Transcription
[Music] Kinsey Scoffield here. Welcome to Crown and Conflict, a series dedicated to dissecting the most riveting royal scandals in history. This week, I'm joined by Tom Bower, author of Revenge: Megan Harry and the War Between the Windsor, the defining book on Meghan Markle's very brief history as a working royal. Revenge is a forensic assessment of Megan's character and her ruthless ambition, cementing Bower's reputation as one of today's leading in investigative biographers.
Uh, before we get into it, Tom, ludicrous headlines over the weekend suggesting Prince Harry could somehow worm his way back into the fold. It seems like Sussex PR is in overdrive lately. Are you seeing that, too, or do you feel that way?
Well, I do think the Sussex overdrive is unbelievable, but I mean, I don't think that, um, he is going to get back in. I mean, I think that there are two reasons. One is, I think that, um, William wouldn't allow it. And secondly, the moment he got back to America, he immediately promoted Disney and his trip to Disney World, which showed that he is very commercially minded, which we'll get into later on, which makes it impossible for him. And of course, Megan wouldn't come back to Britain. So, I think it's always the same. He wants his cake and eat it. Isn't that the truth?
All right. So, Revenge was released in July of 2022. Since then, based on polling and media coverage, how would you describe the trajectory of Harry and Megan's reputations professionally and personally? It feels like they've taken quite a bit of a dive.
Yeah, I think professionally they've gone down dramatically. Um, and I predicted it in the book, but even I would not have thought be that accelerated. I think personally, I think they've separated their professional lives. But I think what's really a great problem for them now, as of in the last few weeks, is that Megan has got no real income anymore. She's finished, right? The Netflix series is over. There's no great podcast. They don't generate any money. And I don't see where she is going from here. I think she has a major problem. And I think as of this week, the signal for her great problem is that she turned up at Kevin Costner's uh party uh for the uh emergency workers, which she skipped last year. She skipped that last year.
That's a great point. Last year, and that was very critical because at that moment last year, she was about to promote her Netflix series and didn't want to firstly be seen with Harry and secondly, didn't want to go somewhere where she'd appear cheap and give it gratus. And this year, she is desperate to be seen, and that's why she turned up. So, I think she has a major problem, I uh, financially and professionally. And I think that Harry has a problem because he's lost his, um, charity center Bailey in Africa. Um, he better up and all these commercial deals are declining. I think that his reputation uh is somewhat toxic, and I think Invictus is his only lifeline, and there'll be problems with that too. I mean, we've seen people leaving Invictus recently. Important head. You know, I think that's a.
You mentioned the Disney special. Does the Disney special at all look to you like an influencer pivot? Because that's what I was like, "Oh my god."
Oh, no. I mean, they're spokespeople. Absolutely. I mean, the moment they went there and allowed themselves be photographed, and I thought, well, how much are they being paid for this? And quite clearly, they're being paid to promote it this week, too. Uh, it'll work in the sense that I think, you know, it's Disney today and some sort of butter spread tomorrow. I mean, that's that's the trajectory they're on, but they're going to have to earn some money.
That's true. Uh, did anything make the cutting room floor when it came to Revenge simply due to space? I know that publishers love chopping up well-researched books. You without any hesitation about like, you're sitting there going, "No, this, this is so important," but sometimes it's just about, you know, shrinking a book down.
I mean, there were, I mean, you got to remember it was a pathwind of the book, and even the publishers couldn't quite believe some of the things which I discovered. And one of the big things at that time was sensitivity reading. There was a great fear that she would play the race card. And so, for example, there were great arguments about whether you could call her strong-willed or not, because she, at the time, was playing herself as a black woman, and black women are strong-willed, that's a seem to be a stereotype. I think that would now not occur. I think there were various things about her sexual life which I dropped out on the grounds of privacy laws in Britain.
Oh my god, I have got to get you intoxicated, Tom Bower. I would love to hear those stories.
Yeah, I think I've forgotten them.
Oh, no. But then apparently they weren't that good.
They were very good.
Oh, no. I mean, you know, well, you know, I, the privacy laws are pretty strong here. And that's what she used as a weapon at the time. So, there were quite a few things about her personal life. I'll work them into another book, I think.
Oh my goodness, Tom Bower. I love that deep tease right there. That that's something that we can look forward to. Um, what did you think because in your book Spare, you talk about how Earl Spencer was concerned about how this marriage might be trouble and and you say at William's request, Earl Spencer weighed in. Um, he went to Prince Harry and said, "You should consider, you should reconsider this, you know, pump the brakes." His advice provoked a bitter reaction, you say?
Well, later we find out that Prince Harry, since moving to the United States, approached Earl Spencer to ask permission to legally change his family's name. What was your response to that that Harry would want to take the Spencer last name? And does it surprise you that Earl Spencer said, "I, I don't advise it"?
Well, the answer is, unfortunately, that was one of the revelations, or many revelations, in my forthcoming book, which I had and heard about this months and months ago. It was actually when they were all filming for the Netflix series that he asked uh Charles Spencer, because for some reason, Megan didn't like the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. If you remember in her uh first uh lifestyle series with Megan, with them forever, uh, she says to Carling that her surname isn't Mark, but Sussex. Mhm. And she was desperate to get, she said, "We never had a proper surname." Of course, they did. But uh, so it's now Sussex, although she keeps on being called Meghan Markle. But I think that she did go to, and that she wanted to get rid of Mountbatten-Windsor because she didn't think it was the right name for her children at school. And Spencer said very forthrightly to their face, "No, under no circumstances." I think uh Charles Spencer probably doesn't think the marriage will last forever and just didn't want his name to be associated with Megan if the event of a divorce. That's my guess. But I did know that he was absolutely emphatic that she wasn't going to have his name.
Yeah. I mean, you got to remember another thing about all this as well. But of course, uh, we might come on to this, but in uh, in Megan's mind, she is Diana. Yes. Yes. I mean, Diana Spencer is Megan Spencer, and that was all part of her imagination that somehow she could inherit the glow of her dead mother-in-law. So, I think that was another reason for Charles to say no.
Absolutely. If if she were to separate with Prince Harry, the Diana 2.0 could continue to live thanks to the last name. That would give, you know, that it would still give her that royal sparkle that she needs.
I did, I do have that. Let's just jump to that. Megan believed she was an as important to the monarchy as Princess Diana. You write in the book, and her visit to Australia in October 2018 only boosted that view. The more Harry drew parallels with his mother, and the more Megan must have been convinced of her importance to the monarchy. Um, do you still think she's that delusional?
And maybe the answer is watching her at Kevin Costner's 805 live event in $300,000 worth of jewelry, including Diana's Cartier watch. Wherever she is, whether it's at Costner or in Colombia or in Nigeria or wherever, she's always her publicist will reveal that she's wearing one of Diana's uh jewelry pieces. I do think that the Australian trip turned their head in a crazy way. Although she behaved appallingly during the trip, but in Harry's view, this was his mother all over again. What Megan never really understood, probably not even now, is that when she was cheered as a working royal, it wasn't because she was Meghan Markle, it was because she represented British royalty and all the values of the Queen and all the tradition and thousand years of history. So people were cheering not just the person, but also the institution. I mean, clearly she was very attractive, and she did uh, you know, magnify and was magnetic, um, for her own, in her own right. But the idea that she was Diana was always a fantasy, both of herself and of Harry. And Harry completely misunderstood his mother, who he obviously barely knew, and didn't realize what a manipulative and determined woman she was herself. So he completely misjudged the comparison between Megan and his mother. And his mother had amazing status. She looked beautiful. She had terrific poise. She worked very hard at being a royal. She was very empathetic with a lot of sick people. None of the things that Megan would ever dream of doing. I mean, Megan would never go and spend day after day in hospices and hospitals and with the poor. She only wanted to go and party with Elton John in the South of France. So, the the comparison between the two was ridiculous, both as a in looks and employees and in background and everything else, plus the work ethic of Diana.
I, I think it was over a year ago I reported that I had heard that Prince Harry was trying to work on a Princess Diana documentary, and now it's being reported by other people. Prince Harry developing a Princess Diana documentary. You just said what I keep saying. He didn't know this woman. Like I, I mean, it's, I don't mean to be cruel, but he's off at school. I feel like she's become this martyr saint character in his head. Is he really the authority when it comes, especially when it comes to the death of his mother, where he, and I'm not saying he shouldn't make a Diana documentary. I just wonder how accurate a documentary on his mother would be from, you know, by him surrounded by all of these yes people.
Well, it would be totally inaccurate. I mean, from his own book, where he says for a long time he thought his mother had just disappeared and now believed she'd been murdered by the paparazzi, which is ridiculous. She died because she was in a speeding car with a drunken driver, not wearing a safety belt. But also, he doesn't realize that she wasn't murdered by the media. She played with the media. Um, Diana was a huge uh influencer, huge manipulator of the media. She collaborated firstly with Morton in his book, and then she collaborated in a Panorama interview. She'd repeatedly see chosen journalists and feed them information. So the idea that his mother was a victim of the media, she was a master of the media and a master of media manipulation. So he'd get it completely wrong. And of course, the one thing which I do sympathize with me is that his mother clearly was completely uh misjudged and uh to become Charles's wife, and that was a catastrophe, and in that sense, his father, for good or evil, didn't treat his mother very well, and it all became very, very sad. Um, but, um, I don't think he, I, I think, however, that if he did a program about his mother, that would be for money. Yes. And I think it would be a a shocking act of further disloyalty, not least to his father, and he can't play it both ways. Does he want to come back or not? If he wants to come back, he's, which I think will be a problem for him. He certainly can't make a film about his mother. I think it would infuriate his brother, like you said.
Uh, in Revenge, you talk about how Megan's lack of knowledge about British history meant she could not understand that Diana had won the public's affection after years of work. That was a real investment. Um, people felt committed to the journey because they had spent so much time watching Diana really grow up. Um, I think that that, you know, go, I think that that pairs nicely with what we're talking about with Prince Harry. It's just that lack of understanding. She just thought that, you know, she could burst in and say, "Look at me. I'm here now. Everybody accept and love me." And she didn't really take time to get to know the process.
I think there was that. But I got to tell you, in my research for my new book, um, that at the number of times she was warned before she married what the nature of being Harry's wife and part of the royal family would be, and the nature of how she ignored all that advice for two reasons. One is she really did believe she could do what she wanted, and secondly, I don't believe she ever intended to stay. Mhm. She always intended to get, take the title, take the the uh connections, and get back to California, especially after she saw, and this I think is a critical thing in her life, that it was William and Kate. Yes. Who were going to be the stars, not Harry and Megan, and she didn't want to play second fiddle.
That is so true. Will you mention that when again when you talk about this incredible Australia trip for Harry and Megan, that that's when they decided they wanted to step out of William and Catherine's shadow, that they were they were much bigger. They didn't need they didn't need all this.
Um, as of mid to late 2025, Harry and Megan's popularity in Australia is at an all-time low. Um, polling indicates that they're among the least popular members of the royal family, and public perception has declined significantly since that 2018 royal tour. They haven't been back since. Why wouldn't you nurture that popularity? It's nothing they do makes sense to me. If they really did think that this Australia trip was the end-all be-all, that changed everything, why wouldn't you try to nurture a fan base because they're celebrities now in Australia?
Well, I think there are two points there. Firstly, the Australian government would have to invite them, and secondly, they won't invite them because the British government and the Brit family would make absolutely sure that no invitation was forthcoming because the one thing they don't want is them treading into the Commonwealth. It was the Nigerian trip was bad enough. Yeah. But the British government made sure there were restrictions on what they could do. That I don't think the Australian government would want to invite them. And I think the other side of their travels is they only travel where it's free. Yeah. And I don't think they'd want to spend the money of going to Australia, cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And for what? What are they selling? That's the point. You see, when they would did their other foreign trips, Megan was selling her cereals and selling her uh commercial things, you know, the jams or whatever, the image, the brand. That's all taken a huge hit now. She is facing a crisis. What does she now do? She's fired her biggest shots, the best shots, and they're duds. And uh Harry has nothing to sell either. In fact, he hates selling. He just wants to be a charity worker, which is pretty limited too. So I think they've got a real identity crisis, uh, which will be resolved in the next few months one way or another, and I don't think it can be to the good. But the point about it is, you see, they they're notorious. Though just watching them is great sport because if they turn up at Kevin Costner's beach party, one just wants to see what efforts they're making to be famous and loved. And we just enjoy the spectacle of these two who will have spent hours and hours preparing themselves. I mean, Megan spends hours successfully making herself look beautiful and choosing her clothes and all the rest of it. Uh, for what? Is for us to talk about them, and we talk about them because we're all desperate to see how the story ends, and there's a long way to go.
Yeah, it is a morbid curiosity. I mean, when people ask me about it, I just say, I can't stop. Look, I, it's like I'm so fascinated by some of these poor decisions. I mean, you're right about Australia. I should have thought about that. But to me, it was just such a missed opportunity if that's where they really felt loved. Megan doesn't even send product over to us. She can't even send product over to Australia. So, you know, it, nothing that they do business-wise makes a lot of sense to me. I'm curious about your new research. In Revenge, you analyze the discrepancies between the their public personas and the Sussex's their private behavior, suggesting that their claims of victimhood and even charity work were often exaggerated and fabricated. There's been real no real improvement to their credibility since you wrote this piece. Have you found other examples of them exaggerating their victimhood or or their charity work?
I mean, you've got to understand, which now is clear, that Archwell, their company, is not a charity. It's a commercial organization. They give very little money away for charity because they haven't got much money in the pot. And uh compared, for example, to Bezos, who gives away hundreds of millions, they give away a few thousand. I mean, it's, it's very small and diminishing, and that is part of their problem. So the victimhood, I think, by now has been pretty played out. I mean, no one is going to listen anymore to them bleating about being racist and being all the being the victims of racist and all the rest of it. They've played that out. I think now they're at a threshold. We're speaking at a very critical time for them that they actually have to prove what the next stage is. Uh, and does she write a book? Does he do something foolish like a documentary about his mother? What do they do to retain the initiative? I mean, there's only so many times that she can produce photographs of her children without their faces, or especially when the uh Trump was in London last week, she appeared, posted a picture of herself picking flowers. I mean, is always, she always seeks an opportunity when there's news about her enemies to post something, and it's just very amusing how desperately she is for desperate she is for retaliation for saying, "Don't forget me." To say, "You know, it was a nightmare. If I'm not mentioned, I can't, I can't survive without being seen." And that's where her great problem. I mean, she's not invited to the great alist parties, let alone the 's parties. Who is she anymore? And that that must worry her, and and worry Harry too. Although it must be said that when he was in London last week, I mean, you know, he, he does have a way with children. Uh, there is a residue of goodwill towards him, uh, when he does his charity acts, but, you know, he had to give away $2 million to to charities to get some sort of credibility. Two million, which I don't think he's got much left, uh, for that year's savings. So, you know, he, they're trying terribly hard. Uh, and and it's just fascinating to see at what stage they're going to fall.
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You write in the book, "Harry Must Be Nuts." This is one of the text messages his friends were sending around to each other uh after Megan's first introduction to Harry's friends in 2017 during a shooty weekend at Sandringham. It didn't go very smoothly. You, you say you describe her challenging anyone whose conversations clashed with her values and taking issues with jokes about sexism and feminism. I mean, the the kind of jokes you'd hear from a bunch of boys that have known each other since they were younger. Uh, Harry's friends reportedly felt that she repeatedly reprimanded them and called her a real dampener of the party. To which I would say to you, and this is the woman trying to teach us how to entertain on Netflix, this buzzkill. Uh, what else? What else did Prince Harry's friend say that she just was the fun police?
Well, I mean, this uh this particular saga at Sandringham, uh, which obviously was told by someone who was there, was a decisive moment. I mean, it's the moment where effectively she says to Harry that you've got to dump all your friends, and none of those people at his shooting weekend were then invited to the dinner after the wedding. I mean, that was the crunch that he, she separated him from his uh hinterland, and of course, he does suffer now enormously by not having uh a large number of the friends he had in London. In fact, his friends in England are despair, and they were furious with his behavior, and many of them won't speak to him. But, um, that weekend, it was a decisive moment. What she, she couldn't understand that Harry's class of people on Friday afternoon, Friday evening, it was when they oil their guns to get ready to show off and have a good shoot on the Saturday, either partridges or pheasants or whatever. And these are big occasions, especially on the royal estates. And, uh, it, you know, it's like when she said to Harry, "You can't shoot anymore." And of course, shooting isn't just getting the birds. It's all part of the social fabric of country life in Britain. And, uh, what it showed was that she wasn't going to make any concessions to the class and the sort of people which she was going to marry into.
It's amazing how she can be so judgmental towards them. And I mean this with the royal family too, but take everything she needs to help elevate herself. You know, like if you can't stand these people or the idea of class, then why are you titled the Duchess of Sussex on a Disney infomercial on Hulu? Do you know what I'm saying?
Well, absolutely. That is her hypocrisy and her narcissism and her commercialization and frankly, her appalling behavior. She never intended to stay in Britain, but just took the title. And in the end, what I really hold against her, she betrayed all those people who tried very hard from the best of intentions, from the Queen downwards, to make her feel welcome and believe that she would integrate herself into the royal family into Britain. What she couldn't understand was the language. She couldn't understand what being royal means. She didn't understand the nature of trust. And that's the thing about Megan. She's a very, very deceitful person. It's got to be said, in her relationships with her own family is one sign. But the other is that all the inaccuracies which she told Oprah Winfrey, which of course caused huge damage to Britain's reputation around the world and still do, and continued in all her interviews to promote herself. I mean, even in her podcast with uh, Lemur, she said there were the cosmetics woman, she said, you know, it was life with the royal family was a battle of the trenches. I mean, the thing about Megan is, which is very important to understand, I think, that when she set off to uh, create her own brand and image, and the whole Netflix series of lifestyle series, she was told she had to give up being the wicked witch in terms of the royal family. She should put that all behind her and not mention them because people want to see her, not all the time complaining. She couldn't resist because in the end, one of Megan's many deficiencies is she has nothing to say. There's no originality. There's no profundity. She rehearses lines. She rehearses quotations from poems. But actually, she's not a fundamentally interesting person. And the interest is how someone of that nature can become a global celebrity. And of course, the only reason is because she live married into the most famous royal family in the world and jumped it. Yeah. And never stop speaking about it. And that has been an amazing draw for her. She's made a huge amount of money, uh, causing the misery to people who only had goodwill for her and gave her that platform. Yeah.
So many people that reviewed this book talked about how they did get a sense that you admired Megan's ambition. Do you agree with that or do you disagree with that? That you, in studying her, admired what she was able to accomplish or admired her ambition? And I ask you that because what you just said, um, it, it kind of felt like that, that you at least acknowledge that what she's accomplished is, um, significant, but you don't like what she did with once she got to the finish line.
Well, she's, she's not the finish line yet. But on the whole, yes, I agree. I mean, yes, I do admire. I admire anybody who starts from nothing and then gets a sort of success. Uh, not, not just, um, people like Megan, but also often very controversial and inverted criminal businessmen or politicians and all the other people I've read or the music people. I mean, I do find people who climb the greasy pole and junk victims on the way and are ruthless in their ambition fascinating. And I think that is what makes Megan fascinating because in the end, there are very few women who were C-list actresses who were really completely unaccomplished, but who in the end have perfected an image. And it's got to be said, I mean, if 75% of people disapprove of her in polls, 25% do approve of her, and she does have a following, especially in in Africa and countries like in South America, because of what she, General Winfrey this year is a victim of dreadful white elitists. Yeah. And I think just to have created that image, uh, is awful, but it's spellbinding, and and that's what I. But the only thing is with these people is that sometimes I meet my, the subjects of my books, and it's a very interesting conversation. I can't imagine a conversation with Megan, actually, is terribly interesting.
No, I don't think. I don't think there's a there's a depth where we'd get much beyond where where she pours oil on her lettuce leaf or puts her the chips in a different packet and that sort of thing. I mean, she can't cook. No. And all the rest of it. But she does look always. She works terribly hard at appearances, works terribly hard at smiling in the right place. The RT smile is amazing. I admire her ambition. I just despair about the way she's treated other people. And that is really quite the rupal. And of course, everyone is just waiting for what, how she's in the going to treat Harry. Will she dump him? I mean, that is the always the question I, that that everyone wants to see how's that going to work out.
This is almost perfect. This question I have prepared for where we're headed here. You write that Megan was, um, unable to accept that no one was counting the box office receipts of the crowds she attracted. You can see in recent interviews with Bloomberg, Jamie Kern Lima, how important validation is to her. It's almost embarrassing the way she tries to sell herself to us. "I work so hard. I, you know." And then she like, she just needs people to admire her, and you're just like, "Do you ever take a day off?"
I think that what she learned was that people would not admire her for the marriage. I, that's how she became famous. That people in America tend to like someone who's made it themselves. The climb from obscurity into global fame is what people want to see. So when she sort of suddenly announced that she was a latchkey kid and had to eat takeaway dinners, whereas before she said that she used to eat very healthy food and go to some fine restaurants, which of course is the truth with her father. Yeah. Remember her dad would take her to ballet, a very expensive ballet class in Beverly Hills, and then they would go to the deli that had $20 club sandwiches. So that $4.99 salad bar at the Sizzler doesn't make a lot of sense. Megan.
Well, it didn't make sense except that she wanted to rebrand herself as having, you know, risen up from the depths. Yes. And that's what it's all about. Please recognize that I'm a good, I'm a great self-made person. But of course, she isn't self-made at all, other than that she is snared a prince. And that's the, that's her image problem. And that's why the series looks so artificial, as ever Megan, because in the end, everyone knows it's a rented house. She can't cook. Uh, or her offers of what you do are just frankly ludicrous, because no one could prepare platters of fruit like that for the children in the morning, all the rest of it. And of course, there also, there's a huge contradiction in Megan. You know, she has promoted herself as the great feminist, the great philosopher, and all the rest. On one hand, the victim of the racist royals, and on the other hand, she's just a traditional American mom. And what the other? You can't be both. Or Jacqueline Hine? I mean, what, what am I? Am I a duchess, or am I an American mom who has to get breakfast with the children? You can't, you know, that's the problem for her. And that she has that problem because there's nothing other than creating a brand, because there's no debt.
That is so true. The reason that it's is all over the place is because there's little truth involved in the persona she's trying to create. If there was any truth, she wouldn't be the, the lines wouldn't be all over the place. It would just be like, yeah, um, she is a feminist icon who happened to marry a prince who, but no, she stands there and tells us for the 30th time the soap story about how when she was 11, she said it was sexist, that only women all over the world were scrubbing pots and pans. And then she wants us to believe that she likes to spend a significant amount of time in the kitchen, someone else's kitchen, but in the kitchen on Netflix. And then we were like, wait, we thought that this was sexist, and we thought we weren't supposed to spend a lot of time in the kitchen because that was sexist. It just like if she would stick to any sort of truth, I wonder how successful she would be. But it just feels all artificial.
In case the soap son story, the Ivory Clear, her father's actually emphatic. It was completely untrue. He just built her up as an 11-year-old thinking that she'd been influencing. And when Vanity Fair asked Proctor & Gamble whether it was true or not, Proctor & Gamble went through all their very carefully and meticulously kept files and found absolutely no letter from Megan, which isn't surprising because the father said he never sent the letter, and there was no reply. So that story is bogus. But I do think there is something which I do think is terrific about Megan. She, in her podcast with Lemur, she says to her, "I'm saying, pre-ing the word here," she says, "I've always wondered what blood type you've got. Her, because, you know, my blood type, like everything else, is over my blood type is overachieving." Oh my god. And I think that's her. I mean, she, she has to build herself up as this overachiever, this very special person. And of course, to some extent, she is special because of her, of what her history. Uh, the problem is she can't sustain it, uh, for much longer, and that is a major problem for her.
Yes. You, you, there has to be more depth there. U, I mean, this is right in line with what you're saying. One of the themes you keep circling back to in your book is Megan's obsession with perfection, but it's in both how she's seen and in whatever she puts her name on. So, her projects as well. You even include testimony suggesting that when things don't go her way, she spirals, reaching out to anyone that can try to fix the situation, whether that's 5 a.m. emails or whatever. In the Vanity Fair piece, American Hustle, Spotify witnesses support this description completely, that she tends to spiral when things don't go her way. We haven't heard some of this testimony from the producers of the new Netflix show. Although we did, she lost the first team that were working on Harry and Megan. They brought in a new team that actually executed the Harry and Megan project. Um, do you think that there's changed behavior, or do you think Netflix just has better NDAs?
Well, I think the NDAs are critical because one of the casualties, so to speak, of my book, Revenge, was the stories about her in Montreal in that fashion shoot, uh, were so unbelievably damning of her. And all the people I spoke to clearly broke their NDAs uh to talk about her appalling behavior in Canada during that shoot.
Is that the shoot where somebody called her, um, a mean person?
That's, that's the least of the of the negative things they said about her. They hated her at the end of that shoot. And the book describes why they hated her. And of course, what they've done now is they're much, much more careful about who they recruit to film and work on these uh series. And believe me, I've tried very, very hard to get through various people, all these people involved in Spotify and all the rest of it. And some have broken their NDAs. But on the whole, uh, what you've never really got, uh, perhaps until my book comes out, is an eyewitness account of what it's like inside the mansion in Montecito. I mean, how do they live? What happens when things go wrong? How does Megan actually cope with uh, these dreadful reviews she's had? And, and what's fascinating about her is you never see an ounce, a glimmer of misery when she's outside on parade. She always comes out immaculately dressed and smiling. And, you know, that takes huge courage. It takes huge inner strength and self-conviction, uh, and of course, time. She's very careful not to emerge till she's actually composed again. And that, and never, never talks about it. I mean, the whole problem she found with this last Vanity Fair issue, the hustle issue, is that she couldn't control the uh content, and, and she is somebody who believes, understandably, she's got to control everything down to the last full stop.
But is it courage that we don't see her break, or is it the fact that when she tried to do that, like in the Tom Bradby interview, in the Oprah Winfrey interview, even in the New York Times opinion piece that she wrote, there wasn't a lot of, I mean, initially there was a lot of sympathy for her with the Oprah Winfrey interview, but that turned to resentment when everybody started coming out saying, "Well, we're going to fact-check this, and it's not very accurate." Does she recognize that people don't admire someone in a privileged position that is consistently complaining about their life, no matter what their circumstances are?
Well, I think that's right, and you're absolutely right in saying about how tearful she was in the Bradbury interview. "No one's asked me if I'm okay." The tears with, um, Oprah, and the New York Times about her miscarriage. But the point is, you see, that her credibility sank once all the inaccuracies, 17 of them in the Oprah Winfrey interview, emerged. Like, for example, she hadn't really been married in St. George's Chapel, or this ridiculous conversation about the color of Archie's skin because he wouldn't get police protection. It's all lies. And that is exactly where the, she suddenly realized. And this again, her performance, uh, is always very carefully gauged, that she couldn't anymore play on emotion in that way. Um, I'm sure she's very tempted to, but have you noticed she doesn't do TV interviews anymore the same way? And when she does, for example, the Time 100 interview in New York last year, it was so contrived, so meaningless. So that she was able to escape unscathed because no one asked her the pertinent questions. I mean, she's very careful not to be, uh, made vulnerable, as she was in the past. She realizes vulnerability won't score for her anymore. Also, she was clever to be in the room with somebody who was villainized even more than she was, in in the form of Blake Lively, who was going through, you know, a difficult period as well. So, she knew she wasn't the most loathed person in that space.
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Um, you name one agent who reveals Megan has two characters, one concealed and one fictional, with a baffling tendency to switch from idolizing to belittling. And then you talk about that initial Vanity Fair piece that was so positive. Um, one of the people that worked with her closely, Sam Kashner, said she demanded that the media do what she expects. "I felt manipulated and betrayed. I felt played, orchestrated." And then describing her experience guest editing British Vogue, she worked pretty closely with the actual editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful. And you say, "Over the seven months, Megan persuaded herself she was ed, she was editing the issue, explaining that the editorial team showed silent exasperation with her. The staff also wondered, did she consider that she had crossed the line in her relationship with Enninful?" Now, this week, while promoting his new magazine, 72, he was asked, and Enninful, whether he would feature Megan in his new magazine, and he apparently paused before replying, "Megan and I had a great moment with the issue we did, but I feel like I have done it, and I wouldn't necessarily repeat myself." That felt like such a cold and clever response to me, just hearing that. What is your initial reaction? Is he telling us more than he means to tell us with with that quote?
I think that the uh Vogue September issue, which was the biggest sale of Vogue in its history in 2019, uh clearly she put a lot into it, but it was all done for her, and it was a great success from her point of view and from Vogue's and his. They fell out, um, over her attempt three years later to get the cover story when she went to Manchester and appeared in a One World charity event, and she wanted the cover and control of the content, and there was a huge argument, and that meant that he was really finished with her. He'd had enough of her prima donna behavior, and that's why he's dumped her. But also, I mean, from his point of view, what does she now bring? There isn't anything original. There's no great, uh, sales point there. And I think you've got to look at something else. You mentioned at the beginning, the Sam, Sam Kashner, who did the Vogue piece, Wild About Harry. Yeah. Yeah. Now, that was a very interesting story there, because I spent a lot of time talking to Kashner, and the whole chapter on the Vogue cover story is absolutely fascinating about her before she marries Harry. Uh, after the art of my book came out, Kashner went berserk, uh, and said that he'd never spoken to me and had no idea when he did speak to me what I'd written. And in fact, I'd caught him and read him everything so that he knew. And why did he somersault? Because he was under pressure from Megan. And Megan, when she puts on pressure with all her lawyers and all the rest of it, is a terrifying machine. That means what you call the Sussex war machine. And, uh, Kashner felt it and was very upset about it. Uh, and I was upset that he was upset because I had behaved impeccably.
But that is where, I mean, it felt like a little ego was involved though, because he, one of, I remember one of the statements I read didn't actually deny that he spoke to you, but he said he didn't have a lisp, or something like that, wasn't it that he didn't, he deny that he had a lisp or something? You know, I think what really happened was he was afraid that he wouldn't get future interviews with celebs if he'd spoken in that way. Could he be trusted? I, I understand from his point of view. From my point of view, it was priceless. It's fascinating. He gave a great insight into the woman, which proved to be the truth. Uh, she's a manipulator and an oppressor and hates the free press if it's not doing exactly what she wants. Uh, and that is her problem now, that whatever she produces, there's a huge constituency, regardless of how good or how bad she is, who will say it's dreadful, boring. And you people, women journalists especially in Britain, make their fortune by deriding everything she does. I mean, columns of The Times, the Mail, everything are devoted to ridiculing Meghan Markle. And of course, that is terrible for her, not to be the the glowing icon which she wants to be, the great feminist, the person who received these prizes from the Kennedys or whoever, but an object and a vehicle to writing how ridiculous she is. And once you get that smell, once the smell of ridicule touches you, very hard to remove it.
When you mentioned the Manchester piece, wasn't it probably from Enninful's point of view inappropriate because the Queen had just died, hadn't she? So, wouldn't that have been inappropriate to to put Megan on the cover of a of the of the magazine when Britain was still in mourning over the longest reigning Queen that they had? I mean, it was still such a sensitive time.
No, but the, she was about to die. But, um, the argument had happened weeks before. Okay. Because the lead time is much longer. So the Queen didn't come into it. What came into it was he had a cover already. He didn't want her on the cover. And she tried to interfere with the online content, and he said, "Well, you can't control it." And that was her point. She wanted control. Uh, and that's where she's now falling out because people increasingly will not give her control. I mean, what's the point? Yeah. I mean, I think the first time it really went bad for was an article in The Cut, and then The Hollywood Reporter was pretty rude about her. Yeah. Now, Vanity Fair, I mean, you know, it's tough on her. How does she recover? What does she do to stage the comeback? And that's the, that's always the story.
With these people. I mean, there's only two ways: either up or down. And at the moment, as we said right at the beginning, is down. They do cherry-pick who they work with right now. I mean, even with People magazine has just become this glorified Sussex press release outlet. Uh, we saw that Harry handpicked who was allowed to travel with him throughout his faux royal tour in the last few weeks. And of course, that led to a lot of positive press in his direction because, you know, the original source was ooey-gooey and glowing because they had that access. Um, so they are definitely still trying to control the media, and they have found some of those friendly outlets that will do exactly what they want. And I, I just don't trust those outlets now going forward. I never click on a People magazine link because I know exactly who the source is and I know that there's an ulterior motive.
Well, yes, you're right. What was remarkable about on his trip to Ukraine that you're talking to journalists from The Guardian newspaper, which is totally republican, very, very left-wing, very anti-royalist, and has never had a good word to say for Harry. And then they suckered into it because they couldn't believe their good luck to get such a story. Um, and even the Ukraine visit was a very clever bit of PR, which, uh, did work too. Um, Harry is in a different position to Meghan because, in the end, there's always a story. And you've got to remember, if, God forbid, something happened to the Prince of Wales and all his family, Harry would be the British king, you know, he still is in the line of succession, and that must never be forgotten. So, he can't be written off. Um, until, uh, William is king, and I think then he'll banish him forever.
Whereas Meghan, uh, always has to fight for a place. She has to fight for the spotlight. She has to fight to be seen, and being seen is critical to her. Uh, and, you know, she can't, if there's another shooting, she can't fly there as she did in Texas before. People won't take her seriously, and that's her problem. What can she do? Uh, so people take her seriously. Uh, and that is where she has very, very badly misplayed it. I mean, it's a great mistake to annoy the Vogue people and a great mistake to annoy all these different journalists because you can only do it once. You can only, like, you can only behave badly once in these cases. And she had done it too often, and her number of supporters, so to speak, diminishes. And that's why People magazine is still so important to her. Hard eye-roll.
All right. Um, Meghan was angry that the palace officials refused to her to protect her image. You go into this, and this is similar to what we're talking about with the media. She refused to accept that staff were not employed to promote her as an individual, but instead placed her within a grid of the entire royal family. In particular, Meghan fumed about the refusal officially to criticize her father, Thomas Markle. From her perspective, Meghan was isolated and vulnerable. Who does she blame now? Now that the palace isn't there, who does she blame for not protecting her? Is it Harry? No, I think, I think that that's her problem. Uh, she, she always in the past has someone to blame. Now, the only blame can be on herself, uh, uh, and on people like me who don't accept everything she says with absolute unadulterated praise and glory and gratitude. Uh, you know, she, she, she, she doesn't see herself other than always being victimized because people don't recognize her greatness and generosity and campaigning fervor. Uh, we look for it but don't find it. Uh, and that's what's.
But, you know, on the other hand, what's interesting is that, uh, Ted Sarandos, the head of Netflix, when he dumped her, didn't say, "We're dumping her 'cause she's no good." He said, "She's a rock star and brilliant and has been a great pathfinder," and couldn't stop oodling out praise for having dumped her. And that's the point. She's still, she's still got agents and people who can get the best out of a terrible position. And, and she's fighting. And that was her problem in the palace, going back to her, is when she was in Britain, that they, they wouldn't fight for her in the same way that she wanted because she wasn't the most important person. She was part of a team. She was part of a family. She wasn't Duchess of Sussex alone. And therefore, she had to come under more important people, and that's what she resented. The Queen, Charles, Kate, and William, these are all more important than her, and she couldn't understand that there is a hierarchy, there is a pecking order, and she wasn't on top. And that's that. Now, of course, is even worse for her because she's slipping. She's slipping down the pecking order. She is now one of the, um, and I, I.
Oh, you've been so gracious with your time. I'm almost wrapping up. So, thank you again so much for talking to me. One of the stories I didn't catch the first couple of times I read this book, but it just jumped out at me when I was reviewing the book to talk to you. So, you write, "Harry's daughter was born at Santa Barbara's Cottage Hospital on the 4th of June, on the same day, but two days before the birth was announced. Meghan's lawyers registered the libet.com website. After the birth, but before the public announcement, Harry called the Queen. He told his grandmother about the birth and their decision to call their daughter Lilibet." I, I was so mad about Harry and his grandmother that I, I never registered that they had purchased a URL before they had the courtesy to tell the Queen about this child's name. I'm appalled by that. It just shows you how commercially driven these people are.
But it's much worse even than that, you know, because in Harry's version, he called his grandmother and said, "They decided to call the daughter Lily, and would the Queen approve?" And the Queen did approve. The palace then, in the most unusual departure from their normal practice, called the BBC royal commentator reporter and told him. On the contrary, he didn't ask for permission; he announced it. And the Queen was utterly furious when the BBC broadcast the story, saying that Harry wasn't telling the truth. His lawyers in London threatened the BBC, uh, with a writ for defamation unless they apologized and paid damages. Well, the palace told the BBC, "Don't you apologize at all. What we've told you is the truth." And of course, then Harry had to withdraw because it was the truth. So, you go back to the beginning and say, when they gave her that name and the whole registration, everything, this was pure commercialization, I'm sure inspired by Meghan because Harry hasn't got a commercial strand in his body, wouldn't understand it all. And so, what you really are faced with is that she decided to monetize, as she has on every occasion, the royal family, whether it's the coat of arms or whether it's calling herself a Duchess. She actually monetized the Queen's name. And I find that that alone is pretty damning of her. I mean, it was a shocking thing to do, but she's ruthless. She thought, "This is good for me, and it's good for the business." Uh, and of course, after that was the whole struggle to get Archie and Lilibet called Prince and Princess, which, um, Charles, the King, resisted for some time until the baptism, uh, in their garden, I think, of Lily, and then the palace surrendered. They just couldn't fight him, which of course was a mistake and has proven to be a terrible mistake, but that's where we are. But that was Meghan being absolutely single-minded. Uh, she was going to always, uh, make sure her children had a link, and more than just a link, to the royal family in Britain. You know, she's always so envious of Kate and her children. She hates it when she sees Kate and her children dominating the news waves, and then she quickly drags out Lily, and the back, the back of Lily, but the back of her, because that's Harry. Yeah. You won't have the face. Yeah.
Well, you mentioned Catherine. You talk in the book about Kate was filmed laughing with Jill Biden. Meghan, you write, could see the unequal struggle for attention. She will have hated last week's state visit. Huh. She would have just seethed. Absolutely. There was a wonderful photo opportunity in Cornwall, in the Gardens of Eden there. Uh, and clearly, Kate was getting on very well with Mrs. Biden, who of course was very much, uh, Harry and Meghan's chosen friend in the Biden administration. So that would have annoyed them enormously that Mrs. Biden was not as loyal to the Sussexes. And of course, what happened then was after the Queen's funeral, they did ask Mrs. Biden whether they could return to America with her on Air Force One. And Jill Biden said no. And she wasn't going to insult the royal family. And that again is one of those problems that the Sussexes now face, that the A-listers don't want to annoy the British royal family. So whether it's the Obamas or Clooney as well, none of them seem to want to invite the Sussexes to their parties. Uh, and the Bidens, well, they're inviting anyone at the moment with that relationship. It had its purpose. It did sell, helped them. But that's now obviously been extinguished. Yeah, it had its purpose while Harry and Meghan were basically saying, "Vote for for Joe Biden," during the 2020 election, thanks to the ABC Time special.
All right. Agree with us, disagree with us, let us know in the comments below. We're going to talk about your next book because you have a new Harry and Meghan book coming out. And don't let me forget when we talk about that, I want to ask you to break down how Harry and Meghan were livid over not being on the balcony during the Platinum Jubilee because Meghan wanted that that shot for Netflix because that is also one of my favorite parts of your book. But you are a very important man, so you have places to be right now. I'm so grateful for your time today, Tom Bower. You know, you are my favorite author. We can say that to everybody. Do you have a date or is there some? Well, it'll be out early next year, the new book. Something to look forward to. I cannot wait. Tom Bower, thank you so much for your time today. You are a delight. Thanks very much for having me. [Music]