THE fall-out from the Sussexes interview with Oprah continued to dominate comment sections of the newspapers with columnists debating the ramifications and justifications.
The Daily Mail
Stephen Glover said it had been a week in which in many parts of the UK it is deemed inexcusable to question any allegation uttered by Meghan because she is a person of mixed race.
He said an online article by the British fashion journalist Hamish Bowles in American Vogue had, however, ‘reached new heights of idiocy.’
“Bowles suggested that the use of the word ‘niggling’ in a headline above a piece Sarah Vine wrote about the Sussexes in 2017 had some sort of racist intent,” he said. “He is of course thinking of the N-word with which ‘niggling’ has some phonetic similarities though it is etymologically distinct, being of Scandinavian origin according to my Oxford English Dictionary. The word ‘niggle’ didn’t appear in her story and was used only in the headline.”
He doesn’t mind what Bowles thinks of the British press, he added, but does mind very much when ‘reason is suspended and the truth is deliberately distorted to demonise a newspaper and a blameless journalist.’
The Daily Express
Leo McKinstry described the interview as inflammatory and vindictive.
“As the fallout continues, Republicans are emboldened and the Labour Party has called for a public inquiry into the Duke and Duchess’s unsubstantiated allegations of bigotry,” he said. “Given her craving for attention, Meghan Markle will probably be thrilled at this outcome. She had the starring role in the biggest global drama of our age.”
He said the fundamental problem with the Duchess of Sussex was the conflict between her ambition as a ruthless social climber and the reality of her duties as a relative of the Sovereign.
“If compassion is really her driving force, as she constantly claims, why is her life littered with the social wreckage of fall-outs and feuds?,” he asked. “The House of Windsor is just the latest target of her capricious antipathy.”
The Independent
Anri Wheeler said, having married into a ‘secretive, patriarchal family business that owns a retail empire’, much of what Meghan said felt familiar.
“The Cult provided me two bodyguards, but what I needed was emotional support transitioning into a life detached from my previous reality,” she said. “I cried a lot, alone in the largest apartment I’d ever lived in, watching Law & Order reruns just to see New York City, my home. It was a gilded cage.”
She said that when news of Megxit broke friends texted her to say she was following in her footsteps.
Now, the depth of her anguish is clear, how unwilling the Firm was to help,” she said.
“I am grateful she got out. I got out too, and continue to model for my girls that it’s never too late to reclaim the parts of yourself larger systems can silence.
“I see the ways Meghan is doing the same.”
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