The Duke & Duchess of Sussex and Family, News and Events 5: June-July 2021


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TO be honest I don't think there's such a thing as "Princess Lessons." Diana later complained she got no "lessons" even when she moved into BP and was left to her own devices. There is nothing on record or in print that shows that such a thing exists. Is it how to walk into a room, which fork to pick up, et al. I'm curious. I never read Meghan got such lessons or even Kate.
I am referring to HM assigning very experienced and high up staff member Samantha Cohen to help guide Meghan.
 
IMHO the Oprah-interview was not planned to "confess", but to show them off as the ones who had marched through a lot of adversities towards the American "freedom". And I think Harry wasn't deeply involved or even informed about that but "taken" with Meghan on her trip, knowing he would not oppose her but help her if he could. He is IMHO a love-struck fool in that marriage. But he loves her deeply and I hope his wife & kids give him what he so much wanted. Meghan IMHO fell for the "fairy tale" (I believe it when she said she didn't know that much about Harry and his family) but she would have used the time when she felt alone while being pregnant in the family to learn more about her new in-laws, probably reading books about them. Hence the "Waity Katie"-knowledge... She maybe felt not respected enough (the racist-claim shows that), not cared for enough when she was pregnant and when she showed the people how she felt with their "treatment", they cried "abuse" and "bullying". I can imagine all that. I cannot imagine this is the truth of the situation, it's just one side. I am not really interested in figuring out the "truth" about what happened. I once studied law but I never wanted to be a judge! So I try not to judge. But I see that if there is no common platform to force people to compromise (and I do not think Meghan cares for the institution of monarchy in the Uk at all! So there is nothing where you can force her to compromise, especially when Harry feels neglected, too and supports her.) what can you do but let them leave?I believe there are good reasons why the queen and the PoW opposed the HIHO and the fact that Meghan seems to react very emotional when it comes to slights she feels she is objected to might be one of them. Meghan is much more of a loose cannon than Diana ever was! So let her sit in California, invite Harry and Meghan to the big dates in the Royal calendar, talk to her in a friendly way like the queen does and let them cool down. Trying to get the media off their backs will do the RF no good at the moment, what with the queen having lost her husband and getting older, the question of Camilla becoming queen getting more important... So let it be, be polite and friendly and do what the RF does best: sit things out while drinking tea. They needed a clear cut, Meghan and Harry have retaliated, now there is a little quiet and we will even see peace and that's how the queen and Charles will want it.
I can see all that and it really doesn't matter to me if Meghan is good or bad in this story. She shall stay in California earning money and making Harry happy, raise her two kids the way they want, appear in public occassional and should be treated with respect by the media. And we all can move on to watch the last chapter of the queen's reign without interference by the unruly family. Ah, what is Andrew up to at the moment? LOL...
 
My read on the Lacey excerpt (https://archive.ph/vDCzZ) is that it doesn't say either way whether HR or anyone other than William had raised the issue with Meghan or Harry before William argued with Harry about it. It's not even clear that William was hearing any of it for the first time when he did that. If his reaction was really fury and immediate confrontation rather than disbelief and further investigation, that strongly suggests he already had some inkling of the problem, and the Knauf report was just official confirmation of it. That doesn't mean the reports were true, but it would mean that he'd heard about the problem before, at least in broad strokes. Given all of that, I'm not sure it's reasonable to assume that Meghan and Harry had never been told anything that entire time. I think it's fairly likely that Knauf only went to William after other attempts at resolving the issues had been tried, and failed. That would also be consistent with H&M's stance that Meghan wasn't the problem, everyone else was. If they strongly believed that, rightly or wrongly, lower-level attempts at resolution would have gotten nowhere.

I agree with this. I can't find it right now but IIRC there was an early report of Catherine confronting Meghan about how Meghan talked to a staff member.

In my opinion, it is unthinkable for Knauf to have disclosed this email to William if he knew it was untrue and was simply threatened by Meghan. It would have been professional suicide.

Meghan was pregnant and under a lot of stress during this time, so it is very understandable that she had more than a few bad days. It's also possible that the stories are exaggerated to a degree. I don't think William liked her, which may have made him somewhat more likely to believe the allegations but I don't believe that he dissolved his partnership with his beloved brother without some justification.
 

That sounds on brand for Meghan. It will be interesting to see which women from history they pick for "Pearl" to meet. It sounds a bit like those recent children's books meeting women from history that my cousin is in to.

David Furnish producing, that's on brand too. ;)
 
I agree with this. I can't find it right now but IIRC there was an early report of Catherine confronting Meghan about how Meghan talked to a staff member.
Dan Wootton wrote in The Sun in 2018 that Kate had reprimanded Meghan for speaking rudely to a member of Kate's staff before Meghan and Harry's wedding. The story later resurfaced in a slightly different version in the 2020 book "Kensington Palace: An Intimate Memoir From Queen Mary To Meghan Markle" by Tom Quinn.
 
The Duke & Duchess of Sussex and Family, News and Events 5: June 2021-

That sounds on brand for Meghan. It will be interesting to see which women from history they pick for "Pearl" to meet. It sounds a bit like those recent children's books meeting women from history that my cousin is in to.



David Furnish producing, that's on brand too. ;)



I was just thinking the same thing! Lol

This project sounds very Meghan-esque to me….or as you said: on brand.

I do like shows that tie in history- if it’s done properly. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out.

Lol- I had to google who David Furnish is. Having done so- I see your point.
 
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I was just thinking the same thing! Lol

This project sounds very Meghan-esque to me….or as you said: on brand.

I do like shows that tie in history- if it’s done properly.

Lol- I had to google who David Furnish is. Having done so- I see your point.

The name sounded familiar to me but I couldn't place him. I also had to search to find out he's Elton John's partner in life.

Netflix has a huge variety of shows and movies that come up under the "girl power" genre. Meghan's will fit right into that I think and I wish her all the luck in the world with it. It won't be ground breaking but if one little girl is inspired by it, it'll have been worth it. ?

BTW: My first reaction to the name David Furnish was another David. David Faustino that played the son in Married With Children. However did I make that wrong connection???? :D
 
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Good luck to Meghan! I do love such projects - when done properly, they can even be interesting to me, although I'm well above Pearl's age.
 
I like the idea of this project: it makes me think of the very popular American Girl Dolls.
 
And of course, she introduces herself as The Duchess of Sussex.

But they aren't profiting from their connection with the monarchy, not at all.

Does anyone know if she's supposed to work on this before or after the maternity leave they announced?
 
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Sounds like a great project to do with Netflix. ?

My read on the Lacey excerpt (https://archive.ph/vDCzZ) is that it doesn't say either way whether HR or anyone other than William had raised the issue with Meghan or Harry before William argued with Harry about it. It's not even clear that William was hearing any of it for the first time when he did that. If his reaction was really fury and immediate confrontation rather than disbelief and further investigation, that strongly suggests he already had some inkling of the problem, and the Knauf report was just official confirmation of it. That doesn't mean the reports were true, but it would mean that he'd heard about the problem before, at least in broad strokes. Given all of that, I'm not sure it's reasonable to assume that Meghan and Harry had never been told anything that entire time. I think it's fairly likely that Knauf only went to William after other attempts at resolving the issues had been tried, and failed. That would also be consistent with H&M's stance that Meghan wasn't the problem, everyone else was. If they strongly believed that, rightly or wrongly, lower-level attempts at resolution would have gotten nowhere.


Thank you for sharing the link to the article. I noticed this paragraph in the article that claims that a senior aide had to speak to both Prince Harry and Ms. Markle regarding how they were treating staff as far back as 2017. So quite likely William had already heard about the couple's interactions with the KP staff well before Jason Knauf shared the dossier.



As early as 2017, around the time of the couple’s engagement, according to a subsequent report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. “It’s not my job to coddle people,” Meghan was said to have replied.
 
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I love the sound of the new project Meghan is getting involved in, with David Furnish. It fits in with the sort of series the Sussexes said they would be producing. Excellent!
 
I love the sound of the new project Meghan is getting involved in, with David Furnish. It fits in with the sort of series the Sussexes said they would be producing. Excellent!

I like the sound of it, too. There are some amazing women throughout history whose stories have not been told as often and as widely as they should have. There is a range of inspiring women from the trendsetters and high achievers through to those who lived relatively ordinary lives but did so in an admirable way, and all their stories are worth hearing and they can all serve as role models.
 
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Like the sound of this new project and very much on brand for their "Inspiring strong women" theme, so that's a good thing, it helps iif you have a clear vision of your brand and portray that to the outside world imo.
And although I'd love to hear about Mme Curie again (one of my personal faves), it would be great to hear from some lesser known women throughout historie, so even though i'm by no means their target market, i'm interested to see who will feature in it.

Re: David Furnish being co producer, does he have any other productions along these lines? I mean, I know he's Elton John's husband, but the man has a career of his own, other than being a celeb's spouse, right? I looked on wiki, but can't really tell (and wiki is not always reliable anyway).

PS. I'm so used that royals who pursue non-royal careers don't use their title in their professional life, because they want to (and can) achieve that on their own merits (in the NL there are several princes/princesses who do this, if you look at their linkin profile you'd have no idea they were royal), that indeed it surprises me everytime how prominent Meghan's title features in her announcements... but maybe once her brand is established a bit more, she won't feel the need to have that title as the first thing you see anymore..
(don't get me wrong, i know she's fully entitled (no pun intended) to use that DoS title, but if it were me and I wanted to build an independent living, I'd rather do it on my own..)
 
Like the sound of this new project and very much on brand for their "Inspiring strong women" theme, so that's a good thing, it helps iif you have a clear vision of your brand and portray that to the outside world imo.
And although I'd love to hear about Mme Curie again (one of my personal faves), it would be great to hear from some lesser known women throughout historie, so even though i'm by no means their target market, i'm interested to see who will feature in it.

Re: David Furnish being co producer, does he have any other productions along these lines? I mean, I know he's Elton John's husband, but the man has a career of his own, other than being a celeb's spouse, right? I looked on wiki, but can't really tell (and wiki is not always reliable anyway).

PS. I'm so used that royals who pursue non-royal careers don't use their title in their professional life, because they want to (and can) achieve that on their own merits (in the NL there are several princes/princesses who do this, if you look at their linkin profile you'd have no idea they were royal), that indeed it surprises me everytime how prominent Meghan's title features in her announcements... but maybe once her brand is established a bit more, she won't feel the need to have that title as the first thing you see anymore..
(don't get me wrong, i know she's fully entitled (no pun intended) to use that DoS title, but if it were me and I wanted to build an independent living, I'd rather do it on my own..)

David Furnish has a couple of animated movies under his producing belt. It will definitely be interesting to see what this is like and which women they chose, there are a lot of lesser known pioneers they could use as well as obvious ones.

Both Harry and Meghan use their titles prominently every time they do something and every press release makes sure to mention it as much as possible. This is in contrast to Bea and Eugenie who don't use their titles at all professionally and like princesses in the NL you wouldn't know from their Linked In etc.

Perhaps after they have some success with their new ventures they won't feel the need to mention it 7 times in one bio page but it seems right now they know it's the only thing making them stand out.

They are obviously still entitled to use it but if they were going to make a change for professional purposes "Harry and Meghan M-W" then a logical time to do it would have been the Oprah interview and the 50 million people watching would have seen it and been interested in their new start.

Interestingly the name meaning for Meghan is "Pearl" so she named the title character after herself.
 
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:previous: didn't know that about Meghan meaning Pearl ?.
Sometimes celebs back a cause (or product) that i can hardly imagine they have any affinity with, but with Meghan I always feel that her brand is indeed very much *her* so to have the girl-character be named Pearl is a nice touch ?
 
David Furnish was very involved with the Billy Elliot musical.


Unfortunately for him, as with a lot of other people married to megastars, everyone knows him as Elton John's husband rather than as a director/producer in his own right, but he has had a successful career.


The name Margaret comes from the Greek word for pearl, marguerite. Margaret was such a popular name in the British Isles - I think mainly due to St Margaret, an English princess who became Queen of Scotland - that all sorts of alternative versions of it appeared, including Daisy (from marguerite also being a flower) and Pearl, and also Meg (think Little Women!), which became Megan in Wales and Meghan in Ireland ... so it's a bit complicated but the names Margaret, Meghan, Pearl and Daisy are all connected! And then Meg became Peg, so Peggy is also a nickname for Margaret.
 
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The Duke & Duchess of Sussex and Family, News and Events 5: June 2021-

The name Margaret comes from the Greek word for pearl, marguerite. Margaret was such a popular name in the British Isles - I think mainly due to St Margaret, an English princess who became Queen of Scotland - that all sorts of alternative versions of it appeared, including Daisy (from marguerite also being a flower) and Pearl, and also Meg (think Little Women!), which became Megan in Wales and Meghan in Ireland ... so it's a bit complicated but the names Margaret, Meghan, Pearl and Daisy are all connected! And then Meg became Peg, so Peggy is also a nickname for Margaret.


Thanks for the story behind Margaret/Meghan/Pearl. Interesting. I’m not terribly surprised she named the character after herself. Anyway- I hope the finished product is good. I really have no idea what an Executive Producer actually does. I know they have a lot of control and power, but I’ve never been clear on what it is they do.

As for the use of titles every chance they get….no surprise there. It was pretty clear how upset they were that they couldn’t use royal/HRH in their business dealings, so naturally imo they’ll make full use of what they can use. And they are entitled to.

People know who they are anyway- but I guess the titles gives them a little extra something. (And everything they do seems to be a decently sized news event anyway. It’s not like the public will be totally unaware of their projects. I sure didn’t have to search for it. It popped up on my news feed.) Maybe that’ll change at some point, and they’ll use their titles less.

Personally- I shake my head a bit about the use of titles less on the matter of establishing themselves professionally on their own (though I do agree with the points being made) and more on the matter of it striking me as a bit odd to lash out at the BRF and institution in every way imaginable repeatedly…..but making full use of the titles you only have because of that family and institution.

The fallout of that interview is still being felt IMO. (IE- Response to William and Catherine condemning racism after England lost the final. I think the Sussex interview led to some of the nastiness directed towards them on media/social media.)
 
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This thread is now closed as posters seem to be unable to behave themselves according to TRF terms of service.

As this News thread has now collapsed into a petty and childish nitpicking excersize - on font-sizes on the title page of a book cover/spine - it seems that there is no news to share.

This ludicrous discussion about font sizes has been deleted by the mod. team. It has shocked the mod. team as it has shown just how obsessive and how toxic the discussion is and how entrenched posters are in their positions. After several years of constant fights we simply can not go on like this.

The mod. team is therefore currently re-assessing the future of the Sussex-discussion in this forum. This thread will remain closed until a decision has been made about if and how this topic can be discussed in the future.

In the mean time do not post any Sussex-related information anywhere else on this forum. It will be considered as an attempt to undermine moderation and will be dealt with accordingly.


 
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