Meghan Markle: actress, feminist, podcaster, wife, mother, sister, activist. And now?
You can add one more epithet to that long list. Stick. She is a “stick in the spokes” of the freewheeling tricycle that William, Catherine and Harry once were.
The Duchess of Sussex was thus described by Gary Goldsmith, Catherine’s ‘Buncle’ or ‘bad uncle’, during a conversation on Celebrity Big Brother earlier this week.
Meghan “creates so much drama” that doesn’t exist, she said, and then uses it to “rewrite history.” She is a ‘dynamic extra’.
On Wednesday night she even asked to be stripped of her titles.
It’s up to you how seriously you take the opinion of a man who put a major damper on the wheels of the Royal Family with his own vodka-fueled antics and noisy domestic life.
But he has a point. That royal tricycle, which once carried laughter, camaraderie and youthful energy, is now upside down in a ditch, wheels spinning and mud splattered everywhere.
That royal tricycle of William, Catherine and Harry (pictured), which once carried laughter, camaraderie and youthful energy, is now upside down in a ditch, wheels spinning.
Just as Harry turned to see Kate walking down the hallway towards William. He told his brother: ‘She is here now. She is beautiful, I can assure you that.’
I like Meghan. I admire women who take no prisoners, who refuse to smile and smile, who have the courage to tell our future king, “Keep your finger out of my face.”
Go away, girl!
Succeeding like Meghan did in the world of American television is more difficult than qualifying to be an astronaut. You must not harbor fear and develop a skin so thick that you can re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere without needing shields.
Which, of course, made Meghan testy as she joined this triumvirate with their inside jokes, nicknames and strange party games.
All famous people (even moderately well-known ones) are difficult and doubt themselves. But if you fall into a family that believes royalty trumps stardom through meritocracy, you’ll become a sharp razor in an overinflated tire.
Yes, Meghan was a stick, but Harry needed to grow up, right? He can’t spend his entire life in the stands watching rugby and laughing.
Goldsmith revealed on CBB that he doesn’t actually know Meghan. Ha! But one thing he said did strike a chord: “When William, Harry and Kate were a trio, they seemed very comfortable together.”
Today, Harry denies that he was ever happy back then, that the smiles were for the camera. But looking back, we see photo after photo of Harry and Kate in hysterics. There is a genuine affection, relationship and pleasure in each other’s company, as easy to wear as an old sweater, but hard to fake.
William has always seemed more reticent, weighed down by history and the expectation of duty. Without a doubt, Kate saw the younger brother as someone simple, on her part.
If you ever get tired of kittens and puppies, just Google “Harry and Kate laughing” to cheer you up.
Remember the ‘Three Musketeers’ competing against each other for charity in 2017?
Harry was the winner, but he slowed his pace and waited for his brother, the man he would later describe in his memoirs Spare as his “nemesis”, to catch up. There was no competitiveness there.
Watch the London 2012 Olympic Games together and attend the premieres as a trio. It was so easy and fun.
And who can forget the look on Harry’s face at Westminster Abbey when he saw Kate walking down the aisle towards William? She mouthed the words, “She’s here now.” She is beautiful, I can assure you that.’
That clip went viral.
Perhaps Harry now seems so serious, less happy and healthy, because he knows what his wife Meghan has been through, and continues to suffer from.
Harry said Kate was the sister he never had. Without a doubt, she was a strong, feminine force who wasn’t afraid to tell him when she had gone too far.
It’s not just Harry’s carefree joie de vivre from those days that I miss, but the lovely relationship between those two.
Now? There are endless photos of him looking sad. Of Meghan clinging like a limpet at another pop concert. He, rigid as a board.
But maybe that’s the majority of marriages after a while? There are always more smiles for a friend than for your partner.
Any woman entering that refined group of three would have felt out of place. As an outsider, you are bound to make mistakes.
Meghan was wearing ripped jeans when she met William and Kate for the first time at Harry’s Kensington home, Nottingham Cottage. She was barefoot. She hugged.
There are endless photos of Harry looking grim, of Meghan clinging like a limpet at another pop concert. He, rigid as a board. But maybe that’s the majority of marriages after a while?
The most important point of all this? Meghan stopped the merry-go-round and showed Harry that life isn’t just about waving and smiling.
Maybe Harry now seems so serious, less happy and healthy, because he knows what his wife has been through and is still going through. Endless trolling would wipe the smile off the faces of most loving husbands.
Maybe you look back on your old carefree life and think, “I must have been blind.” I was an idiot, protected from the real world, from its difficulties, from its twisted vendettas.
I think he stopped laughing because he finally woke up.
Meghan is a stick that hit, without a doubt. She stopped a rollercoaster of beer pong and pheasant annihilation.
But there is sadness here too. Kate has lost not only a close friend in Harry, but someone she may well need to lean on right now as she recovers from surgery amid all the crazy theories about his health and her whereabouts.
He was someone who really got her.
On Wednesday night, our future Queen’s Buncle told his Celebrity Big Brother housemate, former Love Island contestant, Ekin-Su: ‘She’s coming back. Of course she will.
And it will. But the thing is, Kate used to have a supportive brother-in-law, someone who could encourage her, flatter her, and comfort her.
But Harry grew up, he grew apart. And sadly, William lost the light in his shadow.