1.Princess Diana’s former private secretary has written a very damning article about Meghan Markle’s baby shower.
Princess Diana’s former private secretary has penned a column for Daily Mail slamming Meghan Markle for her recent trip to New York where she held her first baby shower.
Patrick Jephson accused the new Royal of wanting to further her ‘celebrity’, and compares her to Kate Middleton in a damning article.
“The uproar created in some quarters by Meghan’s brief, but undeniably extravagant, Big Apple excursion could hardly have been greater if she had run naked down Broadway and burned a Union Jack in Times Square,” the former private secretary wrote.
Jephson slammed Markle’s friends for keeping “the media and the Twittersphere intimately informed of every breathless detail of the very un-British custom of the baby shower.”
He went on to question her intentions, saying “it’s hard to remember Meghan’s eager determination to ‘hit the ground running’ in her new royal career and not compare it with her sister-in-law Catherine’s less exciting but, in retrospect, wiser intention ‘to learn the ropes’.
“All Meghan’s running has brought her, at private-jet velocity, to a lonely crossroads. It’s a stark choice between the path of celebrity versus the path of duty, service and sacrifice.”
Leaving no stone unturned, the former Royal staff member describes the Duchess of Sussex as a “divorced, media-smart and ambitious celebrity, empowered by all the arsenal of right-on feminism.”
Well then.
Top Comments
"It’s a stark choice between the path of celebrity versus the path of duty, service and sacrifice."
Yep. The impression I get is that Meghan wants both: the pomp and importance of Royalty (with disregard protocol or dignity), plus a life of a celebrity (now conveniently bankrolled and given lots of attention due to her husband's family). Compare and contrast with the way other "commoners" have married into royal families: Grace Kelly, Mary Donaldson, Charlene Wittstock, Kate Middleton - they all made sacrifices, taking on and adapting to the new role given to them by marriage.
Meghan would be better off if she hired someone in the ilk of Patrick Jephson for advice, rather than rely on her celebrity friends. Her friends did her no favour with that baby shower, unless of course it was their way of sending a message on behalf of Meghan that she will do whatever she pleases, negative publicity aside.
I'm inclined to think it's not the friends sending the message, but Meghan herself. Nobody was twisting her arm to have a baby shower in the US; nobody made her conduct it so publicly or with as much open merching. There's a good article in one of the tabloids today about how misadvised it is to try to blend celebrity with royal life - something the royals have conscientiously avoided doing. Meghan appears to be trying to retain (and grow) a celebrity status on the back of her royal appointment. It's just crass.
Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall at the palace? It would be fascinating to see what they all actually think.
Apparently the Kensington Palace media sites were bombarded with negative comments about Meghan and the baby shower. I bet there is some serious damage control going on, but is she doing a Diana and going 'rogue'?