American Princess

by Leslie Carroll

  Meanwhile, Meghan continued to focus on her own profession. Far from permitting the fact that she was officially Harry’s girlfriend to affect her career, she seemed to be expanding her footprint.

  In November 2016, Meghan partnered with Reitmans department store in Toronto on a capsule line of workwear that might have come out of the closet of her Toronto-doubling-for-New-York-City paralegal Rachel Zane.

  Discussing the collaboration, Meghan told Canada’s National Post, “I didn’t come from a world where I had access to pieces that were incredibly high-quality and expensive. Rachel Zane’s wardrobe was a ‘dream wardrobe’ for me, and still is. Having pieces like that in my closet are pieces that I have worked really, really hard for. That’s not how I have lived my life. So for me, it has always been about high-low. The other day I put up a picture on Instagram, and everyone said ‘Oh my God, what are you wearing?’ And okay, yes, it was a Céline bag, but it was paired with Reitmans pants, Forever 21 sunglasses, and a scarf from Zara. It’s a hodgepodge because that’s how we live our lives.”

  Meghan can be sentimental about certain items in her closet—ones that represent milestones in her life. She experienced her “Cinderella moment” in fashion when she was fitted for a Miu Miu show. The blouse and bejeweled shoes she was given to wear are archivable treasures that she is saving for a hypothetical daughter to wear someday. And if she were stranded on that proverbial desert island, the one item of clothing she would bring with her would be the Girl Scout-o-saurus T-shirt she wore back in the days when her mom was the leader of Troop 949 in Southern California.

  When Meghan was growing up, she always headed for the department store sale rack, so she connects with shoppers who are as budget conscious as they are fashion conscious. Each of her Reitmans pieces—vegan leather pants, pencil skirt, turtleneck, bodysuit, blouse, and a faux cashmere scarf-shawl that Reitmans called a poncho—retailed for less than CAD100 (about USD78), and were personally modeled and touted by Meghan, who explained her aesthetic for the collection as “aspirational girl next door.” This is Meghan Markle, the accessible celebrity, saying, “You too can dress like me for an affordable price.”

  Although their respective calendars were jam-packed, Harry and Meghan were clearly making time for each other during every moment Meghan had a break in her shooting schedule. In December 2016, the couple was spotted leaving a West End theater after attending the London production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. They also shopped for a Christmas tree at London’s Pines and Needles.

  Little by little, Harry was introducing Meghan to his family. Rather than overwhelm them—or her—he would “try to track them down to make sure that they’re around when she’s popping in, without telling too many people.” In January 2017, Meghan spent time with Catherine and played with her daughter, Princess Charlotte. As William and Catherine live in Kensington Palace itself, just steps from Nottingham Cottage where Harry resides, unless royal engagements precluded, it was a fairly simple matter of logistics for Meghan to get to know the Cambridges. With each subsequent trip to the UK, Meghan had been bringing more of her belongings to London, so that by February, “Nott Cott,” as it’s nicknamed, was more or less her home away from home.

  Meghan came to know the senior royals and the other side of Harry’s family, the Spencers, as well as some of Diana’s friends, all of whom afforded her a deeper and fuller picture of her beau’s mother. The Windsors, whom Meghan referred to as “amazing,” were very welcoming, helping her, in Meghan’s words, to “feel not just a part of the institution [of the monarchy], but a part of the family—which is really special.” She was given solid support from the older generation, and Harry joked that “my grandparents have known [about us] for quite some time. How they haven’t told anyone is a miracle in itself.”

  In March, Meghan accompanied Harry to Montego Bay, Jamaica, for the destination wedding of his former Eton classmate Tom “Skippy” Inskip. In his youth, Tom had been just as wild as Harry. They got up to many of their antics together, some of which involved either public nudity or illicit substances. Now, decades later, Tom was settling down, and it looked as if an altar might be in Harry’s not-too-distant future as well.

  Candid photos of Harry and Meghan showed them relaxed and happy and unafraid to display their obvious affection, arms about each other’s waists, holding hands, gazing at each other, smiling, and laughing.

  That month, Meghan began filming her seventh season of Suits. As her relationship with Harry was clearly serious, Aaron Korsh, the show’s creator, had to consider what to do about Rachel Zane’s story line. Her character arc was intrinsically linked with that of her costar Patrick J. Adams, who played her love interest Mike Ross. Adams had already expressed interest in leaving the show; so it made sense for Korsh to orchestrate a double departure, writing an ending for both actors that would permit them to leave after the seventh season wrapped its shooting schedule in November 2017.

  Despite seven seasons in a principal role on a popular show, the fact that Meghan filmed in Toronto kept her pretty much under the radar for American television stars. Luckily for her, most paparazzi have no interest in slogging through a Canadian winter to log a photo of a brunette in a parka, or in dogging an actress who is not a huge household name as she discusses women’s menstrual cycles in Mumbai. Meghan had never done anything outrageous or vulgar; therefore she never became a tabloid darling. People who hadn’t seen her on Suits were largely unfamiliar with her work, either as an actress or as a humanitarian. So when the news broke of her royal engagement, there was a lot of “Meghan Who?” especially across the Atlantic.

  Consequently, Meghan’s relationship with Prince Harry thrust her into the public spotlight more than she’d ever been in all of her years on a highly successful TV series and in her philanthropic efforts combined; and she became the most Googled actress of both 2016 and 2017.

  In April 2017, Meghan posted a farewell on her lifestyle blog, which seemed a clue to her followers that she was downshifting her social media presence and refocusing her priorities.

  To all my Tig Friends

  After close to three beautiful years on this adventure with you, it’s time to say goodbye to The Tig. What began as a passion project (my little engine that could) evolved into an amazing community of inspiration, support, fun and frivolity. You made my days brighter and filled this experience with so much joy. Keep finding those Tig moments of discovery, keep laughing and taking risks, and keep being “the change you wish to see in the world.”

  Above all, don’t ever forget your worth—as I’ve told you time and time again: you, my sweet friend, are enough.

  Thank you for everything.

  Xx

  Meghan Markle

  As the royal family is notoriously tight-lipped, many took it as a sign that her romance with Harry was heating up and heading toward an engagement. However, there was a far less sunny side to the fairly swift shutdown of a project that had given Meghan so much happiness. After some of the press reportedly spun information that she had shared in her blog posts into ugly and inaccurate stories about her life, Meghan believed that she was left with no alternative but to take down The Tig.

  Whether Meghan had learned what didn’t work from her marriage to Trevor or whether the match simply wasn’t the right one for her—or a bit of both—she and Harry made the choice to invest the time and effort necessary to make a long-distance relationship work. Despite their heavy individual professional obligations and living in different time zones, Harry and Meghan made the commitment not to spend more than two or three weeks apart. Harry took several secret trips to visit Meghan while she was in Toronto, and she flew to Britain as often as the breaks in her shooting schedule permitted. Meghan routinely had four A.M. wake-up calls on a Monday after spending the weekend with Harry. She often had to rush off a red-eye and head straight from the tarmac in Toronto to the Suits set.

  In May, she returned to the UK to watch Harry play in tw
o polo matches in a single day. They were spotted kissing in a parking lot after he played in the Audi Polo Challenge at the Coworth Park Polo Club near Royal Ascot, a fundraiser for two of his charities: Sentebale and WellChild. The event marked Meghan’s society debut. Wearing a navy sheath dress and a white blazer, she watched the match beside the man often nicknamed “Harry’s second father”—Mark Dyer—a former equerry to Prince Charles, who was instrumental in helping Harry set up the Sentebale charity in Lesotho. Nevertheless, as reported in The Telegraph, one of the most conservative of London dailies, “Spectators were taken aback to see Miss Markle, who made her name as an actress on the hit US television drama Suits, in the royal box on Saturday.”

  And there you have it. An actress.

  KINGS AND PRINCES have notoriously taken the most famous actresses of their day as royal mistresses. Nell Gwyn was the only non-aristocrat of Charles II’s numerous long-term paramours, and the only one he never ennobled. In the eighteenth century, during the reign of George III, his heir George IV fell madly in love with comedienne Mary Robinson, when he was still the teenage Prince of Wales, and promised her a fortune to give up the stage and become his lover. His younger brother, the future William IV, had ten children with the comic actress Dora Jordan. They cohabited as a happy family for two decades before George IV, then king, demanded that William dump Dora and find a bride with royal blood.

  Precisely because George III’s sons were forming unacceptable alliances with unsuitable commoners without the king’s knowledge or consent, a law was passed to curtail the marital misbehavior of England’s princes. The Royal Marriages Act 1772 forbade any royal descendant of George II, male or female, except for the issue of princesses who had already married, or might eventually marry into foreign houses, to secure the permission of the sovereign before they wed.

  However, if a member of the royal family had been refused the monarch’s consent and was over the age of twenty-five, he or she could give notice to the Privy Council of his or her intention to wed the person denied to them by the sovereign; and then wait a full year to marry (which is what Elizabeth II’s sister Princess Margaret considered, with regard to Group Captain Peter Townsend)—unless both houses of Parliament had expressed their disapproval of the prospective spouse.

  Harry’s triple great-grandfather Edward VII, during his decades as Prince of Wales, and later as sovereign, numbered countless actresses and chorus girls among his conquests. But the Titian-tressed Lillie Langtry, the first official mistress of the already married “Edward the Caresser,” was one of the era’s great beauties. With his obvious influence, Edward helped Lillie become an international star.

  Nevertheless, all of these women were looked down on as royal inamoratas, and none would ever have been considered appropriate royal wives.

  AFTER THE POLO matches, Harry dashed away to attend his sister-in-law Pippa Middleton’s wedding ceremony to James Matthews, then drove down to London to pick up Meghan. They headed back to Pippa’s reception together. Pippa broke her strict “no ring/no bring” policy for her church wedding to make a special exception for Meghan, extending an invitation for her to attend the ceremony with Harry. But Meghan acknowledged that if she was seen entering the sanctuary with Harry, the spotlight would have been on the two of them, rather than being properly placed on the bride and groom. Instead of the headlines being about Pippa’s wedding, they would have focused on whether Harry and Meghan would be next down the aisle.

  With the perception that Meghan was curtailing her social media presence because she and Harry might be headed toward an engagement, all eyes were on their three-week African vacation in August 2017. After all, William had proposed to Catherine Middleton when they were in Africa, and there were several excellent reasons that Harry might do the same while he and Meghan were there. For starters, they would be celebrating Meghan’s thirty-sixth birthday on August 4. They would also be visiting Botswana, which has always been close to Harry’s heart, and which was where he and Meghan enjoyed their first romantic getaway. Two other idyllic adventures were planned: a safari and a spectacular helicopter ride over the 355-foot Victoria Falls on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia that was scheduled for August 21. Royal watchers checked their calendars and speculated whether Harry might take advantage of the outstanding view to unhook his safety harness and get down on one knee as they soared over Victoria Falls.

  When it didn’t happen, however, most of the optimists who were avidly keeping tabs on the couple still believed that it wasn’t a matter of if, but when.

  Their hunches were confirmed that the royal relationship was indeed on a very serious track when Harry introduced Meghan to his grandmother on September 3. Meghan and the prince had just returned from Botswana and Zambia when Harry decided that, with the senior royals in residence at Balmoral, it would be the perfect time to zip up to Aberdeenshire, as he’d yet to pay his granny a visit all summer.

  By all accounts, things went very well. “The Queen is remarkably open minded and she’s very tolerant,” said Sally Bedell Smith, who has written biographies of Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, and Diana, Princess of Wales. Her Majesty permitted William and Catherine Middleton to cohabit for years and had no complaint with Catherine’s middle-class roots. “The Queen just looked at who Kate was and that she was in love with her grandson, and that she knew how to conduct herself with dignity and discretion, and that was the most important thing. I would imagine that the Queen’s view of this would be: if they’re in love and they’re well suited, then they should proceed.”

  But if Harry had been Charles and Diana’s firstborn son, would the Queen have given him her permission to marry Meghan Markle?

  Has the monarchy come that far?

  Possibly. But probably not. The stakes are different—and lower—for Harry because he becomes sixth in line for the throne after Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge bears her third child.

  Before Meghan jetted off to Toronto again on September 10, she and Harry enjoyed a quiet dinner together to celebrate his thirty-third birthday a few days early.

  Harry credited their reversal of the typical courtship process to its success. Because he and Meghan were flying so much under the radar, they usually spent their time at home, staying in for meals, spending cozy nights in front of the television, or inviting friends over for dinner; visiting Harry’s family members for tea; and taking long country walks—instead of pub crawling or dining out all the time, where they would be constantly watched and photographed. It accelerated the process of their getting to know each other. “Slow down the dates and stay at home” became Harry’s advice to the lovelorn.

  He arrived in Toronto a few days before the opening of the 2017 Invictus Games and dropped by the set of Suits. Harry endeavored to maintain a low profile as Meghan showed him around the studio and the sets. As Harry met some of the crew and watched Meghan in action, he impressed everyone in his off-camera role of humble, proud boyfriend.

  Because it was now common knowledge that Meghan was Harry’s girlfriend, people expected her to be seen at the Invictus Games with him. It was only a matter of which events she might attend. That week, spectators and photographers played the equivalent of Where’s Waldo?, looking to spot Meghan Markle in or around the Air Canada Centre.

  The Games opened on the evening of September 23. Harry was in full Henry V mode as he spoke to a packed house inside the arena, rallying the troops who were about to participate in the competition:

  Invictus is about the example to the world that all service men and women—injured or not—provide about the importance of service and duty.

  The true scale of this example was brought home to me when I left Afghanistan after my first deployment there in 2008.

  As I was waiting to board the plane, the coffin of a Danish soldier was loaded on by his friends. Once on the flight I was confronted by three British soldiers, all in induced comas, with missing limbs, and wrapped in plastic. The way I viewed service and sacrifice changed fo
rever.

  And the direction of my life changed with it. I knew that it was my responsibility to use the great platform that I have to help the world understand and be inspired by the spirit of those who wear the uniform.

  In a world where so many have reasons to feel cynical and apathetic, I wanted to find a way for veterans to be a beacon of light, and show us all that we have a role to play; that we all win when we respect our friends, neighbors, and communities. That’s why we created Invictus. Not only to help veterans recover from their physical and mental wounds; but also to inspire people to follow their example of resilience, optimism, and service in their own lives. . . .

  Before I close I want to speak directly to the competitors. For the next week, we entrust you with the Invictus spirit. . . . Some of you have overcome emotional challenges that until very recently would have seen you written off and ignored. And now you are here. On the world stage. Flags on your chests. Representing your countries again. Supporting your teammates. And looking up into the stands, and into the eyes of your friends and families. You are all winners. Please don’t forget to love every second of it.

  Don’t forget about our friends who didn’t come home from the battlefield. Don’t forget those at home who still need our support.

  And don’t forget that you are proving to the world that anything is possible.

  As one of the organizers, Harry was seated amid the foreign dignitaries during the opening night of the Games. But he couldn’t keep his eyes off Meghan, sitting in the adjacent section, four rows below, and looking very autumnal in her usual combination of affordable and upmarket street style—a $690 oxblood leather jacket from Mackage over an Aritzia burgundy dress that retailed for $185. Seated beside her was a close friend, Markus Anderson, the bearded publicity director of the Soho House membership clubs. Harry and Meghan had attended a Halloween party at the Toronto club in 2016.