Meghan herself had some serious commercial decisions to make. It wasn’t about money or self-promotion. Her blog, The Tig, had meant the world to her. It was her baby. She had watched it grow from a modest one-woman show to a brand that represented her very civilized, refined, yet adventurous view of life. It was aspirational and frothily feminine but always with a serious point, be it about gender equality or human rights. The Tig was, as she always said, the little engine that could. Now she realized that her blog couldn’t go on as it had in the past as long as she remained within the royal orbit. Her pictures, comments, recommendations, and thoughts would be taken out of context and associated with Prince Harry or the royal family or both. She was no longer Meghan the blogger; she was one half of a partnership in which the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with was fifth (now sixth) in line to the throne. Different rules applied. For all her protestations and doubts, she conceded that if she was going to go forward with her prince, at some point she would have to severely modify the contents of The Tig.
This was to be her first major reality check, running a blog and dating a royal. If matters became more formal, in the shape of an engagement ring, then she would have to rethink the entire existence of her social media platforms. A friend said: “She’s trying to figure out how to scale back what she puts out there about her life, including her social media and website. If she had to leave all that she’s doing for the relationship to work, she would without hesitation.”
But it was much harder than it sounded. In January 2017, for instance, with her Global Ambassador hat on, she flew to India on behalf of World Vision Canada. The five-day visit was intended to focus on child poverty and specifically on why teenage girls from “slum communities” dropped out of school. The answer partly lay in the fact that when girls at school begin menstruating there are no facilities in the local schools to help them cope with this perfectly natural change in their bodies. Ashamed, they stay away from school. It is a hidden issue, one that Meghan felt could be easily solved with the proper use of resources. She felt comfortable taking on these issues, telling an audience in Atlanta before she left that humanitarian work made her life feel more “balanced.” Her newfound international celebrity enabled her views to find a wider audience, and her essay on her visit to Delhi and Mumbai to discover why periods affected the potential of millions of teenage girls appeared in the March edition of Time magazine.
Her humanitarian work was a ticklish issue, though. While the palace may not have objected in principle to the causes she espoused, they were not undertaken under the umbrella of the royal family. In short, she was acting as a freelance operation within the corporate royal “firm.”
There was bound to be a conflict at some point. In her own mind Meghan had to square the intellectual and emotional circle. The Tig was designed to empower women and encourage gender equality. Yet she accepted that the mushrooming interest in her blog and Instagram had little to do with her work on Suits and more with the fact that she was dating a man who was in his position of authority and influence simply by dint of birth. The irony was not lost on Meghan. She is no fool, realizing that in the long run her association with Prince Harry would ultimately give her a megaphone with which to articulate the issues that she held dear. The price was giving up her baby. In early March 2017 she said a sad farewell to her thousands of Tig followers:
“After close to three beautiful years on this adventure with you, it’s time to say goodbye to The Tig,” she wrote. “What began as a passion project (my little engine that could) evolved into an amazing community of inspiration, support, fun and frivolity. Keep finding those Tig moments of discovery, keep laughing and taking risks, and keep being ‘the change you wish to see in the world.’”
Her Instagram, which had 1.9 million followers, went the same way. One fan, Jennifer Oakes, wrote: “Never mind the people who would see you remain single forever, with marriage comes sacrifice (both sides).”
Not everyone was so understanding. Shortly before she closed down her popular and influential website, her half sister Samantha launched another broadside: “There is so much more to focus on in the world than shoes and handbags,” she tweeted. “Meghan Markle needs to practice what she preaches or change her speeches.” Samantha’s belated criticism, just as the site was about to close, indicated how out of the family loop she was.
Within days of kissing a fond farewell to her online community, Meghan was given a classic lesson about life in the royal goldfish bowl. In early March, Harry and Meghan made their separate ways to Jamaica for the three-day wedding festivities of his close friend Tom “Skippy” Inskip and literary agent Laura Hughes-Young.
Harry met Meghan at the airport and drove her to the exclusive Round Hill Hotel at Montego Bay, where they were booked into a $7,000-a-night villa. They changed into their swimwear, Harry sporting a pair of green swim trunks, Meghan a dark blue bikini topped off with her trademark white fedora. They kissed and cuddled as they paddled in the warm Caribbean water. Suddenly Harry’s mood turned dark. It was nothing to do with Meghan. It was the presence of paparazzi, their long lenses focused on the couple. Even Meghan’s consoling arm around his shoulders did little to calm him down. Although the British media did not publish the offending pictures, several European magazines and websites had no such qualms.
The prince complained first to the Daily Mail online for using the pictures and then, when they did not delete them from their website, made a formal complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. In May the committee found in the prince’s favor, stating: “The Committee found that the complainant had been photographed in circumstances in which he had a reasonable expectation of privacy. He had not consented to the images’ publication, and Mail Online had not sought to justify their publication in the public interest.” They ordered the online newspaper to prominently display the ruling for at least twenty-four hours.
Following his media spat, the next day Harry was one of fourteen ushers for the wedding in the Hopewell Baptist Church. He was in a jauntier mood, and Meghan, who wore a patterned floral $2,000 Erdem dress, was noticeably affectionate and loving throughout the ceremony.
Pastor Conrad Thomas, who conducted the service, said afterward: “Harry and Meghan held hands and I will never forget their radiant smiles. They looked so happy together. I told him ‘It’s your turn next, sir.’”
At the evening reception, guests including the Duchess of York and her daughter Princess Eugenie, feasted on jerk chicken and lobster washed down by rum cocktails and champagne. Unfortunately, Harry knocked over a tray of drinks as he did a “Michael Jackson moonwalk” on the dance floor.
“He was going backwards as ‘Billie Jean’ blared out when he banged into a waitress carrying a tray of drinks and sent them flying” said an onlooker. “Harry gasped, looked shocked and put his hands on the waitress’s shoulders and apologized.”
It was a temporary blip in an evening of drinking, dancing, and jollity. Meghan and Harry were on the dance floor or in each other’s arms—or both. Love was definitely in the air.
After the raucous party, Harry took Meghan to the exclusive Caves Hotel in Negril for three precious days alone. Afterward, their long-distance commute continued, Meghan flying back to Toronto but returning to London a week later. Her absences from Canada were now so frequent that she had to hire a dog sitter to look after Bogart and Guy.
That said, soon it was Harry’s turn to arrive on her doorstep, spending Easter at her home. He had other reasons for being in the city—in September the Invictus Games were due to take place, and he had many meetings to attend and numerous agendas to go through. Top of the list on his personal agenda was a firm decision for Meghan to be by his side at some point during the games. Veteran reporter Phil Dampier quoted a royal source as saying: “Harry wants everything out in the open and for the days of skulking around avoiding photographers to be over. He wants to show Meghan off as his future wife and the Games, which he has put h
is heart and soul into, will be the perfect platform to do that.” Dampler was on the money.
At long last, after nearly two unconventional years of courtship, four months in private, the rest in public, the romance between Harry and Meghan hit a traditional groove. Meghan drove to Coworth Park near Berkshire on May 6 to watch her boyfriend play polo. It is something of a royal rite of passage. Some of the best—and most affectionate—photographs ever taken of Princess Diana were when she attended polo matches involving Prince Charles. Kate Middleton, too, was always keenly on point when Prince William got in the saddle. It was no different when Meghan, who was accompanied by Mark Dyer and his wife, Amanda, arrived at the ground. She dutifully clapped and smiled as she followed the back and forth of this most un-spectator-friendly of sports. Fellow attendees at the charity match, which raised funds for Sentebale and another of Harry’s charities, WellChild, included Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne, former ballerina Darcey Bussell, and actor Matt Smith, who plays Prince Philip in the hit Netflix series The Crown.
Harry made them all wait. But it would be worth it. The following day, after playing in a match with Prince William, Harry gave the cameramen what they wanted—he kissed Meghan in the parking lot. Game on.
Once again Meghan flew home, only to return just a week later to attend Pippa Middleton’s wedding to financier James Matthews on May 20. So as not to overshadow the bride’s big day, Meghan stayed away from the wedding ceremony at St. Mark’s Church in the village of Englefield, Berkshire. After the service, Harry drove back to London to pick her up and then took her to the reception at the Middleton family home in the nearby village of Bucklebury.
The evidence had been piling up all year, and by now it was clear that it was only a matter of time before she was walking down the aisle herself to marry her royal prince. An informal strategy was emerging to clear the way for their own announcement. It had started with the closure Meghan’s various social media sites, including The Tig and her Instagram account, continued with the decision to involve Meghan with the Invictus Games and, of course, followed by that kiss at the polo match. These days when she arrived at Heathrow Airport, often as not Harry was waiting on the tarmac and was able to whisk her through the VIP mini terminal. So when Meghan attended a Suits convention in Austin, Texas, though she dodged questions about her future, most of her fans reluctantly concluded that this season would probably be her last. When Meghan admitted that the sex scenes she had done in the past seemed “weird now,” it appeared as if the writing was on the wall for her character, Rachel Zane.
A couple of weeks later, in mid-July, Meghan opened the door of her Toronto home and greeted Sam Kashner, the best-selling biographer of Furious Love, his dissection of another power couple, actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. From that moment he arrived at her front door, bookies no longer needed to take bets on a royal marriage. The bespectacled scribe was there on behalf of Vanity Fair magazine not only to savor the pasta she had bought specially from the fashionable Italian deli Terroni, but to imbibe her life.
It was an extraordinary development. Traditionally royal brides- to-be are Sphinxlike, blushing furiously, ducking away from photographers, smiling politely but not saying a word. It is the uniting thread that links Lady Diana Spencer, Sarah Ferguson, Sophie Rhys-Jones, and Catherine Middleton. They know the consequences. In the days when Diana’s sister Sarah was dating Prince Charles, she was cast into the outer darkness the moment she chatted to royal correspondent James Whitaker about her relationship.
For Meghan to be giving an interview before any engagement announcement was a royal first, all the more so as she would not have gone ahead without the agreement of Prince Harry; his private secretary, Edward Lane Fox; and their communications director, Jason Knauf. Nor was she making anodyne remarks about fashion and Suits with the odd aside about her royal romance. No, Meghan was telling her true story—in her own words. She was emphatic, no dithering around the issue.
“We’re a couple,” she told Kashner. “We’re in love. I’m sure that there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time. This is for us. It’s part of what makes it so special, that it’s just ours. But we’re happy. Personally, I love a great love story.”
Just so he got the point she emphasized: “We’re two people who are really happy and in love.”
There was one troubling sentence amid the startlingly open declaration of love and commitment: “I’m still the same person that I am, and I’ve never defined myself by my relationship.” Perhaps not in the past. But certainly, in her future. Vanity Fair would not have given her a prized cover with the boldface headline SHE’S JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY if she had been simply an actor on a midrange TV drama. The clue was in the title. His title. Whether or not she wanted to embrace the idea, in the future her considerable influence, her ability to make the change, will rest on something she has keenly fought against, namely women gaining power not through their own endeavors but because of whom they marry.
That was a conundrum to ponder another day. For the moment she was going to Botswana, where the internet signal was weak, as she and Harry celebrated her thirty-sixth birthday. The prince was so happy to be returning to his second home that he even gave a thumbs-up to waiting photographers when he was reunited with Meghan at the airport. His gesture sent the media rumor mill churning. Journalists did not know that Meghan and Harry had already visited Botswana, and as William had proposed to Kate in Kenya in 2010, the obvious conclusion was that, during this trip, Harry would get down on one knee. The vacation was romantic enough. The couple once again stayed at the Meno a Kwena camp before driving their rental car on the eight-hour journey to Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world.
During their visit they stayed at the privately owned Tongabezi Lodge by the Zambesi River, where they were enticed with sunset cruises, romantic sampan (a type of flat-bottomed boat) dinners, and early morning game drives. They even had their own valet to cater for their every whim.
At the end of the holiday, though speculation was at fever pitch about a royal engagement, Meghan made herself scarce when Princes William and Harry together with the Duchess of Cambridge marked the twentieth anniversary of Diana’s death with a visit to the White Garden at Kensington Palace, which had been specially planted with her favorite flowers. They then met representatives of charities supported by the late princess.
The drumbeat of marital speculation grew ever louder, especially when it was learned that in early September Meghan had returned the Audi she leased while living in Toronto, innocently stating that she was “moving to London in November.”
The critical test was the Invictus Games, which began in her adopted city, Toronto, on September 23. Harry’s own baby had grown into a mini-Olympics featuring 550 competitors from seventeen countries taking part in twelve sports. It was hardly surprising when he chose that week for Meghan to make her debut on the world stage as a potential royal bride. Just before the Games began, Harry visited the set of Suits with Meghan, who introduced him to her costars, the scriptwriters, and the crew.
“Meghan showed him around and everyone was so excited. He’s incredibly supportive of her work,” a member of the cast was quoted as saying.
At the opening ceremony in the Air Canada Centre, Harry sat with First Lady Melania Trump, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, and Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko. As was widely anticipated, Meghan was in the crowd accompanied by her Canadian-born friend Markus Anderson, who had previously been so instrumental in helping arrange Meghan and Harry’s first date. Wearing a purple dress and matching leather jacket slung over her shoulders, Meghan seemed comfortable and relaxed. Though she was not in the VIP section, the presence of a Scotland Yard bodyguard sitting near her was a sign that her days on the outside were numbered.
She listened intently as Harry told the audience of competitors, their friend
s and families: “You are all winners, and don’t forget that you are proving to the world that anything is possible.”
As Toronto sweltered in a heat wave with temperatures nudging 35°C (95°F), the burning question was when would they be seen together. It was hot topic number one.
Two days after the opening ceremony, a posse of photographers who were snapping the wheelchair tennis match between Australia and New Zealand were approached by a Kensington Palace press officer.
Without naming Harry or Meghan, she whispered to them: “When they arrive, stay in your seats and don’t move out of them. If you do, they will leave.”
A few minutes later the waiting press pack watched in disbelief as, hand in hand, Meghan and Harry walked in to Nathan Phillips Square and sat down at the side of the court. In the choreography of their romance, this was a showstopper. They laughed and joked, stroked each other’s arms, whispered sweet nothings and chatted to the families and friends of the competitors. When Meghan was handed a bottle of water, Harry advised her to put it on the floor and not drink it in view of the cameras. Pictures of celebrities drinking can look awkward and clumsy.
Meghan had her own agenda. Instinctively attuned to the semiology of fashion, it was entirely deliberate that she teamed her ripped blue jeans with a loose-fitting shirt designed by her great friend Misha Nonoo and called “the husband shirt.” Naturally, the white shirt, which Meghan had once described on her blog as “my very favorite button down” sold out within minutes. That her handbag was made by the ethical brand Everlane also sent out a message: what she wore mattered.
One of the few sour notes was when Meghan’s half sister Samantha tweeted: “It’s a shame that Prince Harry’s girlfriend Meghan Markle is embarrassed by her sister in a wheelchair.”
Though Meghan’s half sister may not have agreed, no one was going to rain on this parade.
The enthusiastic crowd enjoyed another sideshow with the arrival of former president Barack Obama along with former vice president Joe Biden and his wife, Jill. The former world leaders were mobbed by cheering spectators as word spread of their arrival. Harry and his American guests looked totally relaxed as they cracked jokes and posed for selfies with members of the crowd.
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