Transcription
The report of Megan's 45-minute visit to the headquarters of the College of Arms, located since 1555 in London's Queen Victoria Street, confirmed the establishment's worst fears. On the Queen's orders, Megan, the new Duchess of Sussex, was to have her own coat of arms. The design would be supervised by Thomas Woodcock, the Garter Principal King of Arms. The Californian had entered into an alien world of ancient British families, chivalry, and their symbols. Woodcock's task was to prevent any embarrassment, but Megan's request was unprecedented. Convinced that she had been created a duchess in her own right, unrelated to Harry being the Duke, she told Woodcock, "I want on the coat of arms a song bird with its tongue cut out." Woodcock was flummoxed. Any hint of nostalgia was quashed by her moral certitude. The duchess eventually agreed to a lion and a falcon, but without the image of it being forcibly silenced.
Hello, how are you? Welcome to my channel. My name is Dear Denise, and today we're doing Betrayal by Tom Bower. This book follows revenge, which is the second book I read on this channel. And what I love about Tom Bower is that he moves very quickly from incident to incident, and it's like a machine gun of anecdotes, all illustrating his point. And his point is that Megan was conniving from day one. She never had any intention of coming into the royal family and not being a disruptor. She is so obsessed with her own idea of success that it doesn't matter if she goes into a place that has a million traditions. She comes in with a sledgehammer and breaks it all up and thinks that somehow that's a credit to her. She's so unbelievably shallow and so blinded by her own sense of righteousness, it would never even cross her pretty little mind that there are actually things greater than her own self-image, and the idea of sacrificing everything for a cause or for a common good or for an ideal. No. And it's weird to me because she wants everyone to think that she was like the brainy one, the smart one, but she seems to have no ability to conceive of something outside of her own imagination. She seems not to be able to find any interest in anything outside of the box that she lives in, where it's all about monetizing things, getting people to become obsessed with you. Um, her entire goal is all about how can she make money, and how can she make much of herself, and how can she grow her name and her acclaim.
What's wild to me is she could have had all of the acclaim, all of the personal accolades, all of the respect, if she had come in as an American, already an outsider, and then done her best to fit in. What a credit it would have been to her to come in and been this super supportive wife, helping Harry find his place as the spare. Because the thing is, she entered their world. They did not enter hers. But she doesn't get that. She thinks they were lucky to get her, a Hollywood dealist actress. Honestly, I mean, literally no one had heard of Meghan Markle until she got with Harry. And the idea that she would think that they were privileged to have her presence animated everything she did. She did not see it as a privilege to join them. In her bullheadedness, she disrupted the very thing that could have vaulted her to success unknown. Ultimately, it wasn't just "I want everyone to look at me and I want everyone to think I'm wonderful and to praise me and think I'm this great do-gooder and have this great idea of me." If that had really truly been her one and only goal, she probably would have realized that the royal family could help her with that. But ultimately, the thing she most wanted was to be a billionaire and to live the billionaire lifestyle. And that is never going to happen in the royal family. There's lots and lots of perks, but there's also lots and lots of rules about what you can and can't do, where you can and can't go. Uh, there are extraordinary boundaries on your self-expression because that's part of the allure of the whole thing. Um, but she didn't want that. What she really wanted was money. And that's why all of this foolishness that she does where she tries to pretend that she's a philanthropist and that she and Harry are interested in doing good works, that's why all that falls flat because she had the perfect place to be a do-gooder, the perfect place to live out all her philanthropic dreams and goals. If she'd wanted to stay with the royal family, she wanted money. She wanted to monetize her name. She got with Harry thinking that she could be like an influencer princess. What a small, petty goal. And this book lays out in rapid succession all of the things that she did from day one in order to gain this petty, small ideal for herself. And it's more disgusting than I think I ever even realized. And there's a lot of things too in these opening chapters where it's kind of going over their breakdown of what happened when they were in England that I had forgotten about. Let's dive right back in to the story of Harry and Megan. This book is laying the groundwork for what happened in England and then is largely going to be discussing what has gone on since they've come to America. All right, enough of my yapping. Let's go.
Chapter 1. Manchester, 5th September 2022. In the countdown to the big moment, Ella Robertson read Meghan Markle's proposed speech on the auto-cue. "She's effed it," groaned Robertson. Instead of speaking as agreed about the charity One Young World, Megan's speech was focused on herself. Nearly 50 times in just 10 minutes, she intended to say, "I." On 5th September 2022, Megan was due to address 2,300 people for the One Young World Conference in Manchester. Founded in 2010 in London, the organization brought young leaders together every year in a different country to discuss global challenges. The co-founder, Kate Robertson, and her daughter Ella had been nervous about inviting Megan to Manchester. Meghan's visit was still a hotly emotional topic. Harry and Megan had only left the UK in March 2020, and the Sussexes' anticipated return to Britain from California had excited intense speculation. Buckingham Palace had disclosed that the Queen would not meet her grandson. Similarly, Princes Charles and William were indisposed to the couple. Fearful of the Sussexes' disloyalty, especially with the imminent broadcast of their Netflix series and the publication of Harry's autobiography, the royal family no longer trusted Harry or his wife. Despite the snubs, the Sussexes had conjured a short itinerary of three events headlined "Compassion in Action." First, they would appear in Manchester, then dashed to Dusseldorf to promote the 2023 Invictus Games, before returning to London for Harry to host the Wellchild Awards. Given recent explosive events, the Sussexes' appearances were guaranteed publicity. Despite the widespread anger among older Britons toward Harry and Megan, many young people hailed the couple as heroes. Among those younger factions, their popularity was undeniably magnetic. Megan, they believed, was the victim of racist royals, and that undoubtedly Harry had been abused by his father and brother. A new generation of aspiring young leaders, the Robertsons had decided, would welcome Megan to Manchester. "They are the most attention-grabbing couple in the world," judged Ella. "No one else could get so much attention for an event." Yet, the Robertsons had good reason to be fearful. During endless conversations and emails with the Sussexes' staff in California, Ella Robertson had sought guarantees that there would be no explosions to distract from the conference. Ever since Megan's interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, everything she had said had become sensational. Although sensitive to criticism, Megan was proud of the Oprah interview, not least because the reward for denouncing the royal family was renewed global stardom. Robertson sought reassurances from James Holt, the Sussexes' chief of staff. "Nothing's coming up that I'm aware of," he affirmed. Holt evidently forgot to mention that Megan would be hosting a series of podcasts and the imminent publication of an interview with The Cut, a New York magazine. Holt's priority was to fuel Megan's celebrity, especially as a champion of humanitarian causes.
Again, as I stated earlier, if she really cared about all the humans, she could have just stayed with the royal family and done all kinds of good works. And how is it that your chief of staff is unable to come up with a better answer than "nothing's coming up that I'm aware of"? Well, James, do you not do your job? Obviously, you are aware of the fact that she's got podcasts and magazine interviews coming up and that her frame of mind is pretty antagonistic towards the royal family, and James Holt knew that full well. But of course, he zipped his little lips. And I guess it's his job. He's paid to zip his lips. But if Megan's position was so morally right, if there was just no question as to the moral certitude of her next actions denouncing the royal family, if there was something truly righteous and just about what she was doing, then she didn't need to tell James Holt or anybody who worked for her to button their lips about the way she felt about things. If it is the right thing to think, then you just think it and you just say it and you just act on it. You don't carefully organize and tiptoe around and play games and mental gymnastics with people. If it was exactly the right thing for her to do to denounce the royal family as these quote unquote racists, then denounce them at every turn of the way. But of course, when you've cultivated a lie and you're living deception, then it all has to become mental mind games. And the people who work for you also have to play mental mind games.
In July 2022, Holt confirmed Megan's appearance in Manchester. One Young World agreed to pay for the return flights from Los Angeles for the Sussexes' entourage. A total of 11 people. Five would travel first class, two in business, and four in economy. Appropriately, Megan had agreed that her short speech in Manchester would focus on empowering women and gender equality. Pointedly, she was asked not to speak about herself and not to wear expensive clothes. From past experience, the Robertsons had reasons to be nervous. During her rise to stardom, Megan had previously worked with One Young World, and it clearly helped to boost her celebrity. Although the actress was largely unknown in 2014, Kate Robertson had been persuaded by the photographer Misan Harriman to give Megan a slot at the Dublin conference. "Choose her, she'll be a star," urged Harriman. "Not only because she was acting in Suits," the American cable TV series, explained Harriman, but because, in his words, "she's a hustler and a climber. She's looking for ins and ups." Well, Harriman had her number, didn't he? Two years later, in September 2016, Megan was booked to appear at the One Young World Conference in Ottawa. By then, she'd been secretly dating Harry for 3 months. Her ambition, she'd confessed to her publicist, Genevieve Hill, was to marry the prince. "With Harry by my side," she had whispered at a London restaurant, "we could change the world." During those action-packed two days in Ottawa, the Robertsons and Hill's team noticed how Megan had altered from just two years previously. Forthrightly, she demanded to be featured in the official photographs with the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and Bob Geldof. She also demanded equivalence with the actress Emma Watson. She had wiggled her way into Vanity Fair's photograph featuring exceptional young leaders and had scrutinized whether her name featured as a very, very important person on the roster. Disgruntled by her failure to secure top billing, she abruptly announced that she was needed on the Suits set in Toronto and departed without making her listed speech to the conference.
The unbelievable unprofessionalism of that. Why would she be billed as a very, very important person at this point? Her secret relationship with Harry is the only reason why, in her own mind, she's been elevated to this status as a very, very important person, but nobody else knows that she's dating him. And had everybody known that, how would her dating a famous guy mean that she was qualified to be considered a very, very important person on par with the world's next leaders? She just snagged a guy who thought she was cute. I mean, that doesn't make you powerful. It makes you a woman with a move that could seem heartless towards those unable to further her ambitions. It was becoming apparent that Megan would allow no one to forget that she was to become one of the world's most famous women. Despite that disruption, Ella Robertson could not resist again inviting Megan to address 2,000 young leaders at the One Young World Conference in London's Royal Albert Hall on October 22nd, 2019. Just sorry, I'll keep I'll quit interrupting myself, but how hard up were they for talent that they keep coming back to this dry watering hole? What do you think that Megan's gonna do for One Young World? You know, I mean, obviously at this point there was so much hubbub about Megan and she had enough positive publicity uh with younger people who have, I guess, zero ability to read others. Some people thought she was this great hero for speaking up against these quote unquote abuses she'd suffered at the hands of the royals. But to pick somebody who had already burned you because she didn't think that she was billed appropriately for the event and she just like left her responsibilities and didn't give the speech that she was billed to give. I would I wouldn't touch that person with a 10-foot pole if I was on my deathbed and doing so would help me survive. This person is not trustworthy. And when she was nobody, she was not trustworthy. And now that she is married to the prince, where do you think her ego will be now? The fact that the Robertsons even had anything to do with Megan, I don't feel sorry for them. Nary a bit. Because had they known nothing about her, I'd be like, "All right, well, you know, you're within your rights to not have understood how she would be personally and professionally," but they know full well how she is. She would have been insufferable when she was married to Harry.
Well, the book goes on to say that now the newly married duchess was certain to be a star attraction. Unsurprisingly, the negotiations were complicated. Jason Knauf, Megan's young American-born Palace press secretary, was emphatic. "Megan demands that you big up her humanitarian credentials." Calls to confirm Megan's presence were answered "yes" by Kensington Palace and then followed up by uncertainty. "What a viper's nest in her office!" complained Ella Robertson. Every request to confirm Megan's participation produced conflicting replies from her assistants. Positive from Amy Pickerill, frosty from Beth Hurley, encouraging from Sarah Laam, a Kensington Palace media official who replied, "We want to do the project and we want to do it now." And finally, hectic from Samantha Cohen, the Sussexes' most senior advisor. "It became a nightmare to get her to the event," recalled Robertson. The chaos had spread to the London headquarters of the Invictus Games, Harry's successful sports competition for wounded military veterans. "It's a show over there," Chief Executive Don Reed reported about Kensington Palace. "Harry has no idea what's happening." The nub was a breakdown of relations between the Sussexes and their staff, and everyone knew the reason. Finally, Megan agreed to appear at the Royal Albert Hall. In return, One Young World funded a £200,000 scholarship for Megan to mention in her speech. The agreement soon unraveled. Prince Charles ordered that Megan cancel her appearance. Her date clashed with his official visit to Japan, and he feared her appearance would overshadow his trip. The agreed compromise was a round-table discussion about gender equality, chaired by Megan, that would be filmed by the BBC in Windsor. On meeting Megan in Windsor Castle for the discussion about her favorite topic, feminism, Ella Robertson was surprised. Five months after Archie's birth, she was traumatized, shell-shocked, and brittle. Nevertheless, Megan behaved professionally. Well-prepared, she introduced her surprise guest to the panel: Harry. He had just finalized the membership of Britain's team to compete at the following year's Invictus Games in the Hague. With Harry in a supporting role, the BBC's film featured the Sussexes as genuine stars. By then, gossip about the confusion and arguments among the Sussexes and Cambridges, the so-called Fab 4, in Kensington Palace and beyond, had seeped into the media. By now, dubbed "Duchess Difficult," Megan was wilting under the pressure. Megan's plight attracted sympathy in Westminster. 72 female MPs expressed their solidarity with her against the media and implicitly the palace. Simultaneously, American politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, hailed Megan as a hero. With targeted briefings, Megan was successfully building a narrative about her suffering. Like many young people, her audience at the Royal Albert Hall hailed Megan as a global champion for the rights of women and girls, activist, and philanthropist. Just two weeks later, the Sussexes departed for a remote waterfront mansion on Vancouver Island, the first stage of their dash to California. Harry would call their journey "running like hell." Palace press officer Sarah Laam voiced an alternative take about "Mexit." "Ultimately, we've all been had." Since her exit from Britain in 2019, Megan had devoted money and effort to craft a global image as a feminist, philanthropist, activist, and American mom. The Robertsons were baffled. "It's just really hard to see that she's ever really been a leader of anything other than her own image creation." Nevertheless, in 2022, they could not resist inviting the global star to Manchester.
In Megan's new career, media advisers were supreme. At that moment, no one was more important in Los Angeles than Megan's in-house media managers: Beth Hurley, Miranda Barbot, and Ashley Hansen. Barbot had worked on Barack Obama's 2012 election team, and Hansen came from Universal Pictures. The most important outsider was Keleigh Thomas Morgan of Sunshine Sachs, a Los Angeles PR agency. As the Sussexes' global press secretary, Hansen described herself as, quote, "The brain behind Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's PR and communication strategy." The brain? The brain has a tumor. She had overseen their Netflix docuseries *Harry & Meghan* and was preparing for the launches of Prince Harry's memoir *Spare* and Megan's *Archetype* podcasts. Like Megan, Hansen was a Californian, passionate about food, exercise, and meditation. Daily, Hansen and her team of four monitored every media outlet for coverage of their employer. "We know, especially with tabloids, there's an agenda there," said Hansen. "And it's a negative one for the most part." In anticipation of their arrival in Manchester, Hurley admitted, "All bets are off with the British media, and all the trolls are out in force." Snapping orders, Hansen was a salty voice of the Sussexes' war machine. Long before she arrived in Britain for the One Young World event in 2022, there was always a risk that the appearance would be used for Megan's own benefit rather than for charity. Building on her successful September issue for Vogue in 2019, Megan asked the magazine editor Edward Enninful to feature her on Vogue's front cover ahead of the Manchester event. Over the following weeks, their discussion soured. Megan's demands for control over the content reportedly infuriated Enninful. Plus, he'd already chosen a cover, and her demands for an online version were exhausting. Her proposal was dumped. In the fallout, Megan would not be invited in 2024 by Enninful to feature in the photograph for his last edition featuring Vogue's 40 legendary women. Megan risked the same reaction from the Robertsons as she headed to Manchester.
What's so wild about Megan's inability to look into tomorrow is the fact that she never considers that she needs these relationships to continue to build her career. How many times can you burn the people around you and think that they can still rise up and help you tomorrow? It's like, can she not imagine that kindness and generosity of spirit are the best way to keep climbing to the top? Of course, that's kind of a manipulative way to look at being kind and generous. But if she really had a desire to make it to the top, she would not assume that the best way to do that is to bully, belittle, and condemn those around her for every little mistake that she thinks that they've made, to be so difficult to get along with, to constantly hurt the people who could help you. I I think she has like a mental disease. Like, is she mentally ill? This makes so little sense to think that you could bully people and be mean to people and cause fits and be a diva and think that somehow they're going to help you the next time they have an opportunity to cross paths with you. They're going to avoid you like the plague that you are. Hansen perfectly understood the challenge. Even the timing of Megan's appearance was a high-wire act. At the same time as she was due to walk on the stage, the Conservative party would announce that Liz Truss had been elected as the new Tory leader and the next prime minister. Remarkably, Hansen had negotiated that Sky TV would cut from Westminster to capture Megan's live appearance. Hansen recognized that Megan was sensitive to slights. To limit any embarrassment in Manchester, there was to be tight scrutiny of ticketing to exclude any protesters, a ban on spectators standing outside the venue, and all journalists were to be excluded from the hall. Hansen demanded that only Omid Scobie, a trusted author, and the photographer Misan Harriman were to be given access to the event. Harriman's photographs would be published only in Town and Country magazine, according to Hansen, not the mainstream media. Harriman was surprised to be the sole photographer. Despite producing Megan's Vogue cover and photos of Archie, he'd had no contact with her ever since. In Megan's world, it seemed tradesmen were ignored until required. Any protest that the media restrictions would damage Megan's request to be globally positioned as a philanthropist was dismissed by Keleigh Thomas Morgan. "KTM's as useless as a chocolate teapot," scoffed an organizer. "Completely out of her depth." Yet Megan knew no better. Risks were unacceptable to the duchess. "I've been abandoned," complained Harry days before the event. Stressed about their security, Harry had been told that the Home Office refused to provide armed protection to Manchester and London. But with Megan's insistence that her appearance was essential to sustain her brand, he decided to risk assassination. At least Manchester police provided extra cover to avoid a major incident, and a whole rail carriage was reserved for the journey from London to Manchester. Although the public would be barred from access to the royal carriage, Harry later complained about the dangers he faced "because of my proximity to the public." Before leaving Frogmore Cottage, still their Windsor home, Charlotte Tilbury herself had spent 3 hours, 3 hours on Megan's makeup. The final touch-up was completed at the Kipton Clock Tower Hotel in Manchester. After lunch and a rest, the couple were driven to the Bridgewater Hall. Over 2,300 eager young people were waiting. Hurley refused the suggestion that they enter through the kitchen. They would brave the crowd. As they emerged onto the empty pavement, Harry heard "God Save the Queen" booming from a circling van and a few distant boos. "They're all paid by tabloids to show up," Harry later pronounced. "So they're so worried about security. I'm going to have to risk assassination for this. You know that because I've been abandoned. But then when you are given the opportunity to come in through the kitchen so that you don't have to risk assassination and you refuse that protection, you were never worried in the first place." Anxious about her speech, Megan stood waiting off stage while Harry, ever the professional, humored his hosts with small talk. Hovering alongside was her publicist, Ashley Hansen. Dressed in over-the-top Californian lifestyle clothes, a large trench coat, a big hat, and sunglasses, Hansen symbolized Megan's similar discomfort of appearing in front of a British audience. Escorted amid a standing ovation onto the stage, Megan, wearing a red dress, adopted her practiced Hollywood smile, while Harry clapped with what was now arguably his perma-scowl. Megan had abandoned the build theme, "Ethical Leadership: How can we instill transparency, honesty, and integrity as core values for leaders?" To Ella Robertson's anger, her speech praised One Young World who "saw in me what I wanted to see fully in myself." And over the next 10 minutes, she spoke exclusively about herself and her rise to fame.
"It was several years ago in 2014 that I was first invited to be a counselor at One Young World. And in many ways at the time, I was probably a lot like each of you. Young, ambitious, advocating for the things I deeply and profoundly believed in, and also looking around and wondering, 'How on earth did I get here?' And there I was. I was the girl from Suits, and I was surrounded by world leaders, humanitarians, prime ministers, and activists that I had such a deep and long-standing respect and admiration for. And I was invited to pull up a seat at the table. I was so overwhelmed by this experience. And I think I think I even saved my little paper place card that said my name on it. Um, I was so nervous. I doubted myself and I wondered, wondered if I was good enough to even be there. What I was doing in the world, albeit important and meaningful as far as I saw it, was it deserving to have a seat at this table? But One Young World saw in me what I wanted to see fully in myself. They saw in me, just as I see in you, the present and the future."
"She's tonedeaf to others," Robertson realized. "She just can't do what we wanted. She's toxic." Every organization inviting the Sussexes, she concluded, would need to factor in disappointment and an inevitable storm. At the end of Megan's speech, the audience clapped politely. Anxious about missing the train back to London, the Sussexes rushed from the building, oblivious to the organizers' indignation and the impression it gave that the couple felt that the British people were irrelevant and easy to ignore. In Megan's mind, the British and their country were irrelevant. Dissatisfied Brits were apparently easy to ignore, not least the royal family. She'd accumulated all the ingredients for her career. She would appear to enjoy irritating her critics and enemies. Whatever had happened in the preceding months, Megan clearly saw herself as the victor. I know I've already said it, but the Robertsons' rumpled feelings. The way Megan acted in 2022 is a little bit hard for me to sympathize with simply because she had already told them who she was. For them to be like, "Can you believe she made it all about herself?" Yeah, I can believe that, 'cause she did the same thing when she didn't give the speech she was supposed to give because she didn't get top billing. Anybody who would do that is just a person who will become worse and worse and worse as they become more and more important in their own eyes. She was willing to do that when she was nobody. Who do you think she's going to be now? A nightmare for them to be like, "Can it's just it was so hard to work with her. Can you believe it? Can you believe it?" Yes, I can believe it. What I can't believe is that you willingly walked into the lion's den and then you were like, "Man, these lions are mean." Yeah. And didn't you already know that? Had you already experienced this? I don't know. It just seems kind of lame for them to be like, "It was such a bad experience. We're just she was so unprofessional." I think it's unprofessional of you to choose somebody who you knew was going to be hard to work with and then be surprised when it was difficult.
The next few days were hectic for the couple. Encouraged by Harry to play on the royal family's popularity in Germany, the Invictus executives had arranged for a flight the next day to get the couple to their event in Dusseldorf. After landing, they were driven in a high-speed police convoy to the city's town hall, where they were greeted at the end of a red carpet as heads of state by Mayor Stefan Keller. Unlike in Manchester, Harry was happy to be interviewed. "Great," he told the Invictus executives, clearly pleased to be feted. On his return to London for the Wellchild Award ceremony in Lancaster Gate Hotel, Harry flourished as the popular prince, genuinely friendly towards the children and their parents, and hailed as thoroughly good. At the end of the day, Harry returned to Frogmore, anticipating his imminent return to Los Angeles. Deeply distrusted by the royal household, Harry had been purposefully kept ignorant of events occurring in Scotland. That night, September 7th, 2022, Edward Young, the Queen's private secretary, was near his 96-year-old sovereign at Balmoral. The Queen's life, he knew, was ebbing away. Bone marrow cancer had taken its toll. Princess Anne was by her mother's bedside. Prince Charles was hosting a dinner 150 miles away. Operation London Bridge, the plans for a state funeral, Charles's ascension, and much more after the monarch's death was underway. The following morning, Harry and Megan would discover the depth of the royal family's distrust towards them.
Chapter 2. Global Celebrity. Ever since Harry and Megan met on her initiative on a blind date arranged in July 2016 while she was working at London's Wimbledon Tennis Championships, Megan had given thanks for her amazing luck. At the time, she was on the verge of losing her role in the cable TV series Suits and her Canadian boyfriend, too. Landing Harry had transformed the life of a single, potentially unemployed 34-year-old actress who had just confessed to her publicist that she planned to freeze her eggs. Scrambling through Google and newspaper profiles, she discovered how Harry was a confused character, crying out for love and punished for his vulnerability. After their first meeting in London's Soho House, she had called Harry to arrange a second meeting and then snapped up his invitation to stay with him at a safari camp in Botswana. Over many days in the African bush, Megan listened to his list of woes, clearly satisfying Harry's quest for sympathy. She was so unlike his last long-term girlfriend, Cressida Bonas, the aspiring British actress who had tired of Harry's conviction that spies were watching him through every window, even when they visited friends for dinner, and how he was a target to be shot. Bonas was exhausted from standing next to a man who seemed to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown. One of the many reasons for Harry's love of Megan was her patience. Well, it's easy to be patient when you're plotting the greatest coup of your life. I mean, you know, I think really and truly the difference between why Harry's girlfriend Cressida and why Megan differed so much was probably the fact that she was British and Megan's American. I don't think that the British suffer fools as well. You guys tell me what you think. But it just seems to me that a lot of bellyaching isn't going to go down very well. While there are parts of the American culture that really coddle and take care of people who want to incessantly whine and complain, specifically where Megan is concerned in Hollywood, it's just one long whine session after another when it's like, "You guys are the most privileged people of all time, but everybody wants to nurse their wounds and talk about their grievances and talk about how they were traumatized and insulted and hurt and how all of this privilege is really just a woeful burden." You know, such a weary load to tote. So Megan would have known exactly how to appeal to Harry. Coming from a background that knew how to make much of everybody's tragedy so that they get to be the center of attention. She would have known exactly how to make him feel seen and heard. Whereas Cressida, I think, would have been like, "Pull yourself together. You know, just enough of this already."
Unlike Cressida, who ended the relationship with Harry in 2014, Megan appeared to be sympathetic to the torrent of his paranoid fears. Much of it repeats of what he had told his therapist. "Generational trauma" was his catchphrase to lament how his emotional needs were not satisfied. Megan encouraged Harry's certainty that anything he passionately believed must be true. Objective facts, namely the real truth, were disposable if inconvenient. Within weeks, their mutual commitment was sealed. Harry was besieged by his new soulmate: a surrogate mother, homemaker, confessor, and safety net. Within months, cynical palace officials were whispering about Megan having found a "meal ticket." Their suspicions outraged Harry. Unreservedly, Harry identified with Megan's discomfort. "The hierarchy of my family," he said, was to blame. For 30 years, he complained, the institution had controlled and imprisoned him. Throughout his life, no one wanted to understand his frustration and his sense of inferiority. Few had listened to his need for an identity, any identity, other than being the unloved spare. Beyond that personal torment, Harry was evidently too inarticulate and too adrift to be able to explain to Megan the royal hierarchy. He felt himself pushed by his family to the side of the stage.
Now, okay, in a brief moment of defense for Harry, it would appear to me that really not much was done to help him become a man. Harry would walk out on the street, no money in his pockets, no key to the house. If he needed to fly somewhere, somebody made the arrangements. If he needed a ride somewhere, somebody called a car. If he was hungry, someone brought food. I mean, there was just never a time in his life when he had to solve any of his own problems. So, the idea that somebody who'd been so coddled their entire life was going to rise like a phoenix from the ashes after his mother's death and carve out for himself a meaningful life, that just seems to defy all reasonable hope. How could anyone hope that he'd be able to do that? He's not a strong person, and that seems evident from when he was like a little bitty kid. And a person like that needed to have been given obstacles, needed to have been taught how to make goals and meet goals. Like, even just somebody who would like get him out of bed and like physically like run him and like do like hard workouts, like just like give yourself something physically challenged so that you can commit to the goal. I think that's why the military meant so much for him because he could, for maybe the first time in his life, be part of a team that needed his skill set, needed some kind of excellence from him. But in the role of spare, what excellence is required of him? He can mope around and complain and be a real pain in everyone's ass, and everyone's like, "Well, just find something for him to do." But it didn't have to be meaningful or life-giving. Just do something with him so he stops crying and complaining. This is a man-child. He was never taught how to be an adult. So basically, he's a boy who can shave. And I just think that for Harry, what would have been so incredibly important was for him to have had some like significantly masculine role models in his life. Somebody who could have taught him how to be a man. Somebody who could have taught him at the individual level how to be excellent and not rely on other people. It should have been required that he know how to go about town without protection. Even though protection would still be present, but he, somebody should have taught him and seen that it was important that he learn how to be an individual man in this world so that he's not over there falling prey to the clear manipulations of a snaky woman like Megan. Leaving him to his own devices was to go into battle without your chest plate on. Because even though maybe he's not that important in the hierarchy of things, especially once William and Catherine started having their own kids, his griping and complaining was going to expose them all. The revenge that he would eventually fall into, given bad leadership, which he found with Megan, was inevitable because everyone kept pushing him to the side. No one gave him any goals. No one showed him how to do anything. No one mentored him towards excellence. I'm not saying that he didn't know how to do the job. I'm not saying that he wasn't told royal protocol on how to behave because he did know how to behave. He was one of the most charming, easy to get along with, really lovely person when it came to doing the royal job. But as an individual, as a man, I don't think he knew how to be a man. And so when Megan was like, "I need you to protect me." That is that's your goal. You have to, once we get married, you have to protect me so I don't become your mom. That became his identity. But it was a misplaced identity because it was unnecessary. So again, he's still unnecessary in this world. They don't need protection. Nobody's going to come after them. No one's trying to assassinate them. You know, and I I think that he was so desperate for somebody to give him something that he could do as a man, and Megan was the first one to tell him, "Do this." He just ate it up. His soul craved doing something masculine instead of sitting around waiting for enough people to die so he could be king.
Aware of Harry's complaints, the palace had devoted enormous efforts during the months before their glittering wedding on May 19th, 2018, a glorious sunny day, to familiarize Megan with the reality of life as a royal. Although Megan would tell Oprah Winfrey in 2021 that palace officials had never explained what she could expect, senior courtiers had obeyed the Queen's orders to coach Megan for her role in the constitutional monarchy. Among the formalities designed to teach Megan about her new life was the service to become a member of the Church of England. Unaware of the teachings of the Bible, she was helped by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to understand the religious procedures. To underline its importance, the whole royal family, led by the Queen and Prince Philip, gathered in St. James's Chapel Royal to witness the 30-minute ritual of Megan's baptism and confirmation. At the end, few eyewitnesses believed that Megan had taken her vows seriously. I mean, I think we can all agree that Megan did not take her vows seriously. But you know what really bothers me? The fact that it would mean so little to everybody else that they would just go ahead and baptize and confirm her where they knew that she was not into it and did not believe it. Like the fingers being pointed at Megan here, she didn't take her vows seriously. Well, did those administering the vows take them seriously? Did anybody who sat there and watched it all happen? This play-acting in front of them, this religious play, nobody took it seriously. If you're going to confirm someone and baptize them into a faith that they do not believe in, everybody is equally wrong in that scenario. No one believed Megan believed it. Well, I don't believe anyone believed it. To ensure that the 37-year-old American was aware of the complications of marrying into the royal family, Edward Lane Fox, Harry's private secretary, presented a specially prepared 30-point dossier to Megan, covering every aspect of royal life. It explained how, as patrons of hundreds of organizations from lifeboats to the Royal Opera House and many community charities, the royal family embodied the heart of British society, applauding tens of thousands of generous volunteers. The politically powerless family represented the nation and its shared values, the glue that held Britain's disparate society together. Some would conclude that Megan did not read the dossier. Some, I think we can all conclude, she did not read the dossier. If she did, she skimmed it. And again, what is with this person who would have us all believe that she is the smart one in her class? She was just such a nerd. She used to have this shirt that said, "Talk nerdy to me." 'Cause that's the kind of person she is. But I guess she didn't want to nerd out on what the royal family was really about. I guess she didn't care to nerd out about the traditions of her very famous husband. I think the thing that's so crazy, and this is what always smacked me of how she so did not love him. When you met your spouse, weren't you just so into everything that he had come from? Like, what were your people like? What was growing up like for you? Like, what is the culture in your family? And she's marrying into a family that has a very distinct culture, a very famous tradition. Wouldn't you be like, "Intensely interested in what that all meant?" Even if you were still kind of on the fence whether you were super excited about being involved in that yourself, wouldn't you just want to read everything that had been on his plate since he was like a little kid? Like, I would want to know if I were Megan and I were marrying Harry. Like, I'd want to know like, "What has it been like for you to be in this family? What's expected of you? What do you guys believe? What do you guys think?" I just can't imagine having all of this literature at my disposal to learn what my husband's family life had been like and just kind of like dismiss it, like glance over it. "Okay, well, that sounds like something you guys like to do, but I won't be doing any of it." That was her whole attitude.
A parallel attempt was made by Samantha Cohen, appointed by the Queen to explain royal life and the monarch's neutrality. The Queen's genius was to disguise her beliefs by never revealing an opinion, especially about controversial causes. Dedicated to serving Britain and the Commonwealth, her primary duty was to cultivate goodwill, dissolve tension, and defend Christianity and the culture of her peoples. Palace officials suspected that all those conversations passed Megan by. Harry would later write, "Megan wasn't given one minute of training." How could he possibly believe this? I do truly think that Harry lives in just a cloud of utter delusion from the sun up to sun down. I do. I just think that he is so checked out. I think his mind is in such mental chaos all the time that people could be screaming at him and he would just be like, "I'm so worked up about the generational trauma. I just I can't hear anything that's going on." I I think his mind's like a whirlwind constantly, and I just don't think that he is paying any attention. So if Megan were to come to him and be like, "No one told me anything," then he would just accept it as fact. Well, Megan said no one told her anything. Not one person came to her defense. Can you believe it? No, we cannot. 'Cause it's such an evident lie. Why would somebody let an American, a sloppy American, into the family and not at least try to sit them down and tell them their ABCs? Who in their right mind would let this person who so evidently was going to cause problems? Who would let her in and not at least try to quell the coming storm with a couple of lessons, a little bit of etiquette, you know? But it's preposterous that any of us are supposed to believe that somebody like Megan could come in and no one would say anything to her.
Already fearing disaster, a senior member of the establishment was asked to explain personally to Megan what to expect as Harry's wife. Every month, he met Megan in Kensington Palace for 90 minutes. Occasionally, Harry was present. Megan, he discovered, dominated their relationship. Assuming the minor role, Harry appeared to be proudly besotted by his fiancée. "You're not just marrying Harry Windsor," said the official. "You're marrying the British Constitution." Megan smiled. Her future life in the royal family, she was told, would be inside a bubble. Beyond the wealth and traditions, there would be fences restricting her life and a lot of standing up and curtsying. And always someone watching. Megan smiled again. "I mean, that's what you think. Maybe that's been your experience. I don't plan on coming in and having the same experience you guys all had, though. So, I mean, you're just describing a world that doesn't I don't relate to it." Conscious of her look, she gazed into the distance, unwilling to accept the warning about the limitations that would be imposed on her. "There'll be a lot you can't do," she was told. Again, Megan's eyes glazed over. She was unwilling to understand that the institution would take over her life and the boundaries were strict. Megan did not see it as her privilege. She saw it as their privilege. And so why should she care what they say? She was going to come in and do her her own thing anyway because they were lucky to have her. After a few weeks, a senior official mentioned the abdication, the decision in December 1936 by Edward VIII to renounce the throne in order to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. After leaving Britain, Megan was told the Windsors had ended up in a cul-de-sac. She clearly sympathized with the Duchess of Windsor, but in her mind, she would dictate her own terms. Sycophantic submission was certainly not contemplated by the Californian. The senior official grasped that Megan saw herself at the center of every situation. With a sense of her own important role, she anticipated remaining in total control of her own future. Any talk about hierarchy passed over her head. Lurking beneath the surface, he realized, was her refusal to be bound by Britain's traditions. She would decide her actions for herself, and if the palace imposed constraints, then she would have the rules changed. If there were no changes, she would go. The official was startled. "The marriage would be bumpy," he told an aide. "If it lasted, he knew that no palace official or member of the royal family would be able to control Megan."
If she refused to conform, everyone in Buckingham Palace would be powerless. Another official lamented that the Californian refused to grasp that the royal family is the nation's family and a national obsession. The royals may appear to be ordinary people, but to maintain the monarchy, they relied on the public's willingness to treat them like gods. Megan, the adviser, blatantly realized, thought that she should also be treated as a god. It was clear that Megan was ignoring all the advice. Megan, one muttered, saw the prince as her prize. Megan's unpredictability dawned on palace officials when family was mentioned. Megan admitted that she brought baggage to the marriage. The model of a stable marriage had not existed in her own life. Her childhood, she said, had been difficult. Her relations with her family, she explained, were bad, particularly with her father, Thomas Markle. Those speaking with her were surprised by her sense of isolation, but worse, she showed no interest in fostering better relations with Harry's family. She refused to engage with those speaking about compromise and obedience. Fears about her intentions were confirmed after she disclosed weeks before the ceremony that, "I hope my father won't be coming to the wedding." The admission shocked her audience.
And it should have shocked her audience because I think a healthy person perhaps may have come from a disheveled background where her parents were not all they could be. But I think that a person who longs to be healthy and well is looking for the community of family. I think that if I had been Megan, I would have done all that I could to oblige this family with hopes that they would welcome me in with open arms. But instead, she's so cold and unfeeling that it's like, well, I don't have much of a family and I really just didn't need them. I mean, I've gotten where I am because of me. And I think that family can actually kind of just get in your way and distract you from your objectives and goals. And I see that here with Harry. He's being distracted. They're taking away from who he could be instead of adding to it. And so if we have to cut those ties, we have to cut those ties. Imagine what I would have been if I tried to like figure things out with my dad. I mean, he's just he he is an absolute weight around my neck. Frankly, I'm not really that interested in hanging around Harry's family either. Family is just kind of a pain, honestly.
In the months before the wedding, officials noted that Megan had sidelined her father from the arrangements. He was not sent an invitation, nor did Megan ask a British embassy official to offer him help, as she had in the case of her mother. More telling, Harry had not tried to meet Thomas Markle in Los Angeles. As the international media aggressively doorsteped the retiring studio lighting technician's home in Mexico, Megan appeared to abandon him. Palace officials assumed that Megan had good reason to distance herself from Thomas Markle, especially after he famously lied about staging photographs of his preparations for the wedding. That was just one of the many surprises causing alarm.
"You know, I never really thought much of Harry for not trying to meet his future father-in-law. I think it's wild that as far as I know to this day, he doesn't even know the man. Never even met him. But for somebody who was like raised in tradition to not at least extend some kind of olive branch and say, you know, I'm love your daughter and I would love to marry her and I would love to have your blessing. He certainly went to his grandmother and said, 'I want to marry Megan. May I?' Because that's part of the tradition. But what about just the tradition of Western culture and going and seeking the parents of the woman that you intend to marry and just saying, 'I'm so in love with her. May I have your blessing?' But even if he decided that, you know, he was going to forego that formality, at least meet the man. Even if you think asking for somebody's blessing is dumb cuz I'm going to marry her regardless of what you say anyway, so I don't really need to do that. If that's the way you see it, okay, but at least have the dignity and honor the other person's role in your fiance's life by at least meeting him. Like that was just such like a weak thing that Harry did. And you know that Megan was like, 'I don't want you to meet him. He's a terrible person.' But probably she didn't want him to meet somebody who knew her so well who could reveal her true character to him if he so chose."
By then, those palace officials closely involved had concluded that both Megan and the royal family had unrealistic expectations about her life after the marriage ceremony. For Megan's part, she clearly refused to accept any restrictions. On the other side, the royal family were deluding themselves. From the Queen down, they assumed that she would somehow slot into her place. None of the royal seniors understood that Megan was questioning a thousand years of history. No official can recall that among the senior royals, one voice was heard warning, "This must work. We could not have another Diana." Six years later, Megan explained her stance. "I was just so done with the prove it game." She refused to be judged. She admitted challenging the royal family. "If you can't see it, I don't have to prove it to you."
As Megan set out her own expectations, a senior member of the establishment noted Megan's rejection of royalty's mystique. Uninterested in the monarchy's place in Britain, she ignored the special aura that elevated the royal family. In her mind, the royals were more like super celebrities. Megan spoke about the firm, believing that the Queen ran the monarchy like the president of Universal Studios. She didn't want to understand the labyrinthine network of personal relationships, interlin organizations, livery companies, and secret committees that comprise the establishment. In her self-focused manner, she knew nothing about the ghosts of the past. Nor could she imagine the Queen's private secretaries receiving calls from all over the world asking, "What does the Queen think and what will she do?"
The Queen's suspicions about Megan surfaced before their wedding. To the monarch's displeasure, Megan insisted on making many of the decisions about the arrangements without consulting anyone. Not only did Megan refuse to discuss with the Queen her wedding dress, the monarch complained it was too white for a divorce, but Megan had approached the Archbishop of Canterbury to conduct the wedding without first consulting the dean of Windsor. An argument erupted after the Queen reprimanded Harry about his fiance's demanding behavior. Harry retorted that Megan was being treated badly. In his fury, Harry shared Megan's conviction that he too was being disrespected. The sovereign's warnings were ignored. Harry was baffled. Megan was acting no differently than Harry himself in his daily life. To him, she had a right to command. He aligned himself with Megan and away from his military virtue of loyalty. Megan, as senior palace officials had realized, was loyal to no one, not even to the Queen. Having made little effort to understand the reasons for global admiration of the Queen, Megan, as the guest editor of Vogue in September 2019, would exclude the monarch from her list of 15 game changers. The Queen's senior advisers were not surprised. They acknowledged by then that the Queen's efforts to welcome Megan into the family had been rebuffed even before her wedding, notably by Megan's preference to sidestep protocols and traditions.
"One of the things I disdain the most about Megan is her limited perspective in what is important. It all does revolve around her. But what's so interesting to me and what we've seen time and again, even just in these readings today, is that Megan does not even have the ability to imagine that honoring somebody else could help her tomorrow. Here, Megan is so self-obsessed and yet her her vision is so limited that she cannot imagine that her future successes hinge on the famous people that she has the privilege of interacting with. Wouldn't it have been the better part of wisdom to learn why the Queen is so important in global politics? Wouldn't have been the better part of wisdom to understand the family that she was marrying into so that she could then use that knowledge for her future endeavors towards, you know, self-realization and self-aggrandizement. I'm not saying her motivation was correct, but I'm confounded by her inability to even manipulate her own image. Like, she's Okay, I'm just going to say it. She's stupid. She's unbelievably stupid because she cannot imagine what tomorrow will bring because she's so incandescent with rage if people don't see her way immediately. She's a spoiled little brat that has no patience whatsoever to create the vision for tomorrow. And we've seen it all the time in her philanthropy and in the work that she does and in all these little projects that she gets tired of and throws away and starts with something new. So, we know that's an aspect of her personality. But I think what's even more startling to me in these readings is that she will throw away important relationships instantly if she gets upset and thinks that tomorrow somehow she'll be able to cobble together the resources she needs for excellence on that day. But today she's going to do whatever her little heart tells her. And if her heart tells her to throw a freaking fit, she throws a freaking fit. But can you imagine being so dumb? Okay."
To continue on, the report of Megan's 45-minute visit to the headquarters of the College of Arms, located since 1555 in London's Queen Victoria Street, confirmed the establishment's worst fears. On the Queen's orders, Megan, the new Duchess of Sussex, was to have her own coat of arms. The design would be supervised by Thomas Woodcock, the Garter Principal King of Arms. Megan's arrival in Woodcock's office was unexceptional. Every newly created peer visited to discuss his or her title and every aspect of Britain's heraldry for their elevated position. The Californian had entered into an alien world of ancient British families, chivalry, and their symbols. She would have been surprised to hear that Woodcock's annual salary set in 1618 was just £47, reduced from £100. Woodcock's task was to prevent any embarrassment, but Megan's request was unprecedented. Convinced that she had been created a duchess in her own right, unrelated to Harry being the Duke, she told Woodcock, "I want on the coat of arms a song bird with its tongue cut out." Woodcock was flummoxed. Any hint of nostalgia was quashed by her moral certitude. The Duchess eventually agreed to a nightingale, but without the image of it being forcibly silenced.
"I was struck dumb when I read that. I had not ever recalled hearing this anecdote. This melodramatic moment from Megan where from day one she wanted to paint herself as some kind of a victim. 'I want a song bird with its tongue cut out.' Which also indicates she had listened to nothing that Woodcock had told her because there's nothing in all of heraldry that has anything about a song bird with its tongue cut out. It's all so so traditional and so highly significant. Every color, every image, every animal, there's any number of things she could have said within the structure that had been provided. But she doesn't want any of that. She doesn't want any of that. She just like ignores all of that and comes up with her own little thing and acts like because that's what she wants, it should be what she gets. Like you've been invited here. We're going to create a coat of arms for you. And this this story right here is so symbolic of who she is. She wants to wipe away hundreds of years of tradition and symbolism and create some tacky, tawdry, melodramatic moment for herself with her coat of arms being a song bird with its tongue cut out. Can you imagine the chill that would have gone down your spine when she said that? I would have been terrified to have been left in the room with somebody who had that kind of request. But then at the same time, I would have deeply resented having to deal with somebody who was so intellectually limited that you would show them all of this wealth of information, reveal to them all the layers of history, invite them into the hallowed halls of creating their own coat of arms. Few people have an opportunity to do that. And she would have just totally ignored everything that was said to her because she'd already decided that she had this really sophomoric idea of how to talk about her own oppression through picture and symbol. What an embarrassment to humanity that Meghan Markle is."
None of the 1 billion TV viewers watching Harry and his best man, Prince William, chatting warmly at the St. George's Chapel altar before the arrival of the bride could have imagined their fractured relationship. Similarly, there was no hint of the tension as Megan was escorted down the aisle by Prince Charles. Few knew about the tears and tantrums as Thomas Markle was prevented from flying to London after a heart attack. Having been depicted as an ogre, some officials were not surprised that Megan had spoken of her fear of her father's suddenly arriving in Britain. The royal family praised Charles's concern for Megan, her actions having galvanized his efforts to offer help. Many observers spotted the inspiration of her dramatic solo appearance at the chapel entrance before walking alone into the church, namely that she was choosing to replicate Maria at her wedding to Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Her wedding was a feast of self-celebration. After a somewhat unconventional ceremony, during which the TV camera spotted Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, stifling laughter and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, wearing an unwaveringly stern expression. Megan's magnificent performance as she rode through Windsor in the open carriage with Harry was triumphant. Thanks to her Hollywood pedigree, she smiled majestically, waved gracefully, and exuded genuine empathy to the crowds lining the streets. Many Black Britons who identified with her had traveled especially to see the happy spectacle. By the end of the wedding day, which had cost £32 million, Megan was confirmed as a global celebrity.
Those later dissecting the event with Kate were less enthusiastic. Megan's guest list for the ceremony and dinner included Hollywood celebrities whom she barely knew. The exclusion from the same dinner of some of Harry's oldest friends did not go unnoticed. Megan's apparent dislike of rowdy Englishmen who shared Harry's fondness for crude jokes had been detected. She scoffed that on Fridays Harry's friends oiled their guns for the weekend, recalled a palace official. That signaled, they speculated, her intention to return eventually to California. At the end of the wedding day, the gulf between Megan and the royal family was firmly entrenched. Within six months, Megan was irritated that there was little by the way of gushing praise for the few official duties she undertook. Compared to Hollywood, everything in Kensington Palace was straight-laced and straightforward. She felt unrecognized and unrewarded. Megan's unwillingness to accept the royal family's dividend towards Hollywood celebrity was matched by the royal family's reluctance to bestow outright approval over her. The excited fizz among officials after her arrival had waned as her bullheadedness grew, and no one became more aggrieved about Megan's subversion of royal tradition than William and Catherine.
"That's where we leave off tomorrow. Chapter 3 is called 'The Tea Party.' We all know what that's about. That's where Harry and Megan try to have a little chitchat with William and Catherine, and it didn't go well. It does not go well at all. And we'll discuss that tomorrow. Now, we've all known that Megan saw an opportunity, leaped on the opportunity, and played Harry like a fiddle. But I think what is extremely disquieting to me is that there were so many people who saw Megan for what she was, but I think refused to engage in the reality of who she was. They all took note of the fact that she was glazed when it came to talking about tradition, uninterested in the dossier that described to her the role that she would be taking within the royal family by discussing what the royal family is and the boundaries set on the royal family. Everybody was aware that she didn't seem like it was of great interest to her to understand them, understand their culture, understand what the royal family is. She just was not interested and everyone saw that. But nobody seemed to be able to face the reality that as the book says, she would not be able to just slip in with them, that she would eventually just kind of give in to the roles and that she would just eventually agree to conform to their ways. Everyone took for granted that she would eventually do that. Why? Why did they believe that about her? There hasn't been one example of when Megan said, 'I want it this way.' They said, 'You can't have it that way.' And she said, 'Okay, I understand. How would you like me to do it?' Never once. All she does is dig her heels in and pout and fuss or pretend like she's listening to you while you see that her eyes are a million miles away. Always this detached, 'Mhm. Okay. All right. So, that's Okay. So, that's what you guys like to do. All right. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for telling me.' It's always that attitude with her. And I know that Harry had just dug his heels in and Harry was so brainwashed at this point that he thought that anybody's criticism of her was just some more of their disdain for him. He'd finally found somebody who made him happy and then they all wanted to pounce on him and take away the one thing that made him happy. And he's such a man-child that he would have assumed that nobody's care was real. Everyone just wanted to rain on his good time. So, no one could have reasoned with him. I'm sure that many people did, but this is the one thing that I think and I I remember saying this with revenge. The reason Megan was able to succeed was because of the giant clash of cultures. If Megan had been entering an American family, the Americans would have driven her out because the Americans would have been able to go head-to-head with her bluntly and they would have said, 'Get the f out of here with this. Are you kidding me? Who do you think that you really even are?' and they would have put her in her place so fast it would have made her head spin. And I think that in England, everyone is talking over the problem, but no one's talking through the problem. I And I could be wrong, so you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I think culturally in England, there's a there's a great talking around. And I think if you speak the language, you know what people are saying. I think if you speak the cultural language, you can understand when somebody's giving a very pointed attack through roundabout speaking. But Megan would have welcomed everybody's inability to articulate this specific issue cuz then she could always say, 'Well, no one ever told me.' They did tell you. They just told you in the British way. And Megan could always feign ignorance. Megan is not the skilled manipulator that she thinks that she is. And that became really evident in today's readings. And I'm not really sure how she's managed to do all that she's done. Perhaps people are just so stunned by her vulgarity, by her social vulgarity, that they just kind of sit there with their mouths agape and she's able to just kind of loot and destroy before you even are able to pull yourself together. And maybe that's the only reason she's been able to have any success is simply that people cannot believe what they're seeing. And certainly I think that the palace could not believe what it was seeing and then did not act accordingly. But I'm really looking forward to reading the chapters tomorrow that really dive into William's feelings about the matter and William and Catherine's experience with Megan because I I'm endlessly fascinated by the relationship between those two brothers and how differently their lives look because of the women that they chose to be by their side. What a lesson for life, you know. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for hanging out with me on this first episode of Betrayal. And I look forward to reading tomorrow. See you then."