News Diary
The only thing that compares in recent tweet villainy with the post of US-based Nigerian professor Uju Anya on Queen Elizabeth II, was perhaps the visit of the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, to the Windsor Castle. Yet, after her ordeal even Anya is back, recuperating from the injury inflicted by the hounds and five days in Twitter jail.
If large sections of the British press needed any proof that Meghan killed the Queen her Saturday visit to Windsor confirmed it.
There is no need to question how. About three weeks ago, the Duchess started a Podcast, Archetypes with Meghan. It’s a personal, chatty rendition of her odyssey, a tour of her growing up years and how she became the woman she is today. Except if you were born with a silver spoon like the Saints of Fleet Street, you probably have a story like Meghan’s – messy, complicated and happy, with all the ups and downs – just plain human stuff.
It’s all there in the three episodes of Archetypes so far released by Meghan. I never knew such stories could hurt a fly until I read a vile jab by a British journalist that said Meghan’s Podcast which she started only in August could have complicated the Queen’s misery in her final days and perhaps led to her death.
In case you didn’t listen to any of it, the first episode on Spotify was about Serena Williams and the double standards women face when they’re labelled “ambitious”. The second was about Mariah Carey, whom she calls the “grand dame of our time”. And the third and final episode on September 6, two days before the Queen died, was a conversation with Mindy Kaling about the stigmas, joys and challenges of her life as a single, unmarried woman – the singleton, as she calls it.
Of course, we all know Meghan – the divorcee from a mixed race who is three years older than Prince Harry. We know Meghan, an actress who has seen a bit of the world from California to Johannesburg and from Vancouver to Buenos Aires. We also know that the Windsors never quite liked that 2021 television interview hosted by Oprah Winfrey featuring Meghan and the Duke of Sussex, Harry.
She’s not exactly a piece of royal decoration and has never pretended to be. How sharing the story of her life – the lived experience of millions in her position – has become the death of the Queen, takes the Megxit obsession in the British press to a whole new level…
