Culture

People Are Finally Calling Out The Double Standard That Tabloids Have With Meghan Markle

"Sorry media, I'm not going to take a single story about Meghan Markle seriously until Prince Andrew is drop kicked into the sun."

by Michelle Rennex  4 March 2021
Meghan Markle double standard tabloid

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We are only days away from the long-awaited Meghan Markle and Prince Harry interview with the one and only, Oprah Winfrey. So naturally, the British tabloids have gone into overdrive in an attempt to divert attention away from the TV special.

One year after the couple quit their job as royals, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex finally agreed to do a sit-down interview, which is set to air on March 7 in the US and March 8 in Australia.

While short snippets of the 90-minute Oprah special have already begun to circulate online, CBS clarified that the interview would cover “everything, from stepping into life as a royal, marriage, motherhood, philanthropic work to how [Meghan] is handling life under intense public pressure”.

The interview is also said to touch on “their move to the United States and their future hopes and dreams for their expanding family” with “no subject that’s off-limits”.

Meghan Markle, Bullying And The Murder-Linked Earrings

Strangely, despite Meghan Markle not even speaking in any of the released footage, the Duchess has, once again, been targeted by the British press — which is the exact thing that led the couple to leave the royal family in the first place.

On Tuesday, The Times reported that a number of sources claim that Meghan Markle had “bullied” palace aides during her time in Kensington Palace. The aides allege that a former advisor filed a bullying complaint against the Duchess as she “drove two personal assistants out of the household and was undermining the confidence of a third staff member”.

Of course, a spokesperson for Meghan Markle denied the allegations, and called it a “calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation” that is simply being used “by Buckingham Palace to peddle a wholly false narrative” prior to the couple’s Oprah interview being aired.

The representative also added that Meghan feels like this is just another dishonest attack against her character, which is something tabloids have enabled for years. But it’s not lost on the public the convenient timing of these claims of “bullying” being published right before the Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview is released.

But even beyond the bullying allegations, British tabloids also decided to call out Meghan Markle for… literally wearing a certain pair of earrings this week, too.

The earrings in question were worn by the Duchess to a 2018 dinner in Fiji, and were said to be a gift given to the Crown by Mohammed bin Salman. But despite the CIA literally only officially blaming the murder of journalist Jamal Khahoggi on MBS last month, the tabloids still somehow tried to attack Meghan Markle for wearing some gifted jewellery from over two years ago.

Beyond that, the likelihood of Meghan even knowing where the earrings had come from is highly unlikely. As PEOPLE reports, they were given by the Saudi Arabian royal family on March 7, 2018, and neither Meghan nor Harry were present when they were gifted, with the jewellery being stored away as property of the Crown.

Yet, The Times still came out with a cracker headline on the matter, with ‘Meghan’s earrings were gift from Saudi prince accused of murder’.

Then there was, of course, The Daily Mail who added a little more spice with ‘Meghan’s £500,000 diamond earrings were NOT ‘borrowed’ but a ‘wedding gift from Saudi Crown Prince’ — and worn by Duchess three weeks after he approved the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi in consulate’.

The Clear Double Standard With The British Tabloids

But the timing of all these new tabloid stories are quite transparent and haven’t gone unnoticed. In fact, people have begun calling out the British media for digging up old stories just as the Duke and Duchess are set to speak openly about their personal experience over the last few years.

The Daily Mail and The Telegraph have even gone so far as to suggest that the Oprah with Meghan and Harry special shouldn’t go ahead due to Prince Philip’s declining health, further proving the motives behind these tabloid smear campaigns coming up seemingly out of the blue.

Why is it that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry can’t openly speak their truth to prevent stressing out an already-sick Prince Philip, but a number of royal aides can go to the press to accuse the Duchess of bullying? And why exactly can’t the Duke and Duchess chat to Oprah due to Prince Philip’s declining health, but Prince Andrew could easily do so with his own BBC interview?

Thankfully, despite the British media’s failed attempts to further paint Meghan Markle as some evil figure hell-bent on destroying the monarchy, people have seen the light and have begun calling out the clear double standard when it comes to women of colour in the royal family, and the strange tabloid silence on actually disgraced royals like Prince Andrew.

For example, it seems awfully strange that Meghan Markle would be called out for wearing a gift from the Saudi Arabian royal family, when the UK signed off a 1.4 billion pound arms export deal with the country last year.

Similarly, it’s weird that British media seem fixated on reporting the Duchess as a bully and evil person, when Prince Andrew literally had to step down from royal duties to his ties with convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

Prince Andrew himself was even accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl multiple times throughout the 2000s, and yet tabloids like to pretend that these claims don’t exist. Even after his trainwreck BBC interview over the allegations in 2019, the British press still didn’t attack Prince Andrew as much as Meghan Markle has been dragged in the last 48 hours over a pair of damn earrings.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is the British press for you.

So everyone get ready to tune in to Oprah with Meghan and Harry next week, even if it is just to support Meghan Markle, and to piss off the tabloids and royal family that little bit more.

‘Oprah With Meghan And Harry’ will air on Monday, 8 March at 7.30pm on 10.