By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | February 16, 2021 |
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | February 16, 2021 |
On Valentine’s Day, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they were expecting their second child. This coincided with the 37th anniversary of Princess Diana announcing that she was pregnant with Harry. The couple made the announcement several months after Meghan candidly revealed that she had suffered a miscarriage last summer. So yeah, this is a sweet moment of celebration, right? A couple in love is having a child and they’re sharing their joy with the world following an immense loss. Who could have a problem with that?
In a normal world, these would be rhetorical questions, but welcome to this hellscape and the ceaseless fire-storm that is the British media. Not content with their favored barrages of sexism, racism, and xenophobia, the tabloids, and their usual talking-heads have doubled down on a new tactic: Not understanding what privacy is.
Let’s start with this truly deranged front page from The Daily Star, a tabloid that makes The Sun look like Reuters.
Great stuff from @dailystar pic.twitter.com/JU3VKLacRR
— Will Metcalfe (@thewillmetcalfe) February 14, 2021
Yikes, the spite.
Funny how it’s all focused on Meghan and not her husband and the decision they made together. Gee, I wonder why they went that route. Tis a puzzlement. Also, nice job feeding the wolves by playing up the idea that Meghan is somehow ‘fake’ because she used to be an actress. Not even Grace Kelly faced that nonsense. Not sure why…
Over on Loose Women, the British version of The View where 80% of the panelists are Meghan McCain, Jane Moore wanted to remind everyone of how little she cared about Meghan and Harry by ceaselessly talking about them.
— HarrynMeghanFriendðŸ™ðŸ¾ðŸ‡¬ðŸ‡§ðŸ‡²ðŸ‡¸SOURCEOFACTIONðŸ™ðŸ¾ (@nehpazojArchieH) February 15, 2021
Moore, who is coincidentally also a columnist for The Sun, also played ignorant on the concept of privacy. Apparently, releasing an image shot on their own property rather than releasing a statement was attention-seeking. Moore then tried to use the example of Joaquin Phoenix (whom she called ‘Whakin Phoenix’ because why bother caring about facts now?) to make her point. Since Phoenix didn’t make a public statement about his partner’s pregnancy or the arrival of their kid, surely Meghan and Harry could have done the same thing?
OK, let’s pretend she’s actually worth responding to and break this down. First of all, Meghan and Harry are royals. They are literally obliged to make some sort of announcement. Could you imagine the forced fury from these people had they kept the pregnancy secret until she was walking around with a newborn in her arms? Second, Joaquin Phoenix would probably side with Meghan and Harry on the topic of cruel press intrusion and violations of his privacy given his own family history with the paparazzi. Third, the press STILL tailed Rooney Mara during her pregnancy. There are photo agencies who have pictures of their baby for sale right now, and I highly doubt they were authorized by the parents.
This gets to the crux of the British media’s willful ignorance on the Meghan issue. She wanted people to stop unnecessarily intruding on her life and making sh*t up about her. She just won a court case over The Mail on Sunday’s breach of her privacy. The law was on her side. The papers broke it. By stepping back from front-line royal duties, they didn’t decide to go full J.D. Salinger. They never made statements or expressed desires to disappear from the spotlight. They just said that they wanted more control over their lives and the chance to be financially independent.
And then there’s Piers Morgan, and I’m not even going to go there because dear lord that man is scarily obsessed with Meghan and it’s unsettling.
Piers Morgan’s obsession with Meghan Markle is weird and creepy.
— Emma Kennedy💙 (@EmmaKennedy) February 15, 2021
Meghan Markle: *announces pregnancy*
— Suzanne B (@R2DSUE) February 14, 2021
Piers Morgan: pic.twitter.com/NwVc5BsDov
Meghan Markle was educated at Northwestern University, an advocate for gender equality with the United Nations and is a global ambassador for world vision Canada.
— Joseph Cornforth (@JosephCornforth) February 15, 2021
Piers Morgan never went to university, faked war photographs and was accused of hacking phones.
It shows. pic.twitter.com/YkQFTnmdyQ
meghan markle: I’m going to the shop@piersmorgan: pic.twitter.com/kx6GClGOkp
— sharon mitchells stunning weave (@sharon_weave) February 16, 2021
Piers Morgan: #bekind Caroline was my friend I’m not a bully
— Tamsin Pugh ♡ (@tamsinpughx) February 15, 2021
Also Piers Morgan:
* tweeting abuse 5 times a day about Meghan Markle, a black pregnant woman who has already suffered one miscarriage and has had to move back to America to escape the British press *
t r a s h
Remember when Morgan started getting all this good press for being vaguely critical of the Tories and all of a sudden we had to see people claiming he was some great media figure? Yeah, remember that the rot runs deep.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how the British media has demonized Meghan, especially in the aftermath of Framing Britney. We also saw this hypocrisy in full force following the death of Caroline Flack. She was torn apart by the tabloids, then, after dying by suicide, we saw a barrage of smarmy #BeKind pleas from the same people who work every damn day destroying vulnerable people for sport. The same people smugly engaging in faux-humility following the Spears documentary have declared open season on a pregnant woman of color who hasn’t done anything wrong. The toxicity that targets Meghan every single day is the same media force at play that indulges in ‘all grown up’ clickbait on teenage girls. They pretend to care about how Spears, Amy Winehouse, Anna Nicole Smith, etc, were cruelly treated by the media as they perpetuate those poisonous agendas against their favored prey of the moment.
Meanwhile, Prince Andrew is keeping a low profile and the press has happily followed suit.
Subtle.