace’s head of HR in January 2019, saying she needed to get help with her mental health issues. She was given a sympathetic hearing but sent on her way, as was inevitable: HR is there to deal with employee issues, not members of the Royal Family.
”Meghan would presumably have known that, so what was she doing there in the first place? Laying a trail of evidence would be the cynical answer. So desperate that she did not know where to turn would be the more charitable interpretation.
In the Oprah interview, Meghan also made the startling claim that she went to one of the ‘most senior people,’ saying she needed to go somewhere to get help — only to be told it wouldn’t be ‘good for the institution’.
”Would anyone really say that to a pregnant woman?”Ms Low asks.
Until one hears from the other person in the room, it’s difficult to know what to make of this. Why that ”’other person” has still not been identified and questioned is unknown in a matter being investigated by the press and royal authours.
Low asks good questions as to why prince harry and his wife were unable to seek help for her mental health isssues from the established professionals the couple knew who would have beene xpected to help them.
The renowned journalist says that in 2016, Harry had devoted much of his energy to Heads Together, a campaign he had launched with William and Kate to try to persuade people to overcome the stigma surrounding mental health.
She makes reference to a situation in which Prince harry states that he tried ti seek help himself after suffering his own mental crisis. Could he not have helped his wife do likewise?
Valetnine Low says Prince Harry must have met scores of people through Heads Together who could have offered help and support. As one well-informed source said: ‘He would have known exactly where to turn, who to call, what to do.’
Valentine low atatcks the credibility of claims from meghan markle that she never saw her passport when she joined the royal family.
”One of the moments that is glaringly misleading is when Meghan tells Oprah: ‘When I joined that family, that was the last time . . . that I saw my passport, my driver’s licence, my keys. All that gets turned over. I didn’t see any of that any more.’
”In the first six months of her marriage, there had been foreign holidays in Italy, Canada and Amsterdam, to say nothing of the couple’s honeymoon. Then in 2019, Meghan visited Ibiza, France, Italy and New York (twice). It would have been a challenge to do all those trips without a passport”.
This specukation provides no certainty fio what the facts ofr the matter is in this regard. Could somebody have been handling meghan’s passport throughout her trips? What could Meghan Markle have meant by that statement, and even if it were true, this is unhelpful without establishing the reasons such policy was stipulated to her, and under what arrangements.
The unabswered question is how much more efforts both Meghan Markle and the royal family could have made to manage the stressful relationships and work out a harmonious relationship in the palace.