Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s initial rise, chaotic royal exit, U.S. second dawn and more recent reputational crisis mirror the rise and fall of social justice.
Debates about the royal family frequently echo wider social trends as audiences project onto palace dramas their own identities and personal struggles.
And Meghan and Harry have been no exception as conservative culture warriors have piled in on the “Duke and Duchess of Woke” while progressives connected their experiences to debates about colonialism.
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Meghan And Harry As Social Justice Royals
Meghan was viewed through a social justice lens almost as soon as her relationship with Harry was revealed on the front page of the Sunday Express in 2016.
Days later, then-Kensington Palace press secretary Jason Knauf released a statement calling out the “the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”
It was not all bad, though. In fact, much of the narrative was about how, as a woman of color, she might modernize the royal family.
At the time of the couple’s wedding, this was celebrated in newspapers as having the potential for radical social change.
The Wall Street Journal suggested that her arrival might “mark a giant step in the modernization of the British monarchy,” while historian Ted Powell, quoted in The Guardian, said: “It is difficult to overstate how important it is to have a member of the royal family … who is mixed race and embracing her heritage and stating that is very much part of her.”
It was not just race, though. Meghan has over the years repeatedly leveraged that as a child she wrote to Proctor & Gamble to oppose an ad that suggested “women are fighting greasy pots and pans with Ivory Clear.”
She was also described not only as a feminist but as an “activist,” dating to before she met Prince Harry.
And before they even married, she told royal fans in Cardiff, Wales, that Prince Harry was “a feminist too.”
The ‘Duke And Duchess Of Woke’
But, as with many digital age political movements, they eventually encountered backlash from the conservative media, initially in Britain and later in America too.
In 2019, Meghan was mocked for writing inspiring messages on the side of bananas that were being given to sex workers and also because of an edition of U.K. Vogue magazine she guest edited.
Piers Morgan wrote in the Daily Mail: “Me-Me-Meghan Markle’s shamelessly hypocritical super-woke Vogue stunt proves she cares more about promoting herself than the Royal Family or Britain.
“Here is Meghan being about as political as any royal has ever been. She’s chosen 15 female ‘trailblazers’ and ‘changemakers’ for the special ‘Forces for Change’ issue, all picked because they promote ‘equality, kindness and open-mindedness.’
“The women she’s selected represent the greatest hits of virtue-signalling—with a nod to everything from ‘body positivity,’ female empowerment, mental health, disability and race to transgender rights, climate change, diversity and privilege.
“The last one made me laugh out loud. I’m sure the one thing we all need most in the world right now is a fabulously rich and entitled Princess lecturing us on privilege from her servant-laden royal quarters.”
Meanwhile, neo-conservative U.K. political commentator and author Douglas Murray gave her a nickname that would stick in an article for Unherd: “Meghan and Harry are playing a dangerous game—The Duke and Duchess of Woke shouldn’t raise the subject of ‘unearned privilege.'”
Prince Harry And Meghan As Culture War Battlefield
Initially, the debate about Harry and Meghan’s politically conscious world view was a battle the progressive side fought with vigor.
Meghan and Harry’s 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview was perhaps the most impactful of their social justice interventions, starting a global debate about racism, colonialism and the monarchy.
The duchess said her son Prince Archie was not going to be treated like other royal family members: “So we have in tandem the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
Meghan’s words were still resonating when Prince William and Princess Kate visited the Caribbean in March 2022 for what would become known as their “disaster tour.”
Bert Samuels, a Jamaican attorney and reparations advocate, at the time told Newsweek: “Jamaicans were very torn up to hear about Harry and Meghan’s issue, and Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, and that has torn us.
“That’s William’s brother, that’s his nephew, and for Harry to have been treated the way he was, and worse yet Meghan.
“The Jamaicans are very hurt by the treatment of an African American woman in that family. William needs to speak to that when he comes and as it were, he should come here with an apology, not only for slavery but for the treatment of a black woman who had to run out of the palace with her husband. That’s a strong issue and that’s a fresh wound.”
Harry and Meghan’s Progressive Status Is Complicated
However, Prince Harry appeared to downgrade the force of Meghan’s allegations during interviews around the release of his book, Spare.
The duke said: “The British press said that, right? Did Meghan ever mention ‘they’re racists?'”
In the same interview, he also backed Lady Susan Hussey, Queen Elizabeth II‘s former lady-in-waiting, who quit the palace over a racially charged exchange in which she repeatedly asked a Black charity boss where she was from, despite having been told she was British.
“I’m very happy for Ngozi Fulani to be invited into the Palace to sit down with Lady Susan Hussey, and to reconcile, because Meghan and I love Susan Hussey,” Harry said. “She thinks she’s great.”
The comment was jarring because many of the very progressive voices who had publicly supported Meghan’s comments on race after Oprah were the same ones condemning Lady Susan Hussey at the time.
According to the 2023 biography Endgame, by Omid Scobie, Charles wrote to Meghan following Oprah to say that the motivation for the comment about Archie’s skin tone had been benign curiosity rather than concern.
Shortly after Spare, Harry and Meghan’s team indicated they were wrapping up look-back projects focusing on their royal strife and pivoting to look forward at their futures.
Harry and Meghan still pursue projects with a social purpose, but even these have at times been fraught, such as Meghan’s investment in fashion brand Cesta Collective.
The company makes much of the wages it pays to its Rwandan bag makers but has also been slammed for “poverty porn” over awkward publicity images with some criticism of past comments by the Italian founders.
Meghan has, however, reinvented herself in the image of Martha Stewart and Gwyneth Paltrow with her cooking show With Love, Meghan and her Goop-style online shop, As Ever.
Some compared her to “trad wife” influencers on social media. Whether that is fair or not, the move was certainly a long way from the early-career Meghan who raged against the homely image of women in the kitchen of the Ivory Clear commercial.
Harry, Meghan And The 2024 Presidential Election
Perhaps the final decisive moment when the Sussexes had to choose which version of themselves to step into came with the recent U.S. presidential election.
In 2020, they spoke out in veiled terms against Donald Trump, with Meghan calling for the “change we all need and deserve.”
They earned a clapback from Trump that September, when he said he was “not a fan” of Meghan, while a Republican politician wrote to the British Embassy in Washington calling for Queen Elizabeth II to strip them of their titles.
By 2024, Trump was attempting to win back the White House by beating Kamala Harris, whom Meghan praised in 2020 on the basis of what she could achieve for women of color: “I’m so excited to see that kind of representation,” the duchess said at the time.
In 2024, though, Harry was facing the potential threat of Trump revoking his U.S. visa over comments in his book about taking drugs.
Ultimately, the couple stayed quiet during the election, taking a back seat as Harris lost despite endorsements from the likes of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.
The decision may have been the correct one, after all polling for Newsweek showed an endorsement by them would have dissuaded as many people as it persuaded.
Early Trump policies will have proved difficult for the couple to watch, such as the rollback of diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and cuts to USAID, a funding source that some of Harry’s charities have accessed in the past.
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.
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