Related Articles
The Duchess of Sussex’s interview on the Aspire podcast came out yesterday, and the usual suspects have not stopped crying about it since the pod dropped. The interview was so interesting, with Meghan speaking at length about starting and building her business under this crazy microscope. Meghan also spoke in general terms about the hate industry targeting her. At one point, Emma Grede asked her “If you could rewrite your public narrative from scratch, is there anything you would do differently?” Meghan replied: “Yes. I would ask people to tell the truth.” Soon afterwards, the Daily Mail called this an attack of the royal family, despite the fact that Meghan did not name them or single them out. Hit dogs are hollerin’. Well, in case you’d like to hear the Windsors continue to tell on themselves, it looks like the Daily Mail’s Becky English got a big palace WhatsApp briefing, all about an American woman’s podcast interview.
[From The Daily Mail]‘There’s their truth. And then there’s the truth,’ a royal insider once told me. And I’m not sure it’s the kind of ‘truth’ that Meghan Sussex (as she now prefers to be known) has alluded to in her latest publicity blitz. In an interview with entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den judge Emma Grede yesterday – neatly timed to drop just three days before her new As Ever product launch – the Duchess of Sussex once again took a veiled swipe at the Royal Family.
‘If you could rewrite your public narrative from scratch, is there anything you would do differently?’ Grede, 42, asks cleverly on her podcast Aspire With Emma Grede. Giving a look that can only be described as pointed, Meghan replies: ‘Yes. I would ask people to tell the truth.’
As if her point hadn’t been made firmly enough, Meghan goes on to refer to a mysterious ‘lie’ told eight years ago. At the time – 2017 – she was dating Prince Harry before the couple announced their engagement in November of that year. Grede, a founding partner of Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims, replies: ‘You’re very measured about it… I would just get so angry if I felt like everyone was lying about me all the time.’
‘Peaks and valleys,’ replies Meghan graciously. ‘Of course, I’ve gone through those chapters and you do a lot of work, you do a lot of self work and go, ‘What’s the why?’ It’s happening for a reason.’ She added (naturally) that her ‘dear friend’, tennis champion Serena Williams, told her ‘a lie can’t live forever’, concluding: ‘Eight years is a long time, but not forever.’
There was no explanation of what that fib was or who may have said it, of course. While Buckingham Palace is – for the time being – determined not to be poked into reacting to the Sussexes, those in royal circles have been less coy. Many are loudly wondering why Meghan has raised the issue after all this time and asking (pointedly) whether she really wants to go down that road again.
As one source tells me: ‘There are a lot of people both within the [royal] households, and outside of them, who would love to say what really happened.’
Truth, it seems, Meghan, is not a one-way street. Sensationally, explosive allegations include the claim that Meghan bullied members of staff and drove out two female employees when she was a working royal. Meghan, through her lawyers, has strongly and repeatedly denied the claims and suggested they were part of a concerted campaign to smear her. But, four years after Buckingham Palace carried out an investigation into the claims, the results of the probe have never been made public. The accusations remain a matter of public record. Other former employees – who refer to themselves half-jokingly as the ‘Sussex Survivors Club’ – have spoken of having PTSD after working for the couple. Others I know say they feel professionally and personally broken.
One former insider I spoke to recently always thought fondly of Harry, but even they have noted how – in the late Queen Elizabeth’s words – some of his ‘recollections may vary’. Speaking of the duke’s vitriolic 2023 memoir Spare, the source said: ‘I’ve always felt a little sympathetic. But that book was a work of complete revisionism. I was constantly thinking: ‘Hold on, Harry, it didn’t happen like that!’
While this particular friend of mine didn’t have dealings with Meghan, many who did have told me remarkably similar stories. And some have strongly expressed their frustration at not being able to right the many wrongs they believe were committed during the couple’s brief time as working royals. The reasons as to why they can’t are complex. Of course there are non-disclosure agreements that legally prevent them from speaking publicly about their experiences working for the royals, for good or bad. These legal agreements are not uncommon in large firms and there is no suggestion that they are being applied unfairly in the Sussexes’ case. But it’s important to stress for others there is a strong sense of loyalty to the Royal Family, and what I can only describe as a feeling of personal dignity and integrity, meaning they subscribe to the late Queen’s motto: ‘Never complain, never explain.’
I love this selective memory when it comes to the nearly decade-long smear campaign against Meghan – “we would tell all about Meghan, but the NDAs, and yes we’re speaking as unnamed sources to the Mail for the millionth time!” If there were truly solid, credible, provable accusations against Meghan, they would have come out by now, they would have appeared in a million briefings, they would have been reported on a million times. Instead, all we ever see from “royal sources” and “insiders” is the same old cacophony of lies, the same lies which were being referenced by Meghan in the first place. “Meghan gave me PTSD!” How? “Meghan made me cry!” HOW? “Meghan is lying about everything!” What is she lying about and be specific.
Screengrabs courtesy of ‘Aspire’ YT video.
