Meghan Markle's PR stunts are bid to steal attention from Coronation
DAN WOOTTON: The Hollywood announcement, dramatic makeover and basketball PDA that wasn’t… why Meghan’s PR stunts are a shameful bid to steal attention from the King in his Coronation week
It was a predictable script taken straight out of Meghan Markle’s masterclass in ‘how-to-get-everyone-talking-about-me-again’ Hollywood PR 101.
After months of purposefully shunning the spotlight, allowing her hapless husband Harry to shoulder the backlash against his grotesque and unnecessarily nasty royal shaming tell-all Spare, the Duchess of Woke has viscerally exploded back into public consciousness, with a three-step campaign seemingly taken straight from the Princess Diana playbook.
23 APRIL: Unveil the Montecito revenge makeover, revealing a dramatic new look to the world while supporting a good cause (in this case introducing a TED talk for a woke friend).
DIANA DID IT TOO: In July 1994 when she stepped out for a London event looking spectacular in her little black revenge dress to successfully steal attention away from Charles’ dramatic TV confession of adultery.
25 APRIL: Appeared alongside Harry at the Lakers basketball game surrounded by work colleagues in a highly orchestrated public appearance quashing any rumours that the Sussexes were living increasingly separate lives, but then rejected her husband’s attempt at a cheesy public display of affection while being filmed on the famous kiss cam.
Meghan Markle has viscerally exploded back into public consciousness, with a three-step campaign seemingly taken straight from the Princess Diana playbook. On April 23, she unveiled the Montecito revenge makeover, (pictured) displaying her dramatic new look to the world while supporting a good cause
On April 25, she appeared alongside Harry at the Lakers basketball game (pictured) surrounded by work colleagues in a highly orchestrated public appearance quashing any rumours that the Sussexes were living increasingly separate lives
DIANA DID IT TOO: In February 1992, when she turned her cheek when her then husband attempted to kiss her after an awkward awards presentation at the polo 24 hours before Valentine’s Day, prompting intense speculation about the, by then, failed royal marriage.
27 APRIL: Make a major announcement about signing with a Hollywood super-agent in a pre-orchestrated publicity drive released directly to the entertainment bible Variety to make maximum waves.
DIANA DID IT TOO: In November 1994, the Princess used the media to signal a partial return to working life via the Red Cross following a year off after discovering her husband Charles had vetoed a role as a roving ambassador for the UK so she didn’t steal attention from his charity projects.
Now, of course, Meghan is her own woman who is no longer part of the Royal Family and has no need to coordinate her media activities, something she hated doing with a passion while part of the Buckingham Palace set-up.
But it is no coincidence that this trio of major interventions occurred just one week before the Coronation of King Charles III, the most important day in her father-in-law’s life.
It seems Meghan strategically timed her almost total disappearance from the spotlight for four months – a lifetime in Californian terms – in order to make maximum impact when she did emerge at this critical juncture.
Even the Sussex Squad must concede there was absolutely no reason why any of these trio of PR events had to take place in the past week.
And there is also no doubt Meghan would have been acutely aware of the attention she would receive by going public after hibernating for such a long time just before a major moment for the British monarchy.
But we’re wise to Meghan’s games by now.
This is nothing short of a desperate and shameless bid to steal attention from the new King in his Coronation week because, I believe, she’s jealous she won’t be part of it.
Meghan’s three-step ‘how-to-get-everyone-talking-about-me-again’ campaign mirrored that of Princess Diana in 1994. The late Princess of Wales is pictured with her Prince Harry in 1992
Meghan (pictured in 2021) strategically timed her almost total disappearance from the spotlight for four months – a lifetime in Californian terms – in order to make maximum impact when she did emerge at this critical juncture. Even the Sussex Squad must concede there was absolutely no reason why any of these trio of PR events had to take place in the past week
Having decided it is just too risky to join her husband at the Coronation, given the likelihood she would be booed by the royalist heavy crowds in London this Saturday, there was no opportunity for Meghan to re-emerge via the first Coronation in 70 years, as she may have initially planned.
So now she’s doing it her own way: Guerrilla style.
Meghan seems oblivious to the fact that the public has now caught onto her gameplan, with every money-making or attention stealing stunt sending her popularity plummeting further on both sides of the Atlantic.
A Daily Mail poll today showed just how bad things have gotten in Britain, with Harry and Meghan on approval ratings of just 22 per cent and 18 per cent respectively, making only Prince Andrew less liked.
Adding to their predicament, only a third of the population believe the couple’s wild accusations against the Royal Family.
‘Her behaviour this past week, seemingly designed to deliberately divert attention from the Coronation thanks to her ‘Me Me Meghan’ Hollywood sideshow, is not the behaviour of an icon, but a fallen star,’ writes Dan Wootton (pictured)
But Meghan seems to have no idea her PR campaign this past week is yet another major own goal.
No wonder she gets through advisers as quickly as eco-hypocrite Harry hires new private jets.
Imagine the hapless Archewell staff member sent to the Montecito love dungeon to plead: ‘How about we just hold off for two weeks on all of this to give the King the moment he’s been waiting seven decades for unchallenged? After all, the bloke did walk you down the aisle? Surely, he deserves that much.’
Such truth tellers in the world of the Sussexes are dismissed with a brutal speed and, when you live in an orbit of yes people, that’s why these mistakes keep happening.
Of course, the Markle family themselves have also added to the distraction this week, with her lovely dad Thomas – a decent man – emerging for the first time in a year since suffering a near-fatal stroke to plead with his daughter for one more chance in a heart-breaking Australian TV special.
Again, I only blame Meghan for these sorts of interventions.
She brutally exorcised her family from her life out of embarrassment in one of the cruellest acts I can remember from a public figure, especially given the Emmy-winning Hollywood lighting director Thomas raised her for much of her childhood and teenage years.
Why should he go away quietly now?
Meghan is the only person who could stop this sideshow by doing the decent thing and reuniting with the person who provided her with all the tools she needed to become a Hollywood actress, before it’s too late.
Instead, she will continue to convince herself her dad is persona non grata, even though he’s alive and kicking a few hours down the Pacific Coast Highway in Mexico, and plot her next PR stunt.
Meghan’s appearances are nothing short of a desperate and shameless bid to steal attention from the new King in his Coronation week. King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla are pictured together last month
Having jettisoned many of her original and loyal team, she’s now surrounded by the biggest beasts in Hollywood at the WME agency, including the original star maker himself Ari Emanuel.
The Variety puff piece announcing her deal trumpeted: ‘Meghan is a global icon.’
Perhaps to Hollywood woketopians she is.
But her behaviour this past week, seemingly designed to deliberately divert attention from the Coronation thanks to her ‘Me Me Meghan’ Hollywood sideshow, is not the behaviour of an icon, but a fallen star.
A fallen star who had the potential to change the world from within the British Royal Family, but let her outsized ego ruin it all.
We can’t ignore her shameful PR stunts, but at least we can now see through them and snigger.
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