Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The narcissism of Meghan Markle

Are we meant to feel sorry for Meghan of Montecito?

I’ve read some batty celebrity profiles in my time. But that piece about Meghan Markle in the Cut takes the biscuit. It is almost unbelievably preposterous. It shines a glorious if unwitting light on the narcissism and outright daftness of the right-on celeb set of which Ms Markle is now kween.

Where to begin? How about with the basic set-up. We’re heading for a catastrophic energy crisis, with people forced to choose between heating and eating. And yet here’s Meghan in her multimillion-dollar luxury pad in California telling us how hard her life is.

The Cut’s reporter – Allison P Davis – gushes over Harry and Meghan’s sprawling mansion. It is ‘the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone’s daily reality’, she says. It has nine bedrooms and 16 bathrooms. (Who needs 16 bathrooms?) And it is from here, draped in eye-wateringly expensive high fashion for the Cut’s photographer, that Meghan weaves her tragic tale of being trolled and bullied. Forgive me if I forget to cry.

Just how hard is this duchess’s life? So hard she sometimes can’t even put it into words. She can only groan and wail. Seriously. In possibly the maddest part of the interview, Meghan suggests to Ms Davis that she might ‘transcribe the noises she’s making’. She tells Davis to write something like this: 

I’m sorry, what? That Meghan is happy to share this anecdote is truly wild

‘She’s making these guttural sounds, and I can’t quite articulate what it is she’s feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she’s just moaning.’

‘Just moaning’? You got that right, Meghan. That very thought crossed my mind as I read this demented piece. But can we just take a moment to contemplate the fact that the Duchess of Sussex advised an interviewer to document her guttural sounds? The cynicism of this is pretty extraordinary.

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