Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are getting married in 5 days. After this, we won’t be seeing a major senior royal wedding in a while. Big G, Charlotte, and Trey Louis are tiny. It’ll be years before it’s their time. And, yes, while Princess Eugenie’s wedding is happening later in the fall, it certainly won’t approach the spectacle of what we’re about to get on Saturday in Windsor. In the weeks leading up to the event, Harry and Meghan have gone underground, so as to preserve the specialness of the big reveal on wedding day. Her rogue family members, however, continue to make headlines.
As you may have seen, Thomas Markle, Meghan’s dad, was photographed several times last week – at an internet café with Harry and Meghan’s photo on the computer screen, running errands, and even dropping off flowers at Doria Ragland’s (Meghan’s mother) place. The British papers published those pictures and then, this weekend, the British papers turned around and exposed how those pictures came to be – not that it wasn’t obvious: it was a coordinated paparazzi set-up.
Now Samantha Markle, Meghan’s half-sister, is admitting that she was the one who arranged it all:
All this on top of the fact that Thomas Markle Jr, Meghan’s half-brother, wrote two open letters to Prince Harry recently, first imploring him not to marry Meghan and later apologising for the initial letter and begging to be invited to the wedding. Now Tom Jr is saying that his father is “deeply embarrassed” about the pap photos and that he will apologise in person to Meghan and Harry when he gets to England. He also insists that they meant no harm and that, “People are quick to judge but they have no idea how much scrutiny we live under”.
Dude! You’re only under this much scrutiny because you will not get the f-ck out of the spotlight! Samantha Markle has been hired as a commentator by a British broadcast on wedding day! At this point, seriously, is there anyone who actually thinks that Meghan Markle has done her family dirty?
There’s also the issue that this has played out on the front pages of the British tabloids, publications that for months have been dog-whistling about whether or not she was suitable to marry into the most aristocratic family in England, using coded language to describe her racial background and continuing to foment the racial divide that has already been an issue in the UK.
As we’ve seen, William and Harry already have a testy relationship with the press, particularly the British press. It’s one thing for Meghan’s family to go rogue. It’s another to give them a platform. This is going into his burn book for sure. The more she’s attacked, and the more he sees that the media can be blamed for it, the more protective he gets. You saw what happened when he launched his Love Shield 18 months ago. And you saw what happened when Will wasn’t happy with how Kate was being treated. They see their mother in all of this and they dig their heels in even deeper.
