August 2022: Meghan's Profile in The Cut

Plus, the Cambridges off to Balmoral and their new home and school both confirmed.

This month we finally got official confirmation of the reports that the Cambridges are indeed moving to Adelaide Cottage, and the new school where all three Cambridge children will attend together in the coming term was revealed to be Lambrook School. The first day of the Michaelmas Term is September 8th, and my fingers are very crossed that we will get a picture of the Cambridges and all three children to commemorate this educational milestone.

As we anticipated, the Cambridges did head for their annual summer holiday at Balmoral at the end of August. On Sunday, August 21, the Duchess of Cambridge was videoed deplaning with Charlotte, Louis, and Nanny Maria at the airport in Scotland.

The woman who took the video described her experience to Hello!: “She [Kate] got up half way through the flight to get her daughter's iPad. And yes she was stunning, even gave me a smile while looking back at row behind her to talk to her son. No one on board took any photos or videos. Just a mum taking her children on holiday to see grandmother, but there was a buzz on board."

William and George are assumed to have joined the rest of the family at Balmoral. I don’t know why the family traveled separately. Since William and George are numbers two and three in the line of succession, I do not think it was a safety issue. I assume it was just a matter of schedules. For all we know, William and George traveled to Balmoral earlier in the week to go on a father-son hunting/camping adventure before the rest of the family joined them at Balmoral. Who knows.

I had hoped that we would see the Cambridges at Crathie Kirk this past Sunday, but they did not appear with the royals who did go to church that morning.  

Otherwise, all has been very quiet on the Cambridge front. But we have had quite a bit of action from another quarter.

While the British Royals took August off, the Sussexes chose the waning days of this month to begin their comeback. The first episode of Meghan’s new podcast Archetypes launched on Spotify on August 23rd. The episode, in which she interviews Serena Williams, shot to the top of charts, even toppling Joe Rogan from his #1-ranked position on the platform.

Harry apparently traveled to Africa (Mozambique and Rwanda) around the 14th of August in his role as President of African Parks, according to People. His visit garnered minimal media coverage, but given how Meghan-heavy the month was scheduled to be, someone obviously determined Harry needed to look busy, too. Good call.

The couple have also announced an upcoming trip to the United Kingdom and Germany for a variety of charitable events—a mini royal tour, if you will. Among other things, Meghan and Harry will attend the One Young World conference in Manchester where Meghan will give the keynote address.  

Then on Monday morning, New York magazine’s women’s issue The Cut featured Meghan as one of two cover girls. Megan Thee Stallion was the other cover. Meghan “the Duchess” enjoyed a long profile in the magazine to accompany her cover. Perhaps “The Stallion” did, too, but I did not read that one. I read the whole Meghan article and posted it to my Instagram slides with commentary. You can find that saved to a highlight on my homepage here.

The article had many unintentional moments of absolute hilarity. My favorite was undoubtedly this little snippet:

Though she has been media trained and then royal-media trained and sometimes converses like she has a tiny Bachelor producer in her brain directing what she says (at one point in our conversation, instead of answering a question, she will suggest how I might transcribe the noises she’s making: “She’s making these guttural sounds, and I can’t quite articulate what it is she’s feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she’s just moaning”), at this stage, post-royal, there’s no need for her to hold back.

I truly could not stop laughing. I am just trying to imagine this moment as Meghan coaches the reporter to transcribe her moans. Can you imagine? Anyway…

There were a number of themes that wound their way through the article.

Obviously it was, first and foremost, part of a more collected and focused relaunch of the Sussexes into public life. Lest you forget, this is not their first foray back to the spotlight. They have had several attempts in the last few years that have spluttered out; this is the strongest showing yet. According to one royal reporter, Meghan has done a series of interviews with various outlets, which will roll out in succession imminently.

The piece was very positive, but it contained various accidentally unflattering and thoughtless missteps. In addition to the bizarre exchange above about noises, the article over-emphasized the couple’s luxurious lifestyle. Although Meghan obviously wanted her beautiful home highlighted—and every celeb interview describes the subject’s home when the interview is done on location—I was surprised by how often the home and property were emphasized and that the piece circled back around to explicitly underscore the lavishness of Meghan’s surroundings, at one point noting: “The Montecito house is the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone’s daily reality.” I love to hear about beautiful houses, but given skyrocketing inflation and the looming eviction crisis, the article probably should have cut at least one opulent description. I doubt they scored goodwill from the common (wo)man on this one.

Although the article was supposed to cast Meghan in a positive light and ostensibly was about her new podcast, the real theme was Meghan reiterating her side of the royal split. There were a number of not very subtle attempts by Meghan to make the case that the couple’s current lavish lifestyle is entirely self-made (i.e., no thanks to the royal family), even at the cost of yet another tone-deaf fumble:

Finding a house to start their new life wasn’t easy, Meghan tells me. “We were looking in this area” — she’s referring to Montecito, the tony beachside hamlet north of Los Angeles — “and this house kept popping up online in searches.” At first, they’d resisted going to visit. “We didn’t have jobs, so we just were not going to come and see this house. It wasn’t possible. It’s like when I was younger and you’re window shopping — it’s like, I don’t want to go and look at all the things that I can’t afford. That doesn’t feel good.”. . .They did eventually tour it and fell almost immediately in love. (And since they have income now, in the form of a reported $25 million Spotify deal and a reported $100 million Netflix deal, it’s within their means.)

Again, I think the average reader will spit out her tea at this part. The narrative that these two were just like any out of work couple trying to live within their means, while house hunting in Montecito, is laughable. We all know they were in the market for a multi-million dollar house from day one.

More concerning than Meghan’s failed attempts to be “just like us,” was the likelihood that she massaged the facts in a bit of a sleight-of-hand with the truth—a habit which is becoming a bit of a trademark for the former royal.  

The idea it seems we were meant to form is that Meghan and Harry were without any kind of cash flow (“we didn’t have jobs”) and only were able to purchase the home because the signed mega deals with Netflix and Spotify (the reporter provided that point). Meghan did not herself connect these points, but that is the impression a reader is likely to take from the description. I suspect that is intentional.

But Meghan and Harry bought the home for $14.6 million in June of 2020. In addition to Harry’s inheritance from his mother, Prince Charles was helping to support the Sussexes until the summer of 2020. During the couple’s Oprah interview, Harry claimed that his father cut him off in the first quarter of 2020. A Clarence House spokesman objected to that characterization and said the Prince of Wales had in fact supported the Sussexes into the summer of that year. Harry’s spokesman later walked back the Duke’s misleading comment by clarifying that Harry meant the fiscal reporting period that runs from April to July.

So when Meghan and Harry were house hunting and even closing on their dream mansion, they were almost certainly still receiving income from Prince Charles. The couple’s Netflix deal was reportedly signed in September of 2020 followed by their Spotify deal in December of 2020.