Always Worth Saying’s Oprah Meets Meghan Review

Oprah Meets Meghan and Harry 7th March 2021

Contributors:

Oprah Gail Winfrey (Media billionaire)
Racheal Meghan Markle (Actress)
Harry Wales (Retired Army officer)

Venue: Montecito, Near Santa Barbara, California.

Lights. A bleaching brightness covers the Pacific Ocean and its neighbouring golden California beaches. The half-mile-long pier at Sterns Wharf interrupts. At the landward end, on either side of State Street and behind the Cabrillo Boulevard waterfront, lies a Spanish Colonial Revivalist downtown of arches, pale walls, pillared balconies and roofs of earth red tile. Half in light, half in shade, avenues lined with nodding fan palms draw the eye inland. At the foothills of the Solomon mountains, the landscape becomes brighter as the rising hillside tilts towards the sun. As the thoroughfares leave Santa Barbara they begin to climb, spreading to a spider’s web of steep roads connecting Los Angeles media millionaire’s compounds.

Camera. On the terrace of one such, gathers a commotion of wires, lights, microphones, artists and artisans, engineers, scriptwriters, a director or two, suits and hangers-on, lightning men and makeup girls, trucks and boxes. All are out of camera shot. On the other side of the lenses sit two figures in wicker chairs placed upon an enormous textured rug. Comfortable beside an English style garden of low and high hedges, potted plants and lawns, they begin to talk.

Action. During the following two hours of broadcast interview with Oprah, Meghan must achieve the following:

• Tell her side of the Royal family split story.
• Attract a demographic to reach to, connect with and sell to.
• Appear a safe pair of hands to the uber-woke US media.

Meghan is promoting her upcoming Netflix series, Spotify podcasts and AppleTV series and her existing Clevr-Blend drinks sachets. Her demographic is the type of over 35-year-old female who influences a large proportion of household spending. The media have to be on Meghan’s side to allow communication between her brand and her demographic.

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As with James Harold Wilson and John Enoch Powell, Rachel Meghan Markle is called by her middle name. Meghan was born in 1981 in Los Angeles, California, and educated privately at the Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse and Immaculate Heart all-girls Catholic high school before graduating from Northwestern University, Chicago, with a double major in Theatre and International Studies. During her studies, she considered a carer in politics and interned at the American Embassy in Buenos Aries, a position arranged for her by an uncle, Michael Markle, a CIA officer.

After a number of bit parts, Meghan’s shop girl good looks and motel receptionist stage presence made her a regular cast member in cable TV legal drama Suits. Between 2011 and 2017, she played the ambitious paralegal love interest, Rachel Zane. During this time she was briefly married to TV producer Trevor Engleson.

Show business, like thrones, passes down through families. Father, Thomas Markle Sr, is minor Holywood royalty, a daytime TV Emmy award-winning lighting engineer. Mother, Doria, is a former make-up artist. The Markles can trace their family history in the New World back to 1637. Unlike Johnny come lately immigrant to England, wind farm billionaire and racehorse owner Betty Windsor whose ancestor didn’t leave Germany until 1714. On the other hand, although she doesn’t have a brother in the CIA, Betty does have her own navy.

Ironically, the first nation Markles lived on one of Betty’s relatives land. Billy ‘The Farmer’ Hanover cultivated 2.3 billion transatlantic acres, before losing it all to slave owners and terrorists.

This reviewer is a royalist, but there are two problems, and here they are. Firstly, he is also a fan of steam engines and football terraces, of Bernard Manning and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. In short, he has an enthusiasm for that which has little or no future. Is his love of the Royal family an endorsement, or a kiss of death? Secondly, and fatally, he is easily beaten up by pretty girls, especially when they pretend to cry.

During this TV spectacular Oprah is reaching out to Meghan in much the same way as a hungry dog with its tongue hanging out might take a lead to its master thinking it’s in charge of walkies.

A fuller QT Review biography of Oprah Winfrey is available here. Key points being, Oprah had a modest start in life, is an excellent natural communicator, started at the local radio bottom and worked hard for a decade before she became a national media name. Her broadcasting talent is more than matched by a business acumen that has established her as a rich and influential American A-lister. Despite that, she treads a social media PR knife-edge because of her close friendships with jailed Bill Cosby and jailed Harvey Weinstein.

* * *

The interview began with a big tease about a big reveal to keep us all watching until the end of the show. So far so good.

The bad news was that this reveal had nothing to do with Nazis or shape shifting lizards but the sex of the Wales’s expected baby. Boooo.

Despite the strange times we live in, we’re already certain it’s either going to be a boy or a girl. What we’re not sure about is the Rothschilds. Have the girls never heard of David Icke? What a disappointment. It had better get better after this or I’ll be relocating the browser back to the Debatable Lands, re-setting the mapping software, undoing the VPN, unsubscribing from Paramount+, un-doing the false address generator, moving my proxy-credit card location back to the UK, untangling the ‘mail to Canada with an apparent address in the US’ protocol and realigning the DMA and IP. It had only taken two minutes to set up. *cough*.

Completely spontaneously, Meghan mentioned Diana, Princess of Wales, and her interview with Martin Bashir in 1995. Before meeting Harry, Meghan said she knew nothing of the Royal family other than the fairy tale. Meghan had done no research and was very naive.

Some mystery surrounds Meghan’s first meeting with Harry. As the drunkenness of youth passed, Harry had a couple of near misses, with Rhodesian Chelsea Davy and Cressida Bones, granddaughter of the 6th Earl Howe. Neither of the gals were keen on the publicity which lies within royal girlfriend territory. Incidentally, during the war, the 6th Earl Howe served on HMS Howe, a battleship named after his ancestor Admiral Earl Howe who fought in the American War of Independence.

Town and Country describes Harry’s original 2016 meeting with Meghan thus,

“We were introduced, actually, by a mutual friend,” said Harry. “We should protect her privacy and not reveal too much of that,” Meghan added.

However, Meghan’s IMDb TV celebrity profile tells a different story,

In May 2016 Meghan was introduced to Prince Harry by mutual friend Markus Anderson, Toronto-based consultant for private members only clubs “Soho House” where Harry had been a VIP member. Meghan had long known Anderson, a man who had often been referred to as “King of Soho House”.

Soho House is a chain of members only clubs for ‘creatives’ and VIPs. Membership is exclusive rather than expensive. Harry and Meghan were both members. They first met, as part of a group, in a private room in the London Soho House in the summer of 2016. In last Friday’s, March 5th 2021, Oprah [Winfrey ] magazine Melissa Goldberg writes,

“The second date I was starting to think ‘Wow, this is pretty special,'” Harry told James Corden during an episode of The Late Late Show. “It was just the way that we hit it off with each other and we were just so comfortable in each other’s company.”

In a tangle of interconnections that would make European aristocracy proud, the designer responsible for the Soho House’s distinctive look is Vicky Charles whose business partner at Charles & Co is Julia Cordon. Julia is the wife of the aforementioned James Cordon. James’s Late Late Show in on CBS as is Oprah Winfrey. James represents WW (formerly Weight Watchers) as does Oprah. At one point Ms Winfrey even owned 10% of the WW company, a stake worth $43million.

Your humble author’s extensive research had already revealed that Meghan has been once married before. Wrong! In a Megan bingo card busting revelation, Oprah teased from the happy couple that they’ve both been married before – to each other. The Archbishop of Canterbury married them days before the ‘wedding’. No matter what they tell you, this has got nothing to do family fall outs. It is to do with the very real possibility of, when confronted with things like crucifixes and bibles, the Archbishop screaming and howling like Damien Omen. Fortunately, on the big day, good triumphed over evil, the Archbishop behaved himself and Meghan and Harry were married to each other for a second time.

The walls of Windsor Castle’s chapel are used to such things. Being American, an actress, Californian, three years older than Harry and an only child (having had little to no contact with her two half-siblings, not invited to her royal wedding) Meghan is a tiny bit headstrong. In the same way hurricane Katrina was a tiny bit windy and the recent Presidency of Donald J Trump was a tiny bit different.

What Meghan wants Meghan gets. Before the royal wedding, there were rumours, not only of brotherly disagreements between William and Harry, but of sister-in-lawly differences between Kate and Meghan which could be heard, not only by the servants but by passers-by in Kensington Gardens.

Added to which, Meghan told us of a cat fight at the wedding rehearsal in which Kate made her cry. An incident that Meghan told Oprah was ‘owned’ by Kate. A horrible Americanism, the gal still hasn’t done enough research.

By this point, Meghan and Oprah were wandering about a strangely English looking orchard with its own chicken coop. Oprah was all in black as if disguised or even camouflaged. Has she been told one of Her Majesty’s double O’s has been spotted unzipping his wet suit on the beach at Stearns Wharf? It could be worse for Oprah. We know the Queen is safely in England for her own Commonwealth Day broadcast. Suffice it to say, at the opening of the 2012 London Olympics, when Bond and the Queen jumped out of a helicopter, it was James who was the frail old lady in the double act.

Meghan said that back in England, early in the marriage, she had been very lonely and was stuck in the house palace despite being on the front page of every newspaper in the world. She felt ‘the Firm’ (the Royal family) blamed her for a mountain of publicity, not all of it positive. She was told to lie low and never say anything other than ‘no comment’.

Things hotted up as Oprah touched upon the vexed issue of race. Harry had told Meghan that anonymous members of the the Firm had, on numerous occasions, speculated about what colour baby Archie would be. This is a spectrum. On the one hand, nice members of the Royal family, Edward, the Queen, might have commented, through beaming smiles, “What is the baby going to look like?”

On the other hand, Princess Michael of Kent or Prince Philip might have been spotted hammering the eugenics section of Windsor town library and phoning around their relatives in South Africa and Bolivia. Did the South African police force have a skin colour and curly hair chart hanging on every custody sergeant’s wall? I think they did. Was one intercepted at Windsor town post office? It might have been.

On the vexed issue of race, we are forced to ask, what race is Meghan? Her father is white, her mother, Doria, a bit of a mixture. If Doria was a dog, she’d be able to find truffles during a fox hunt while pulling a sled. As a white man, I am reliably informed that I’m not qualified to comment on such things. However, a friend of colour informs me that Meghan is not Black but a light-skinned black woman. Oprah is a black-skinned black woman who is Black and my friend defines as a black-skinned black woman who is black rather than Black.

A tearfully Meghan told us that she had reached a (previously well-advertised unsurvivable breaking point), to the point that she’d felt suicidal. However, the palace had denied her any help telling her it would be bad for the institution if she ended up in an institution.

By the time Prince Harry joined the interview, we were back on the terrace looking much more relaxed. Oprah had even taken off her military-grade cammo jacket and was wearing a dark pink top. Meghan looked motherly, with her hand on her baby bump, dripping in jewellery, in a black dress decorated with a white Clintonesque adornment across the right shoulder.

The big baby reveal was that Meghan is expecting a baby girl. The other big reveal was that both of the happy couple were determined that two children, a little boy and a little girl, would complete their family and that there’d be no more babies. We kind of knew that already. We kinda know what had happened to Harry’s private parts and who did it to him. No need for Oprah to tell us that. The baby girl is due in the summer. If there is a Puffin’s baby name sweepstake, pray you don’t get ‘Kate’. But if you’re a betting Puffin, what’s the odds on ‘Oprah?’

Harry said the pair of them had been miffed at losing their Royal security as they stepped back from royal duties, saying that although their status had changed he thought the risk and threat to them hadn’t. They’d wanted to live in a Commonwealth country and did live in Canada for a while. Harry had felt abandoned during their difficulties. He had reached out for help and never got it. Prince Charles had stopped taking his calls. Conversations with the Queen had continued and he had kept her informed rather than blindsided.

Giving the sixth in line to the British throne his full title is almost as complicated as calculating the fees at an Indian prep school. If forced to try, I would venture at His Royal Highness Captain Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor of Wales KCVO, ADC, The Duke of Sussex, The Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel. If there is a consensus in this sorry mess, it is as follows. Harry was at his happiest when an army officer. We shall call him by his army name, Harry Wales.

Harry was educated at the £42,000 a year Eton College, which lies between Slough and Betty’s Windsor ranch. He is the son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana and the brother of heir to the throne, William, the Duke of Cambridge. After leaving school, Wales spent a gap year in Australia and Lesotho before joining the Army in 2005. After graduating from Sandhurst Military College in 2006, Harry joined a reconnaissance regiment, the Blues and Royals, as a 2nd Lieutenant. In the nine-year-long military career that followed, Harry took part in two combat tours of Afghanistan and rose to the rank of captain. Friends say Harry is keen on Donald Trump and Brexit. After marrying American actress Meghan Markle in 2018, Harry and his new wife found royal life difficult. They moved to Canada and latterly to Santa Barbara, California, where, by March 2021, the now Duke and Duchess of Sussex had stepped down from all royal duties.

With a young son, Archie, and a baby girl on the way, Harry and Meghan are planning a future in media, business and philanthropy with this evening’s interview with Oprah Winfrey providing a significant promotional opportunity.

Back in the interview, Harry told Oprah that the Royal family are frightened of the British press and have an ‘invisible contract’ with them. They are scared of the tabloids. Meghan felt that people were influenced by the tabloids and that created hostility, even racial hostility, towards her. She said she’d had death threats.

As early as November 2016, Harry was so unhappy with press coverage of his courtship with Meghan that a strong statement was issued by Buckingham Palace deploring,

“the racial undertones of [mainstream media] comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”

The statement went on to note press privacy invasions of Meghan’s family, family friends, co-workers and ex-boyfriends.

Oprah laid the Lady Dianna card. Asking what she would have made of all this. She predicted it, the Royal family were jealous of Meghan in the same way that they had been jealous of Diana. The happy couple have watched bits of The Crown. Harry felt let down bigly by Prince Charles and their relationship is damaged. Even though Charles doesn’t send him any money, Harry felt sorry for him all the same. Charles and William are trapped in a drafty castle in Windsor and Harry’s in Santa Barbara. He does have a point. Harry had been trapped too but hadn’t realised that until Meghan had enlightened him. He loved his brother William to bits but they were on different paths.

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In conlcusion, now that Charles has chopped him off, Meghan will have to pay for everything. Ah well. Originally the gal just wanted to do voice-overs for cartoons and sell a bit of tat in adverts, now she has to set up a billion-dollar branding franchise. Good luck to her. And it’s not unprecedented. Princess Michael of Kent plagiarised a book. The Duchess of Kent gave piano lessons. Prince Edward had a television production company. The Queen is a racehorse owner, breeder and wind farm billionaire. Prince Philip has a farm shop on the Windsor estate. In a more naive marketing age, he was known to stand behind the counter yelling, at his wife’s subjects who inspected the wares a bit too closely, “I hope you’re going to buy that bloody lettuce.”

That’s show business and royalty.
 

© Always Worth Saying 2021
 

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