I'm really enjoying all of the "when did the Markle-penny drop for you" stories you all are sharing. It's so interesting to see common events or moments being referenced, that tipped off so many people to questioning them and/or actively disliking them both.
Personally, I had always been fairly ambivalent towards the royal family, not being British myself; I'd been somewhat of a fan of Diana as a child, looking up to her as a kind of prototypical feminist role model. I admired the way she seemed to genuinely care about the less fortunate, hugging AIDS victims back when many people still thought it could be transmitted by any physical contact. So I was very sad when she died, and always felt sorry for those two boys growing up without their mom. I'm also an oldest child, so I was probably more sympathetic to William because I knew he would likely have a triple burden of his own grief, responsibility of being "the heir", and helping to support his younger brother. When he met Catherine they seemed to be genuinely in love, and she seemed like a kind, responsible young woman (haven't changed my mind on that), and I thought the press were ridiculous going on endlessly about her being a "commoner"; as if he'd found her screeching at her 8 children wearing juicy couture and chainsmoking Newports on a council estate. You'd have thought he was marrying Katie Price - perish the thought.
So when Meghan came along, I felt somewhat of a hypocrite to be instantaneously suspicious of Harry's marrying a D-list cable actress. It wasn't the fact that she was a "commoner" that struck me, though - dated as it sounds, Philip's old adage about stepping out with actresses but not marrying them makes sense to me. I'm sorry, but in their position I would imagine that attention-seeking and clout-chasing are about the least desirable conceivable qualities in a royal spouse, and narcissists who crave the spotlight are naturally going to be disproportionately attracted to the entertainment industry. The moment she started making an appearance in public though, she only solidified my hesitations. She is just so unbelievably, overwhelmingly
fake, right down to the excessive California veneers. Everything she did and said seemed orchestrated to extract the maximum amount of public attention - anyone else remember the "H" necklace she wore early on, before they'd even announced their relationship? I knew she was trying to squeeze money and benefits out of this connection before it was even official.
Then the engagement interview
claiming that she didn't know much about the royal family, or who Harry even was... I just sat there like, I'm sorry,
who the f**k does this broad think she's kidding? People in other countries might not have strong feelings about the royals or care about them much, but they know who they are! It's literally unavoidable unless you're from a small Kazakhstani village with no power supply or something. Pull the other one. The constant hanging off him and simpering while claiming to be a feminist activist, the ostentatiously expensive wardrobe courtesy of the British taxpayer while claiming to be self-made and accomplished, the mimicry of Diana's (genuinely) shy and diminutive body language from her early years in the BRF while simultaneously able to pull off a public speech no bother when it suited her... from the very outset, everything Smeg has done or said has run against her previous claims about herself. The leveraging of the race card when most people didn't even know she was half black until Doria showed up for the wedding just sealed the deal for me.
Then the "nobody has asked me if I'm OK" interview
standing in Africa somewhere, wearing an outfit that probably cost more than the combined annual income of the entire village, having the utter temerity to get all misty-eyed over people not inquiring about her wellbeing after her multi-million pound wedding to a prince, genuinely made me want to backhand her all the way back to L.A. like I was Joan Collins after a line of coke. What a shameless tramp, I thought
I never had much time for Harry beyond being vaguely sorry for him for losing his mum at an early age, but I've long since lost what little regard I had for him. I think they're just a folie-a-deux: one of those couples that manage to feed perfectly into one another's specific psychoses in a way that keeps them going like a perpetual motion machine, instead of ever being introspective or challenging each other. The consistency of the rumors around her bullying staff is too much for me to disregard it, even without direct evidence being made public. No smoke without fire, and all that.
TL;DR I've had Smeggy's number since day one, TBH, so I was very relieved to find Tattle and be able to vent about how much this random public figure aggravates the absolute crap out of me. Thanks for being my catharsis for so long, tattlers!