The courtiers, the commentators and the deranger ecosystem have the manpower. Meghan has resilience, a strong marriage—and millions of people who still refuse to abandon her.
There are moments when even I must admit that things look rather grim. And the last couple of hours have felt kind of grim. I have even concluded that Meghan should return to California after hearing about WhatsAppgate.
The British media’s pursuit of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is not becoming more measured with time. It is becoming more frenzied. Her arrival in the Cotswolds has not inspired reflection, restraint or even a flicker of humanity. Might this woman, her husband and their two children simply be permitted to begin a new chapter in peace?
Instead, the machinery has accelerated. It is in overdrive, to be honest.
Meghan is criticized when she appears and criticized when she does not. She is accused of courting attention when she posts a photograph and of disrespecting Britain when she remains unseen. If she smiles, her happiness is “curated.” If she withdraws, her absence becomes an insult. If she answers an accusation, she is combative. If she says nothing, anonymous courtiers and professional commentators answer for her.
Nearly decade-old grievances are retrieved, reheated and presented as permission for her continued persecution.
The media is worse than ever. And increasingly, one gets the sense that reporting Meghan is no longer the objective. Producing an outcome is. This no longer resembles ordinary reporting. It begins to resemble the intentional infliction of emotional distress—with an end game. There is always and has always been an end game to this kind of behavior in the UK media.
Staying Ahead Is Not the Same as Being Unhurt
Let us be very clear: Meghan is not indestructible.
Resilience is too often discussed as though it were a supernatural force field. It is not. A resilient person still feels humiliation, betrayal, fear and exhaustion. Resilience means continuing despite those things; it does not mean they leave no wound.
Britain has seen where relentless public humiliation can lead. It has watched famous people cease to be treated as human beings and become targets—content to be consumed, mocked and monetized—until the consequences could no longer be reversed.
We should not have to wait for tragedy before deciding that a campaign has become cruel.
One journalist recently remarked upon Meghan’s extraordinary resilience by saying, in effect, that “Meghan took on the Queen.”
But did she?
I am not convinced that the late Queen ever needed “taking on.” Meghan did something both simpler and, perhaps, more threatening to the institution surrounding the sovereign: she stood up for herself.
She refused to accept that marrying a prince required her to disappear inside the monarchy. She refused to be diminished quietly. And when her character and reputation were attacked, she reserved the right to respond.
That is not taking on the Queen.
It is declining to participate in one’s own destruction.
The Manpower Imbalance
The imbalance is almost absurd.
On one side are newspaper groups, royal correspondents, television panels, palace courtiers, anonymous insiders, leaked memoranda, professional Meghan commentators and an entire deranger ecosystem that earns attention—and sometimes money—by keeping one woman permanently on trial.
On the other side is Meghan.
Not entirely alone, thank goodness.
Harry has continued to choose her. Meghan has continued to choose Harry. Their marriage has survived years of strangers announcing its imminent collapse, dissecting every glance and treating every separate engagement as evidence of divorce.
She has also retained something the anti-Meghan industry did not anticipate: millions of supporters who still go to bat for her every day. Some of us are demonetised and otherwise silenced. But many continue on, like troopers to defend the Duchess every chance they get.
And why? Because they recognize the pattern. They see when criticism has become fixation. They understand the particular spectacle of a woman being punished not merely for what she does, but for refusing to become what others demanded.
For women over 50, there is something deeply aspirational in that refusal. Meghan reminds us that resilience is not pretending nothing hurts. It is refusing to hand your identity to people committed to misrepresenting you.
Where Is the Institutional Counterweight?
What Meghan does not have is a legacy-media institution prepared to match the organized hostility coming out of Britain.
Where is the major network willing to examine not another recycled palace complaint, but the machinery itself? Where is the powerful editor asking how so many nearly identical narratives travel through newspapers, television studios and social media at once? Where is the celebrated journalist prepared to say, plainly: this has gone too far?
Oprah Winfrey tried to give Harry and Meghan room to speak. Even I have wondered whether that interview ultimately helped them or whether, in retrospect, it supplied hostile commentators with material they would spend years distorting. But at least Oprah recognized that they were entitled to a voice.
Since then, there has been no sustained institutional counterweight—nothing with manpower remotely comparable to the operation deployed against them.
And still Meghan stays ahead.
Ahead of the courtiers. Ahead of the memoranda. Ahead of the royal commentators who confidently predict her next humiliation, only to discover that she has already moved on. Ahead of the ecosystem that requires her to fail because too many people have built careers promising that she will.
The WhatsApp Betrayal
Then came the parents’ WhatsApp group.
Meghan entered what should have been an ordinary private space for school parents. She reportedly thanked the mothers for their welcome and said she was happy to join the community. A screenshot subsequently circulated outside the group, exposing the telephone number connected to her account. The private exchange was then reported by The Sun and repeated internationally.
Notably, this was not done to expose wrongdoing, correct a falsehood or reveal some matter of public interest. The screenshot showed nothing more scandalous than a mother warmly greeting other parents. Its circulation served no discernible public purpose. Whoever circulated it was not correcting a lie Meghan had told about them or defending themselves against an accusation. Its foreseeable effect was simply to expose the Duchess—for the sake of exposing the Duchess, and to contribute to the hounding of this human being.
Its foreseeable effect was simply to expose the Duchess, for the sake of exposing the Duchess.
There is no public evidence that the material was sold, so we should not claim that it was. What we do know is disturbing enough: communication from a private parents’ group reached the press, and Meghan’s personal number was exposed for no reason other than the exposure itself.
Yet even here, the familiar trick appeared. Headlines suggested that Meghan had somehow “leaked her own” number—as though joining a parents’ WhatsApp group were a reckless act, rather than an entirely ordinary thing for a mother to do.
That is how this system works. Even when Meghan’s privacy is unjustifiably violated, the grammar makes Meghan responsible.
Her children had already been moved from their first school after discussions with the family’s security team about the practicalities of the journey, a decision their representative said was no reflection on the school or its care. Reuters reported that the children changed schools after only two days. Rather than treating parental concern as concern, sections of the media promptly recast the children as instruments in Harry and Meghan’s security dispute.
What choice could Meghan make that would be judged acceptable?
Join the school community, and her message escapes to a newspaper. Protect the children, and she is accused of manipulation. Remain visible, and she wants attention. Retreat, and she is haughty.
The game is designed so that she cannot win.
And yet, remarkably, she keeps winning.
Not because the coverage does not hurt. Not because every decision has been perfect. And certainly not because she possesses some magical immunity unavailable to other women.
She stays ahead because she has learned that the media cannot be satisfied. It can only be managed. She gives it limited access, answers when an answer is necessary and continues building a life beyond its permission.
The press has more money. More column inches. More cameras. More courtiers willing to whisper and more commentators willing to repeat the whispers.
Meghan has a husband who has continued to choose her. She has supporters who recognize the pattern and refuse to abandon her. Most importantly, she has retained possession of herself.
Meghan is not untouched.
She is not unharmed.
She is not indestructible.
But despite the manpower imbalance, despite the leaks, despite the memoranda and despite an ecosystem seemingly hell-bent on producing an ending Britain has witnessed before, Meghan Markle remains standing.
And still—somehow—three steps ahead.
