The popular perception of Meghan Markle as a grifter who is quick to throw friends under the bus is nothing new – but her latest move has now confirmed it. The Duchess of Sussex has been known to jump from project to project in a bid to create the impression of a savvy businesswoman with female empowerment at the fore. She has also been known to jump from friend to friend, as and when it serves her to do so. Think only of her short-lived acquaintanceship with Piers Morgan, whose calls she hastily declined after hitting the jackpot with Prince Harry. As much as Meghan attempts to curate her public image as a sickly sweet domestic wife and mother, covered head to toe in flower sprinkles, her actions behind-the-scenes have always been more revealing than her public overtures.
Freezing out a confidante
The latest person she is said to have ousted from her inner circle is journalist and author Omid Scobie, who has long defended her and Harry to other members of the press and penned Sussex-friendly biographies Finding Freedom and Endgame. An insider told royal journalist Rob Shuter that the friendship between Meghan and Scobie has gone "ice cold", in a clear example of the duchess "pushing aside" a mouthpiece that she no longer needs.
It's not outlandish to speculate that Scobie's focus on the couple's various clashes with the Royal Family could be behind his freezing out, despite his enduringly positive depiction of them and relative villainisation of the Palace and senior royals. He even reignited the row over which members of the Firm expressed "concerns" about Prince Archie's skin colour, a revelation Harry and Meghan made in their 2021 Oprah interview.
Shifting narrative
In doing so, he may have departed from the Sussexes' belief that now they have washed their hands of "look back projects" – namely criticising major royal figures and exposing their dirty laundry in public – they are free to reingratiate themselves with Buckingham Palace. Following the couple's much-anticipated reunion of their children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, with King Charles earlier this month, those close to Harry said he is hoping to secure taxpayer-funded security to allow the family to spend more time in Britain.
The readjustment of the narrative is, sadly, all too predictable. Since Harry and Meghan have exhausted their stockpile of ammunition against the royals, wielded variously through the Oprah sit-down, a Netflix documentary and Harry's bombshell memoir Spare, they have nothing else to talk about. Other projects have been ill-received, including Meghan's cooking and lifestyle Netflix show, a series for the streamer focused on polo and more than one stalled podcast venture.
Return to royal fold?
In the absence of commercial success, they have reverted to quasi royal tours and a sudden desire to spend time across the pond, years after they moved abroad to distance themselves from the Palace. In pursuit of the unlikely goal of re-entering the fold, the couple may now be dropping hangers-on who were pivotal to their victimhood image just a few years ago. But in doing so, they forget that the most prized attributes of working royals are their steadfastness, loyalty to the crown and self-effacement in the name of public duty. Their time in the US has brought into unflattering focus the ways in which they contradict these traits, and their willingness to cut ties with confidantes whenever it suits them hammers it home even further. The King will naturally always welcome a visit from his grandchildren - but it's unlikely the monarchy, or Britain as a whole, has appetite for any more of the Sussexes than that.
