by Omid Scobie
While her siblings’ falsehoods were upsetting, even more disheartening was the press that willingly published them without checking the facts. The usual negativity was to have been expected when she began dating Harry, but now that they were engaged, the couple hoped the media would be more diligent. And yet, the criticism continued, with stories published based on preconceived notions, erroneous assumptions, and overblown claims from estranged family members.
A classic example was what happened with the royal family pheasant shoot that took place on Boxing Day, a British holiday on December 26.
Although Harry and his brother grew up shooting, the younger prince missed the annual Boxing Day shoot on his first Christmas at Sandringham with Meghan. Some newspapers criticized Meghan, suggesting she had prohibited Harry from the longtime family tradition. The papers describe her as a vegan and an animal rights activist who put down her foot by refusing to let him go. In fact, none of that was true; Meghan was not a vegan, nor had she banned Harry from the hunt.
Meghan, who had wooed Harry with a Sunday roast and received her marriage proposal while cooking a chicken, was frustrated by the absurdity. “These ridiculous stories about family traditions are such bull,” a trusted source said. “She does every single thing that everyone else does. She loves tradition.”
The truth was that Harry and Meghan had returned to London early, because Harry had agreed to serve as a guest host and editor of the BBC Radio’s flagship Today program, for which he had already recorded an interview with Barack Obama, the president’s first since leaving office.
In the piece, Harry and Obama covered serious and heartfelt topics, such as the excessive use of social media and the power that people in positions of authority in government wield—for good or for bad.
While Harry loathed large portions of the media, he understood that certain outlets could be useful when one of the issues he cared about passionately needed a boost. The prince had conducted the interview with President Obama during the Invictus Games at the tail end of his presidency but had decided to hold it. But the conversation remained topical and on point, and Harry proved that all those years on the other side of the camera made him an adept interviewer, breaking news with his exclusive. The president made a veiled reference to Donald Trump without mentioning him by name, cautioning that excessive use of social media could be harmful by people holding positions of authority in government. He shared how he missed the work but felt serene despite the unfinished business and enjoyed being able to spend more time with his wife and family and set his own schedule.
There was also a funnier side to the interview, when Harry introduced a lightning round during which listeners learned Barack Obama preferred Aretha Franklin over Tina Turner and the Queen to the band Queen.
“Great answer,” Harry said, laughing.
President Obama came ready to play. After declining to answer the question “Boxers or briefs?” when Harry followed with, “William or Harry?” the president had a quick comeback: “William right now!”
For the December 27 radio show, the prince also featured another important guest: the Prince of Wales, his father.
Listeners were treated to a rare insight into the more tender side of Harry’s relationship with his father, which had been prerecorded.
“What I’ve tried to do all these years is to make sure that I can ensure that you and that your children, my grandchildren, also everyone else’s grandchildren, have a world fit to live in,” the future king said.
“I totally see it and I totally understand it because of all these years of conversations that we’ve been having. I do end up picking your brains more now than I ever have done,” Harry replied.
“Well, darling boy, it makes me very proud to think that you understand,” he said.
“That I’m listening?” Harry joked.
“Well, that’s even more amazing,” Charles said.
In addition to interviewing President Obama and his father, Harry offered his analysis on Meghan’s first royal Christmas, which he called “fantastic.”
“We’ve got one of the biggest families I know, and every family is complex,” he said. “She has done an absolutely amazing job, just getting in there. And it’s the family, I suppose, that she’s never had.”
With his statement about the family “she’s never had,” the prince added fuel to the extended Markle clan’s anger and feeling of insignificance now that Meghan had entered a totally different realm of society. Harry’s comment only heightened the already tenuous family dynamic and foreshadowed what was to come.
If Meghan was concerned about the controversy Harry sparked with his comment, she didn’t have much time to worry, since the tabloids soon moved on to her alleged missteps in protocol during the couple’s first joint visit to Wales on January 18. Rather than focus on the way she encouraged an especially shy little girl to join the others in their dance routine at the Star Hub community center in Cardiff or how eagerly the children rushed to envelop her in a group hug or even the boon she gave to Welsh brand Hiut Denim by wearing their black, high-waisted skinny Dina style jeans, a number of articles noted that the couple arrived to the event at Cardiff Castle more than an hour late. Missing from numerous of the reports was the fact that the Great Western Railway train from London’s Paddington Station to Cardiff Central, also used by members of the public, had been delayed through no fault of their own.
Among her other “wrongdoings,” according to reports, were that she walked ahead of Harry at one point, high-fived a fan, and gave one little girl a personalized autograph complete with both a heart and a smiley face. (The “autograph” was actually a tactful Meghan dodging the favor by writing the young girl’s name instead, since signing one’s name as a royal was a no-no.)
“Why let facts get in the way of a story,” a Kensington Palace aide complained that night.
That same day, Harry took Meghan an hour outside of Cardiff to meet Tiggy Pettifer at her Glanusk Estate home, a six-thousand-acre spread on the River Usk. Tiggy had been Harry’s childhood nanny starting in 1993 and a rock for the brothers when Diana died in 1997—she once called the boys “my babies.” A strong character, she ruffled feathers at the Palace by letting the boys live as normal a childhood as possible after their mother’s death. For example, she once let the young princes rappel down a fifty-meter dam without helmets. Staff at St. James’s Palace were so horrified at her carefree attitude that they launched an inquiry, but because the boys adored their nanny so deeply, nothing ever came of it. She resigned in 1999 but had remained in close contact with William and Harry ever since. “Harry was excited to introduce Meghan to Tiggy,” a source said. “She’s one of the most important women from his childhood, so to bring Meghan, the most important woman in his adult life, to meet her was important to him. He knew they would get along splendidly—and they did.”
Publicly, though, Meghan continued to get pummeled with criticism. On February 1, she was lambasted for wearing pants to the Endeavour Fund Awards, an evening recognizing the achievements of injured veterans and a cause close to former soldier Harry’s heart. Never mind that Princess Diana famously wore a similar tuxedo-style look or that the Duchess of Cambridge wore trousers and a blazer to greet families at a pre-holiday engagement in Cyprus. In her sophisticated Alexander McQueen separates, Meghan deftly handled a mix-up when she and her co-presenter were left holding the wrong notes. The crowd laughed along with her. It was a moment that would have flummoxed a less-seasoned public figure.
As much as Meghan tried to ignore the constant barrage, a source close to her said, “It’s hard to balance being yourself and overthinking every move in order not to be criticized.”
It wasn’t just the attacks in the press that Harry and Meghan had to worry about. Once the pair went public, hate mail aimed at Meghan arrived almost daily to the Palace where officials were overwhelmed by threats made from multiple sources, via post, through the Palace’s official email, and social media.
A good friend of Meghan’s called her Grace Under Fire, because despite whatever pressure she was under, she didn’t fall apart.
“She knows how to work hard,” the close confidant said. “That’s not something that scares her off or intimidates her.” And, the source added, “No subject is too upsetting or uncomfortable for her when you are her friend.”
Which was why Meghan was so wounded when her oldest, lifelong friend, Ninaki Priddy, joined the chorus of critics and those willing to cash in on their relationship. The two had known each other since elementary school, when they did everything together—sleepovers, birthday parties—and then attended the same Catholic middle school, Immaculate Heart, as eleven-year-olds. Both children of divorced parents, they established a trust so deep that they thought of each other as sisters. They confided all their secrets in each other and celebrated important milestones—such as Meghan’s first wedding to Trevor, where Ninaki served as Meghan’s maid of honor.
In the Daily Mail, Ninaki not only sold many very personal photos of childhood memories (including birthday parties, vacations, and prom) but also leveled a series of harsh accusations at the woman she had known since they were both five years old.
Describing Meghan’s first husband, Trevor, as having “the rug pulled out from under him,” Ninaki, who still remains in contact with the director, said, “Once she decides you’re not a part of her life, she can be very cold. It’s this shutdown mechanism she has. There’s nothing to negotiate, she’s made her decision and that’s it.”
While it’s true that at the time of their divorce Trevor told pals he was blindsided, many of Meghan’s close friends had been anticipating the split for some time, because she told them about the problems she had been having in her marriage. Ninaki was accurate that Meghan was not an arguer. She avoided confrontation. “With Meghan, if you’ve done her wrong, she’ll probably decide to quietly move on without saying a word,” a friend said. Instead of fighting with people, she’s more likely to ice them out.
But the tabloid article went much further than pointing out Meghan’s aversion to conflict, maliciously painting her as a conniving social climber who had had her sights on snagging a prince ever since she was in high school. Having provided a photo of a fifteen-year-old Meghan in front of Buckingham Palace from a trip they took together to Europe, Ninaki said she wasn’t “shocked at all” by the news of her old classmate’s royal engagement. “It’s like she has been planning this all her life,” she said. “She was always fascinated by the royal family. She wants to be Princess Diana 2.0.”
It was a type of betrayal Palace aides had seen over and over to any woman that marries into royalty. “When money is on the table, people will say anything to get more of it,” a close aide commented. “I’ve seen it happen over and over for years.”
The mother of another school friend gave a similarly outlandish story to a tabloid, claiming Meghan was “obsessed” with Princess Diana, William, and Harry from an early age. Sonia Ardakani said she gave a copy of Andrew Morton’s biography Diana: Her True Story to a teenage Meghan, who also supposedly watched videos of Diana’s 1981 wedding with her daughter Suzy. Sonia, who called Meghan “a beautiful person with a big heart,” also told the Daily Mail that her daughter’s friend “had sharp elbows. The thing I really admired about her is that she would fight, tooth and nail for the things she wanted in life . . . and Meghan always got what she wanted.”
For those who followed these things closely, the comments by old friends and acquaintances appeared to purposefully contradict those made by Meghan in her BBC engagement interview.
“While I now understand very clearly there is a global interest there, I didn’t know much about him,” Meghan said about Harry before the two were fixed up. “I think for both of us, though, it was really refreshing because given that I didn’t know a lot about him, everything that I have learned about him, I learned through him as opposed to having grown up around different news stories or tabloids, whatever else. Anything I learned about him and his family was what he would share with me, and vice versa. So for both of us it was a very authentic and organic way to get to know each other.”
It had been Meghan’s choice to take on the good and the bad of marrying a prince. Behind the scenes, though, she admitted to being “hurt and disappointed” by her old friend’s betrayal. Even though she and Ninaki had drifted apart following her divorce from Trevor, she never expected to see her childhood friend raking her over the coals in a tabloid. When the Palace began advising her, a senior aide did warn her. “If there is anyone who has a story on you or is mad at you, expect them to be exploited by the press, which will buy their story,” he said, telling Meghan, “If there is anything, please tell me so I can be one step ahead.”
Part of what helped Meghan get through this difficult time was her faith. “Her relationship with God and with her church is extremely important to her,” a close friend said. “That’s something most people do not know about her. It plays a central role in her life, as an individual, as a woman.”
While Meghan was raised with an awareness of God, her family wasn’t particularly religious. She attended Catholic school, but that was for educational, not religious, reasons. Her mother, who had been brought up Protestant, was spiritual, picking and choosing elements of different religions, including Buddhism, that she found inspiring. Thomas had been an altar boy at the age of twelve and a confirmed member of the Episcopal Church at fourteen. Although he regularly attended services as a child at the Church of the Nativity in his hometown of Newport, Pennsylvania, as an adult he didn’t go to church often. According to her father, Meghan was not christened as a child because he and Doria did not share the same beliefs. They agreed to let her discover her faith for herself. While Meghan was growing up, religion “was not pushed on her,” a family friend said.
“Her relationship with God, her spirituality, is born out of her own individual experience,” said the friend, who has often prayed with Meghan. “When I talk about her faith being a big part of her life, it’s her faith in God. It’s her faith in her family. Her faith in the people closest to her.”
At Northwestern, one of her best friends came from a Christian family. The two would often pray together while at school. After she graduated, Meghan spent many holidays with her friend’s family.
Prayer turned out to be an important tool for Meghan as she faced life’s challenges. She used to gather the cast and crew of Suits for a prayer circle before starting work. Her invocations on set were never about a specific theology. Instead, she wanted to bring everyone together during moments of transition or difficulty.
“It’s prayer and conversations with God that have gotten her through the darkest moments,” a source said. “That’s something that plays a significant role in her life and her relationship with Harry. The two have been on a journey of faith together.”
Before marrying Harry, Meghan chose to be baptized into the Church of England, though she did not need to become an Anglican before marrying him. “This was her choice and a step forward on her own spiritual journey,” a friend said. “There was no pressure on her to do this. While she could have done it after the wedding in her own time, Meghan wanted to be baptized before marrying Harry at St. George’s Chapel ‘out of respect to the Queen.’ ”
The intimate forty-five-minute service took place on March 6 at St. James’s Palace’s Chapel Royal—the private chapel where
King Charles I received the Holy Sacrament before his execution in 1649, Princess Diana’s body laid for a week before her funeral, and Prince George was christened. Prince Louis would also be baptized there four months later, a ceremony both Harry and Meghan attended.
Prior to the baptism, Meghan had regular meetings with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, with whom she formed a “close bond,” according to an aide. They discussed many personal matters, including her previous marriage to Trevor. The archbishop asked her what she had learned from her divorce. “The Church of England has a very clear statement on the nature of when people who have been divorced and a previous partner still living can get married, and we went through that,” Welby said in February. “It’s clearly not a problem.”
In front of Prince Charles; Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall; Harry; and several of Meghan’s friends, including Jessica, Lindsay, and Markus, Meghan was baptized from a silver-gilt Lily Font with holy water from the Jordan River poured onto her head using a solid-silver ewer brought by Crown Jeweller Mark Appleby. Before the service, all the silverware was brought to the chapel from its normal home in the Tower of London with the Crown Jewels, as well as the ornate flask that held the holy oil used for her anointment.
