Never forget: Meghan Markle is the second coming of Nelson Mandela.
Albeit in a custom-made Louis Vuitton gown (one that pettily mimicked Kate Middleton‘s Earthshot look), a $90,000 aquamarine ring, and a stubborn cluster of grievances and flimsy claims of racism that she will never, ever tire of recounting.
Last night’s RFK Human Rights ceremony had it all: A outspoken liberal host who accidentally shot and killed his co-worker, a young wife and mother, and has since claimed zero guilt; our host’s wife, a talent-free, stage-five clinger and fame-adjacent fraud who still claims to be Spanish, despite being outed as a privileged white woman from Boston; the fading embers of America’s preeminent political dynasty, with Kerry Kennedy, the head of RFK Human Rights, a DUI defendant who bitched and moaned after she was acquitted that she was treated differently — i.e., arrested, charged and tried — because she was a Kennedy.
And of course, our special guests and honorees: Harry and Meghan, making a rare joint appearance just before their bilious, rage-filled Netflix documentary series — itself seeming to have an elastic relationship to facts — begins streaming.
What a night! What an assemblage of the best and brightest! What could Harry and Meghan, this happy and glittering couple, so dedicated to lofty aims as human rights, racial justice and public temper tantrums laced with an ever-present soupçon of blackmail, have to teach us?
Even Alec Baldwin, our above-referenced host, couldn’t believe that Harry and Meghan — normally so busy saving the world — were actually attending.
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he said on the red carpet. ‘Really, I couldn’t believe it.’
Now let’s pause and give thanks to the evening’s true heroes, those frontline workers on the gala’s carpet — H & M’s loved and loathed media pack — asking the hard questions. Such as: ‘Are you putting money before family, Harry?’ What a rhetorical question. Of course he is! So is Meghan, a.k.a. Woko Ono!
Well Alec, that makes millions of us. Truly, wouldn’t any decent person, knowing they haven’t done anything remotely approaching the bravery fellow honoree Volodymyr Zelensky, politely decline such an honor? Or at least accept in absentia?
Not our Harry and Meghan. Sure, Harry has told us he suffers from PTSD (his Apple TV+ documentary), that ‘every time I hear a [camera] click, every single time I see a flash, it takes me straight back’ to his mother’s death, but here they were on the gala’s blue carpet last night, smiling for the cameras, Meghan turning toward the lens like a blooming flower turning to face the sun.
Meghan Markle is never more in her element than on camera. But please, evil global news media, stop hounding Meghan and her poor, traumatized husband. Just let them get on with their low-profile work as content providers at Netflix, Spotify and Penguin Random House.
And won’t anyone please think of their children, especially the daughter they named after the late Queen, head of that insidiously racist family that didn’t care one bit that a pregnant Meghan was suicidal?
Let’s also allow them to keep preaching about the environment even as they flew private to New York for this ceremony and were chauffeured around in a luxury, gas-guzzling SUV. Let’s listen closely as they teach compassion and kindness while tearing down their respective families of origin. Let’s not wonder if Harry is motivated by money, even as we learned King Charles reportedly told his dying mother that he was no longer taking Harry’s calls because ‘I’m not a bank.’
Let’s not pay attention to the drumbeat of claims that Meghan is a bully to work for. Let’s ignore the high-level staff that continues to flee Harry and Meghan’s employ. And let’s certainly forget their mission statement upon signing with Netflix.
‘Our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope,’ they said. As parents themselves, they said that ‘making inspirational family programming is also important to us.’
That’s one way to put it.
Anyway, back to Alec, who struggled to answer the next question: What did he find admirable about Harry and Meghan?
You’d think this would be a slam dunk. After all, H&M were the guests of honor, seats at their table going for $250,000 each, seated on stage in dialogue with DUI defendant Kerry. Surely Alec could name one concrete, real-world example of Harry and Meghan’s work in advancing human rights?
Let’s certainly forget their mission statement upon signing with Netflix. ‘Our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope,’ they said. As parents themselves, they said that ‘making inspirational family programming is also important to us.’ That’s one way to put it.
Even Alec Baldwin (riht), our above-referenced host, couldn’t believe that Harry and Meghan — normally so busy saving the world — were actually attending.
Spoiler alert: He could not.
After momentarily grasping, Baldwin cited their ‘ability to handle difficult circumstances in the press’ — circumstances of their own making, but why get bogged down in details? — ‘without having too much difficulty.’
Desperate, he turned to his fake-Spanish wife for help.
‘Keep on going and that’s inspiring,’ Hilaria said. ‘Gotta know who you are’ — you could not make this up — ‘and keep going toward that.’
Now let’s pause and give thanks to the evening’s true heroes, those frontline workers on the gala’s carpet — H & M’s loved and loathed media pack — asking the hard questions. Such as:
‘Are you putting money before family, Harry?’
What a rhetorical question. Of course he is! So is Meghan, a.k.a. Woko Ono!
But as an indication of the media’s skepticism, this is telling. Oprah is nowhere to be found. Whoopi Goldberg has blasted Markle on air, and her ‘View’ co-host Ana Navarro ripped into the Netflix trailer, saying she was ‘sick of the sight’ of those two whining and crying.
Margaret Thatcher’s former aide Nile Gardiner: ‘If an Academy Award was given for hubris, vanity and narcissism, Meghan and Harry would be the top contenders.’
Only Gayle King, who looks more pathetic by the moment, a water-carrier for these two juvenile, spiteful brats, has defended the trailer, saying we should all watch the series before we judge.
Our special guests and honorees: Harry and Meghan, making a rare joint appearance just before their bilious, rage-filled Netflix documentary series — itself seeming to have an elastic relationship to facts — begins streaming.
Please, evil global news media, stop hounding Meghan and her poor, traumatized husband. Just let them get on with their low-profile work as content providers at Netflix, Spotify (left) and Penguin Random House (book cover, right).
Too late for that. The first trailer has more than seven million views and generated over 400,000 ‘dislikes’ versus a mere 22,000 ‘likes.’
Both Netflix trailers — a second dropped on Monday, one day before the RFK gala — have been dissected and analyzed as if they were the Zapruder film.
And guess what? Some of what’s in it has proven to be fake, fake, fake.
The footage of paparazzi hounding Meghan isn’t real. We know that one still was taken from a Harry Potter premiere that was held years before Harry and Meghan even met. Another was a crush of media following disgraced Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Another horde was covering British star Katie Price into a court appearance.
But hey — Harry and Meghan would never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so why would their producers care?
Speaking of: If you’d like something that hits closer to the truth, check out the alternate Harry and Meghan ‘trailer’ that some as-yet-unknown hero put together.
Here we see footage of Meghan pushing her way in front of Harry more than once, of seeming to shame a royal courtier during the walkabout after the Queen died, of Meghan’s inspirational messages on bananas for sex workers (‘you are loved’), of her ability to cry on cue — ‘one tear, left eye’ — and the cherry on this sundae, South Africans dancing in the streets, as Meghan claimed they did upon her marriage to a prince.
Hey — no one said Harry and Meghan were telling the truth. Just their truth. And while it may still have traction in their delusional little bubble, one in which rich and famous people give each other wholly unearned awards — to the rest of us, out here in the real world?
We laugh. And we can legitimately thank Harry and Meghan for one thing: This incredible comic relief, however unintended. It’s original. It’s hypocrisy and tone-deafness at its apex. It’s a lack of self-awareness that just keeps giving. If they want to call that charity, I’ll take it.