The first time I met Meghan Markle, she gave me a big old bear hug, the kind that makes you feel at ease – particularly when you are being presented to assorted royals in front of a bank of baying photographers.
I was at the 2018 Royal Foundation event to chair a panel on Heads Together, the mental health campaign I had worked on with the young royals.
And Meghan’s down-to-earth demeanour worked like a charm, removing all the anxiety felt by myself and the other attendees, most of whom were normal people who had worked tirelessly to fundraise for the charities the foundation supported.
I’ve got to know Meghan in the years since that first hug. We’ve gone for lunch, hung out at charitable projects together, and I’ve visited her at home in Frogmore Cottage and Montecito.
Each time we meet, or exchange texts about life, I wonder what it says about the world that she could be so vilified and trolled, while other members of the royal family seem to have been given a free pass to behave as badly as they want.
Enter one Prince Andrew, a man with morals so loose that according to a new book, even the loathsome Jeffrey Epstein described him as a ‘perverted animal’. It is claimed that the late paedophile financier said of the British prince: ‘He likes to engage in stuff that’s even kinky to me, and I’m the king of kink.’
Like many, I have been gripped by the extracts from Andrew Lownie’s book, serialised this week in the Daily Mail. With each sordid allegation I have become more and more furious that so little was done to help Meghan as she struggled with life in the royal family, while so much was done to protect Prince Andrew.
His alleged appalling behaviour long pre-dates the stripping of his military titles and royal duties in 2022, when he settled out of court with Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring who had accused Prince Andrew of sexual abuse (allegations he denies).
As if that stomach-churning association with Epstein was not enough, now, thanks to Lownie, we have been treated to the full scope of the royal’s alleged conduct. Not only did he insist on everyone acknowledging his presence when he walked into a room, he is said to have had an affair with a member of the royal household, while a nanny apparently left because he made unwelcome advances.
‘When I started,’ one employee claimed, ‘I was warned to stay away from him… it seemed everyone was aware of his behaviour, but little was done about it.’
He allegedly slept with a dozen women during his first year of marriage to the Duchess of York, and in Lownie’s book, it’s claimed he asked a sports massage therapist about anal sex, insisting on being naked during their treatments. If the allegations are true, it seems that if he wasn’t touching up female guests under the dinner table, then he was shoving their faces into the starters.
Lownie writes that ‘a strong and juvenile characteristic of his is to take advantage of his position to humiliate others who may not be able to respond’. A more damning sentence about a member of the royal family I have yet to read.
He allegedly called a member of staff a ‘f***ing imbecile’, while another former employee, Malcolm Barker, claims Andrew was ‘forever dragging the worst bunch of tarts up to dine with his mother’. Charmed, I’m sure.
Anyway, on and on it goes, a litany of behaviour, which if true, is so appalling that it could turn the most ardent of royalists into a republican. Somehow, Andrew got away with it for decades, while Meghan was branded ‘Duchess Difficult’ the moment she so much as asked the Queen if she might be able to borrow a tiara for her wedding. Why is it that people will tolerate all manner of misbehaviour from the likes of powerful men like Prince Andrew, but not a woman who, according to critics, has a habit of occasionally emailing her staff at 5am?
Prince Harry has denied Lownie’s claims that he got into a physical fight with Prince Andrew, though one could hardly blame him if he did.
I know nothing more on the subject, but I can tell you now that, if my uncle had spent most of his adult life lavishing taxpayers’ money on ridiculous luxuries, all while doing business with nefarious characters across the globe, I might be baffled by the hostility displayed towards my wife when she simply chose to make a living selling jam and edible flowers.
Can you blame the couple for wanting to escape the peculiar prison of royal life, especially given the ridiculous double standards applied to the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Andrew?
This brings me back to Meghan, and the reports this week that her ‘warm, friendly, hug-everyone approach’ made members of the royal household ‘uncomfortable’. What fools the royals were, for throwing away the marvellous opportunity they had with Meghan, all while continuing to cover up for atrocious Andrew.
Shame on anyone who, in light of reading the claims in Andrew Lownie’s book, still has the gall to call the Duchess of Sussex the difficult one.
- Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University have found verbal abuse in childhood can be as damaging to your adult mental health as physical abuse. I’ve always thought that adage about ‘sticks and stones’ was a terrible thing to say to an upset child. The key is not to dismiss children, but listen to them, and acknowledge what they’re feeling. It makes kids far more resilient in the long run as they learn how to process emotions properly.
Gary should fear the Loose Women
I recently wrote about ITV cutting episodes of Lorraine and Loose Women, so they could spend more on next year’s World Cup. I predicted it was only a matter of time before the broadcaster lavished their budget on Gary Lineker, newly-departed from the BBC. Now we learn ITV has indeed signed him to host a Saturday night game show called The Box. For Gary’s sake, I hope that he doesn’t bump into any of the Loose Women in the studio corridors.
I’ve enjoyed the hilarious videos that have swamped social media this summer, featuring footage of holiday disasters accompanied by the now famous jingle: ‘Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday!’
It led me to book our summer break to Mallorca via the budget airline, not least because the trip was £2,000 cheaper than it was on British Airways. I expected shoddy service – and was amazed when instead I encountered delightful staff, zero queues or delays, and even a voucher to spend on duty free. We’re convinced: when it comes to short-haul breaks, nothing beats a Jet2 holiday!
Consciously uncouple from your mum, Apple
Pity poor Apple Martin, 21, destined to spend the rest of her life being compared to her mother, Gwyneth Paltrow. She was snapped this week on a beach in the Hamptons, looking the spitting image of the Goop founder. Not in shot? Amy Odell’s biography of her mum, which suggests Ms Paltrow might be a bit of a Mean Girl. Apple might want to consciously uncouple from her famous mum, pronto.
