Meghan Markle Merch: artisanal lavender dog soap, anyone?

Kate Middleton news derails Meghan Markle’s big plan

The global outpouring of goodwill for the Princess of Wales as she fights cancer may leave Meghan Markle in a very difficult position.

Daniela Elser

March 26, 2024 - 4:01PM

Are you in need of a new dog lead or meditation cushion or wine carrier or drawer organisers or marmalade or a bird feeder? How are you doing for pet shampoo, lanterns and tisanes?

If you are then, boy, do I have some good news for you. Meghan the Duchess of Sussex has heard your cries and soon you could be able to buy all this and much, much more from her new American Riviera Orchard (ARO) lifestyle brand.

Those industrious sorts over at the Daily Mail have somehow gotten their hands on ARO’s trademark application which for the first time reveals the scope and ambition of the duchess’ first major solo commercial project and golly gosh it’s a big ‘un.

To which I say, amen. Build it and they will hopefully come and spend money. Dream big and then embroider it on a pillow you can sell at a massive mark-up. I am all in on the return of Business Meghan seven years after she shuttered her blog The Tig, even if that was blandly derivative.

Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard will have quite the array of goods. 

However, in the ten days since ARO’s Instagram debut, the world tilted on its axis with Kate the Princess of Wales’ announcement that she has cancer.

How could the incredible global deluge of support and sudden lovey-dovey messages of goodwill for the princess affect the public reception of ARO?

Basically, will discerning shoppers fork over large wodges of hard-earned cash for artisanal lavender dog soap to a woman who is not on speaking with Kate? And who has spent the last few years chipping away at Kate’s image?

No launch date has yet been revealed for ARO but it mustn’t be far off.

For the better part of the last year reports have circulated that Meghan was beavering away at some entrepreneurial online turn with the only oblique hints being that it would be authentic and whatnot.

Then on March 14 came the big reveal of ARO on Instagram, including a 15-second video of the 42-year-old looking like someone auditioning for the part of a sister-wife, showing her arranging flowers and mixing something in an artfully rustic kitchen.

Meghan Markle's new lifestyle brand, seen in a promotional video posted to Instagram. Picture: American Riviera Orchard/Instagram

No matter what best laid plans might have been drawn up, just over a week later, on March 22, Kate released her video – the internet reeled and the Church of England sat down to write a special prayer (truly) to wish the princess a speedy recovery.

The worldwide reaction to the video has been truly incredible to witness.

It has been viewed 197.5 million times on the Waleses’ official Twitter and Instagram accounts alone. In the US, CBS broke away from their live coverage of March Madness basketball to broadcast the video, Prime Ministers and Presidents by the dozen nearly fell over themselves to show their support and the White House press secretary, Dr Jill Biden and President Joe Biden all separately shared their effusive best wishes within a matter of hours.

Then came the hand-wringing and the self-flagellating with millions worrying about the consequence of their gleeful reposting of bonkers Kate theories and speculation.

The end result of all this sympathy and suddenly caring bleating is that Kate has basically been deified in only a few days.

The Princess of Wales revealing she is undergoing treatment for cancer. Picture: Kensington Palace

So where does this leave Meghan and ARO? Could this dramatic volte face of feeling towards Kate have an impact on her business’ debut?

Join me as we really get into the weeds here.

One argument here is, the two women’s lives have precisely zero bearing on each other. Meghan and husband Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex put out their own one-sentence statement wishing Kate “health and healing” and according to People, the California-based couple have also reached out privately.

The Sussexes are entirely free agents meaning they can do whatever they fancy with their spare hours in between manifesting abundance and writing cheques for the small army of top London silks toiling around the clock on Harry’s hacking lawsuits. Meghan could join a Mars mission or convert their lesser sauna (they reportedly have two) into a rescue shelter for Pomeranians or run for Santa Barbara comptroller and it would be fine and dandy.

Whatever is happening back in Blighty has nothing to do with whatever the duke and duchess are doing.

Kate, William, Harry and Meghan reunited briefly after the Queen died in September 2022 but relations have remained strained since. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

However, the other argument goes, get real. That’s a wilfully naive interpretation.

For years, the Sussexes have largely built their US brand in opposition to the royal family. The couple put their hearts on their sleeves and shared, shared, shared, even sometimes when they were not being paid.

While Crown Inc. and Harry’s relatives were unconsciously biased, frigidly cold in the face of personal suffering and emotionally constipated, the Sussexes were the open, evolved version of royalty, them valiantly speaking truth to an antiquated institution and casting royal life as a protracted emotional and psychological trial. (Though seriously, how can anyone doubt them on that last point?)

Harry and Meghan with their Oprah interview, Netflix series and the duke’s memoir Spare, offered a deeply unflattering portrayal of William and Kate claiming that they had encouraged Harry to dress up as a Nazi, William had attacked Harry, Kate had made Meghan cry and in one shocking incident currently under investigation by the European Commission, Kate was reluctant to share her lip gloss with Meghan. (The Hague has also been notified.)

In November last year, the Dutch version of highly sympathetic Sussex biographer Omid Scobie’s Endgame named King Charles and Kate as having commented about the Sussexes’ son Prince Archie’s skin colour. The duke and duchess did not comment on the claim push back in any way.

The Waleses and the Sussexes have not been on good terms to say the least. 

Given this history, this story, the image that Meghan has cultivated post-Megxit is the yin to Kate’s yang, what could this mean for ARO’s launch?

In this climate, will Meghan pitching herself as a cosy domestic goddess with perfect taste land with shoppers and see the orders stream in? Or could there be some sort of shopping protest vote, so to speak, with people staying away from ARO out of sympathy for the Princess of Wales?

Will support for Kate see the credit-card toting masses boycott or avoid ARO? Or is Meghan’s US support base so big (and her taste so exquisite) that her sister-in-law’s health battle will have no impact?

(I have said it before and I will say it again for anyone who needs to hear it – the Duchess of Sussex has sublime style.)

It’s interesting to note that to date, ARO has attracted 570,000 Instagram followers, despite no content aside from that first video. That’s a truly impressive figure until you realise that in 2019 when Harry and Meghan launched @SussexRoyal, they set a Guinness world record for reaching one million followers in five hours and 45 minutes, then the shortest time ever. (Jennifer Aniston later broke that record.)

And William and Kate? They have gained just shy of one million new followers this year alone.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

 

Harry and Meghan: "Florid, banal psycho-babble reeking of opportunism"

 

Florid, banal psycho-babble reeking of opportunism - Harry and Meghan are riding other people's grief like trams

By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail

Published: 21:24 EST, 1 February 2024 | Updated: 04:09 EST, 2 February 2024

Veteran Sussex watchers were ­yesterday in their power-showers, trying to scrub clean after the latest hosing of treacle from Meghan and Harry.

The couple had issued another of their press statements, this time about child safety on the internet.

Such announcements have become a regular part of the Sussexes’ modus operandi, linking them to a topical issue on which they can parade their empathy.

Their statement, not for the first time, was peppered with American emotionalism, tear-stained platitude mixed with a certain self-serving preachiness. Florid, banal, breathy, reeking of opportunism, it is an art form the exiled royals are fast making their own.

Commenting on a US Senate hearing into dreadful instances of internet child abuse, the duo applauded the ‘bravery and determination’ (one noun alone will never do) of parents whose children had suffered.

As they clawed their way into the circle of virtue – outta the way, people, this is about us –the Sussexes boasted that ‘over the past few years we have spent time with many of these families, listening to their heartache and their hopes for the urgent change that is needed’.

This was ‘an issue that transcends division and party lines’. They also disclosed that one father had told them ‘if love could have saved them, all of our children would still be here’.

Journalistic scepticism may seem harsh given the sensitivity of the issue at hand; yet when an issue is this delicate, would it not be seemly for minor royals to keep their self-promotional psycho-babble to themselves?

This is not the first time that Prince Harry and his actress wife have contributed their unremarkable thoughts on a raw area of public debate.

If they did so spontaneously after, for example, having a microphone thrust into their faces at some public event, it might feel all right.

But the Sussexes come out with sentimental saws on the level of low-grade greetings cards, and they do so by placing them under the ‘news’ section of their personal website. Sorry, but this is pure PR puffery. ‘Turn pain into purpose,’ said Harry at a World Mental Health Day event in New York in October. As it happens, he was talking about how those who suffer misfortune can sometimes become stronger as a result.

‘Days are long but years are short,’ added his consort at the same event.

Eh? It’s the sort of inscrutable gibberish guru Master Po used to say to Grasshopper in the 1970s TV show Kung Fu.

Or take this corker. ‘I’m confident,’ said Meghan, again on mental health, ‘that with more ears and awareness and visibility of what is really happening, we can make some significant change together.’ More ears? Are two not enough for anyone?

As part of her payback to Netflix, from which she and her husband received millions of dollars, the Duchess disclosed that in her wedding speech she spoke of ‘the everlasting knowing that, above all, love wins’.

If you said that at most English county weddings there would be a ripple of mirth and a teasing forest of fingers down throats. Heaven knows what Harry’s old muckers made of his bride’s claim.

Guy Pelly must have almost done the nose trick.

But Meghan appears impervious to British taste. She is immune to the most diabetic-high levels of rhetorical saccharine.

Along with the unfortunate, droopy-tailed Harry, the duchess is a devotee of California psycho-babble and of anxieties being worn as social and political badges.

Look at me, these say, I’m sensitive, I’m not a viciously ambitious, multi-millionaire, West Coast actress cynically adopting positions for career purposes. I’m a genuinely humble, vulnerable, touchy-feely soul. And if you suggest otherwise my attorneys will bust your ass.

If British politicians issued the sort of emetic press releases that Harry and Meghan do, they would be swiftly denounced for gross misjudgement and for trying to surf on other people’s misery. Again, you may think this a harsh comment.

You may say ‘but Harry and Meghan are not politicians’.

I am afraid I would disagree with you. They are behaving in an intensely political manner, beating their breasts for public consumption. Note, too, the repeated calls for ‘change’. These smack of political campaigning.

The Sussexes may think that their press releases are powerful and poetic. To British tastes they will, possibly, more likely look manipulative and opportunistic.

Merely as literary ventures, they are cloyingly mawkish, viscous in their sentimentality.

Whoever writes them has the prose style of a schoolgirl diarist. It is sad that the prince has lost sight of the British virtue of understatement. When it comes to expressions of sympathy, less is always more.

Instead, we are subjected to this mush and gush. On Planet Sussex, ‘light’ is always being ‘shined’, be it on empowerment or inequality. Trite stylistic doubles are deployed.

Writing in Elle magazine, Meghan said that women should ‘focus less on glass slippers and more on pushing through glass ceilings’. And then there was ‘a ripple of hope can turn into a wave of change’ – a phrase the couple pinched off the late Robert Kennedy and used at some humanitarian awards in 2022.

There is much ‘focusing on wellbeing’ and ‘relating to shared experiences and challenges’ and ‘discovering of opportunities for growth’.

‘Mentoring’ is a must-have, both for mentors and, dreadful word, ‘mentees’. And ‘hearts’ are invariably ‘heavy’.

Other people’s disaster and grief are ridden like trams.

Ethically-culled chicken and other Yuletide delights

Ethically culled chicken from the family coop with extra helpings of re-heated misery - and a blood diamond bracelet wrapped under the tree: It's Christmas at the Sussexes' (at least, according to KENNEDY!

By Kennedy For Dailymail.Com

Published: 12:32 EST, 25 December 2023 | Updated: 02:18 EST, 26 December 2023

It's Christmas at the Sussexes'!

As North Polian gusts slip and sigh their way to Montecito, little Archie and Lilibet's sustainable stockings are bursting at their hempen seams.

The Duchess wakes later than usual - no early morning emails to staff today (it's their holiday too, she says empathetically).

A quick final check of the mailbox confirms a festive sadness: cards from Jay Z, Bey, the Beckhams and miscellaneous family members have indeed been lost in transit.

The table is laid by Harry - weary from the hard past year he's had, notably publishing his ghost-written memoir in January.

Turkey's out - instead it's ethically culled chicken from the couple's garden coop.

Place mats are replaced with excess copies of Meghan's best-selling picture book The Bench. (#Recycling hack!!)

While side dishes of betrayal and woe are re-blended, reheated and served with extra helpings. (Bought from Palestinian-owned stores only).

House rules: Don't mention Spotify, Coronation or car chases.

Auntie Oprah slides into the mix and - despite recent rumors of a cooling in relations - I'm happy to report she isn't seated out in the cold.

Here's Doria and Tyler Perry, too - rocking up in a Hertz electric-car rental.

And what Royal Californian Christmas would be complete without raucous parlor games?

Enter Omid Scobie, Target's answer to a court jester.

Charades is so stuffy Sandringham, he says. Fantastical fire-side storytelling is much more modern. The more stupendously make-believe the better.

And so Omid knits a yarn so hysterically phoney and bold, the Sussex family clan fashion matching cardigans and beanies.

These prove perfect for a post-lunch walk on the beach, where they launch ships in bottles to those less fortunate across the globe who aren't lucky enough to have Netflix, newspapers, access to the internet or really any way of hearing H&M's grumbles of grievance.

Back home it's time for gifts under the family spruce - felled from a private jet-offsetting forest.

For Harry from Meghan, a tube of Dr Freud's favorite todger tincture and a new necklace (his last one broke - don't ask how!).

For Meghan from Harry, a stunning tennis bracelet of shimmering blood diamonds.

For the children, a tough lesson that good things come to those who wait, marry rich, or star briefly on Deal Or No Deal. (That's something Meghan learnt from Mandela.)

Beware: a grinch! Samantha Markle pulls up in an Uber armed with gift-wrapped court papers addressed to her sister. How cruel to treat a sibling that way, Harry says.

Now it's time for the King's speech.

But just then, gathered round the 100' flatscreen, Harry reclining in his hand-carved reclaimed-mahogany throne with vegan pudding in hand, the cable goes out. The TV plunges into darkness.

Asked why she was seen with wire cutters by the fuse box, Meghan says recollections may vary.

And so, in lieu of Charles's festive message, they turn to draw up this year's naughty list of people who have wronged the Duke and Duchess of righteous indignation.

Enemy No.1: The Evil Media. (WAAAGH!)

Enemy No.2: The entire British public. (Colonizers!)

In lieu of Charles's festive message, they turn to draw up this year's naughty list of people who have wronged the Duke and Duchess of righteous indignation

Also included: Bill 'f***ing grifters' Simmons and Disney, who continue to refuse to offer Meghan a well-earned lead role.

Looking ahead to the new year, H&M mentally prepare for another twelve months of being begged for content, lifestyle guidance, therapy advice, and thoughts on how to live in truth.

A 2024 relaunch of the The Tig/Instagram/Suits spinoff/general good works? Just you wait - and wait!

All that's then left is a toast to success, wealth, celebrity friends, humility and freedom.

Sometimes you're just so happy that it hurts.

Prince Harry's Christmas Carol (and other seasonal delights)

And now, for something that DIDN’T appear in Omid Scoobie’s new book!

Harry’s Christmas Carol

On the twelve days of Christmas, my Megsie took from me:

TWELVE family memories

ELEVEN peaceful moments

TEN days with William

NINE hopes of freedom

EIGHT games of polo

SEVEN worthy causes

SIX royal medals

FIVE . . costly. . .blings!

FOUR who were Fab

THREE best friends

TWO family jewels

And my place in the royal family!

 

 BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE. . . 

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

A certain mad duchess chased after her spouse.

All the bathrooms were  festooned and tinselled with care

In hopes that their pal Omid Scobie’d be there.

Then Harry did whimper, “Oh wifey, have mercy!

I’ve forgiven the way that you grin and you curtsey!

Please let me come sleep in my bed in the house!

That chicken coop’s cold! Please have mercy, my spouse!”

Then Scobie himself down the chimney he fell

Just hoping he’d get himself out of this hell.

Poor Omid did moan in dismay and distress

‘Bout being lambasted by those in the press

Who were telling Their Truth about Scobie’s new book:

They were saying he’s lying! They said he’s a crook!

But Omid was only concerned with his safety.

His fear made him  look so dead  pale and so pasty

That Megsie, disgusted, said, “Are you a man?”

While he wondered, she ran to dig out a spray can

Which  she liberally applied to his face with a grin

And Scoobie changed color, right down to his chin!

“Take that!” Megsie screamed in her mad duchess way:

“Now you’re just as dark as the lies that they say

In the press about us! Now please leave our house!

You’re a traitor! A turncoat! A scoundrel! A louse!”

So Scobie did slink out of warm Montecito

And knocked on the door of Meg’s Mummy, Dorito

Who took one quick look, then slammed shut her front door.

“You’re just a wax figure! And worse – you’re a bore!”

Then Scobie ran off, while his bronzed face did droop

And bunked down with Harry in the Royal Chicken Coop.

How the Prince Stole Christmas

Meghan and Harry move slammed as ‘narcissistic, delusional’

Prince William and Kate Middleton are reported to be holding on firm on a Meghan and Harry move that would leave them in “total humiliation”.

Daniela Elser

Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen … get out the gin, get out the port, hell, get out that forgotten half full bottle of duty-free Bacardi stashed in the Louis XIV sideboard. Christmas is officially a month away and on the menu for the royal family this year, alongside a roast turkey the size of a VW Beetle and crackers stuffed with Apple shares, is a fresh serving of drama.

(The House of Windsor! They’re just like us! Dysfunction for all!)

This year when King Charles and Queen Camilla and the extended royal tribe gather at Sandringham for their annual festive knees-up, it will seemingly be with Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales heaving huge sighs of relief and clutching at their G & Ts.

This week came the diabolically wild news that after all the tears, the interviews, the claims of unconscious bias and family callousness – and the non-sharing of lip gloss – Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have seemingly decided they fancy an invitation to a royal Christmas.

“I can’t imagine the Sussexes would decline an invitation to spend time with His Majesty,” a friend of the Californian court told the Times’ royal editor Roya Nikkhah. “As of yet, there have not been any invitations for the holidays.”
Experienced anglers know what this looks like – a line being thrown out, a spot of angling to see if Charles might bite and suddenly throw open the Sandringham doors to the Sussexes.

Harry and Meghan putting out feelers about a December Norfolk invitation, something they have eschewed now for years on end? That’s a sentence I never thought I would have to type out. (It’s up there with ‘Princess Anne debuts suit bought this century’ and ‘Camilla to do Veganuary’ in the probability stakes.)

The very prospect is enough to have one reaching for the cooking sherry for a quick midmorning swig.

You have to give it to Harry and Meghan, they are optimists – or, as a friend of Prince William’s has put it, “narcissistic and delusional”.

Let’s hope that Harry has not been eagerly waiting by their Montecito post box because the news is not good. (Pity the beefy bodyguards standing watch as the duke keeps opening the flap to check he hasn’t missed the gilt-embossed envelope.)

Charles has nipped this Sussex Christmas entreaty in the bud, with His Majesty reportedly unwilling to spend the holiday season discussing his sacral chakra or the rigours of getting a decent table at Nobu. The reason: the royal family aren’t entirely sure, reportedly, that if the Sussexes were to be there that whatever they say or do won’t find its way into print or end up being relayed, wide-eyed, to a nodding Oprah down the track.

Even if the King had been possibly tempted to let bygones be bygones and to submit to Meghan’s healing sage ceremony in the most flame-retardant Sandringham drawing room, his other son and future five pound note portrait William would have been dead set against it.

The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes has reported that the prince “would have been implacably opposed to joining any party for Christmas lunch which included Harry and Meghan.”

One friend of William’s told Sykes: “The whole idea of them coming for Christmas was typically narcissistic and delusional. There is no way William or Kate would want them there after what he wrote in his book. Would you want to sit down for a slap-up lunch with someone who had basically called you an asshole in public? It would be a total humiliation. William and Kate are never, ever going to sign up for that, and Charles wouldn’t ask them to.”

The Waleses’ reported refusal to come face-to-face with the Sussexes over priceless silver serving dishes of sprouts is entirely understandable. As we approach the one-year mark since the Sussex blitzkrieg of oversharing commenced in December 2022, the prince and princess have managed to make it through, though not without a few reputational dings.

The person who indisputably bore the brunt of the Sussexes’ opprobrium was William, a bloke who was painted as jealous, self-interested and a bit of a thug.

Nor did Kate escape unscathed, with the princess cast as having encouraged Harry to dressup as a Nazi and being squeamish about sharing her lip gloss with sister-in-law Meghan.

The Prince and Princess of Wales might be many things but masochists willing to endure the “total humiliation” of having to make nice with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex? N’est pas. I think we will sooner see Anne furiously peddling round Burning Man on a bicycle than this.

Hours after the news broke that the duke and duchess had failed to make the cut for Sandringham, there they were at an ice hockey game in Canada, drumming up support ahead of the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver and Whistler. The couple might not have seemed to have a care in the world as they clapped and cheered, but Charles has essentially just given his son the cut direct.

Blimey.

Adding insult to injury here is that while the Sussexes have been nixed, Camilla’s children and grandchildren are set to spend their very first Christmas right in the bosom of the royal family. Son Tom Parker Bowles and daughter Laura Lopes, and their five children, are about to, according to ITV’s Chris Ship, experience their first December 25th at Sandringham, alongside William and Kate and their small troop of tiny HRHs.

(Though the Waleses stay at their nearby Norfolk bolt hole Anmer Cottage, barely making do with 10 bedrooms and only one tennis court.)

The moral of the story here: Camilla has won. Her Majesty might have, according to Harry, “left bodies in the street” in her journey towards the throne but on Christmas Day this year, it will be the King and Queen’s blended families pulling crackers and gorging on figgy pudding.

If Harry is writing a letter to Santa this year, he might want to add some nice note paper, perfect for a reluctant semi-apology to his ‘Pa’, that is, if he wants to see a groaning Sandringham buffet anytime in his future.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

The decline and fall of a spare heir

 

JAN MOIR: If Harry shovels steaming manure onto the family fruit patch, he should expect a rich crop of raspberries in return

By Jan Moir for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:58 EST, 16 November 2023 | Updated: 08:17 EST, 17 November 2023

It still seems weird and somehow wrong that news about the British Royal Family is discussed first on U.S. outlets such as talk show host Kelly Ripa's podcast and on the pages and website of People magazine — next to stories about the Kardashians and actor Will Smith denying he slept with a man.

However, this is the world the Duke and Duchess of Sussex live in, this is the prism through which they are now viewed, this is where the absurd vanilla puffery of their softest-scoop ice cream is peddled in the hope that it will be swallowed whole.

Reactions may vary, as well as recollections. Some might even choke on the first mouthful.

Omid Scobie's new book Endgame is out at the end of this month and an extract has appeared in People magazine.

American readers might be surprised to learn that, according to this highly partisan account, the death of Queen Elizabeth II was not about the passing of a much-loved monarch and a sombre moment for British people and our shared history — it was all about Prince Harry.

Although Harry and Meghan have indicated they had nothing to do with the book, there is a great deal about who told him what and when about our 96-year-old Queen's final decline.

Also his travel arrangements to Balmoral, his disappointments about this and that, his sour surprise that not only was his welcome home far from warm, but that Meghan's presence at the Queen's deathbed was surplus to requirements, too. God knows what could have caused such family froideur!

Anyone with any ideas should write them on a silenced- not-silent postcard and send it to: The Toxic Racist Windsor Rotters, c/o Broken Dog Bowl Alley, London.

According to Endgame, Harry was especially peeved that his brother did not respond to his texts when he was trying to cadge a lift to Scotland on the RAF jet that flew Prince William, Prince Andrew and the Wessexes.

You have to laugh. What did Harry expect? If you shovel endless steaming manure onto the family fruit patch, surely you must expect a rich crop of raspberries in return?

Every action has a reaction and every piece of treachery is another brick in the royal ramparts.

The walls between the brothers are now so high that apparently William refuses to even 'properly talk' with Harry, while Harry is still moping about, seeking 'an apology or accountability'. From William to him, rather than the other way around. Cue even more sardonic laughter.

No doubt more Endgame extracts and leaks will be coming soon, but I am exhausted by it already.

Dear God, surely not more Sussexian victimhood? When are they ever going to wake up and smell the wellness- focused instant latte or count their many blessings?

Harry and Meghan now have two beautiful, healthy children, a gorgeous home in California, a chicken coop, free tickets to Beyonce and Katy Perry pop concerts and millions in the bank.

They have rich and powerful supporters on their side, including billionaire television producer Tyler Perry.

It was Perry who facilitated their initial entry into America, providing his lavish California estate as a sanctuary. Not many refugees fleeing tyranny are the beneficiaries of such largesse!

Perry was on Kelly Ripa's show this week, revealing how Meghan got in touch with him after he sent her a note of support.

They had not long been friends, but that didn't stop Perry becoming Princess Lilibet's godfather.

Meghan is not the first ambitious mother who selected a wealthy and well-connected patron to become a godfather to her children — but the shock is how little it took.

A few phone calls and the loan of a house? Honey, I pimped the kids.

What I am wondering is how much more of this can we all take? Harry and Meghan have found their freedom, they have made their great escape — can't they now just enjoy it all instead of endlessly picking at the royal scab and whining to their proxy, Omid Scobie? Or to their proxy's proxy?

Of course, as a one-dimensional author of limited scope, Scobie must stoke the fires of grievance and discontent between the exiled Sussexes and the core royals, otherwise he doesn't have a book, a narrative, a purpose, or indeed a pay cheque.

Even he must be alarmed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are now denying that they are 'affiliated' with him in any way, although we have been here before. Denials that the Sussex camp had helped with his previous biography, Finding Freedom, turned out to be untrue.

Whatever, however, moreover — I think we can all agree that this endless drip of gripe and spite from a prince is the sign of a man who lost his way a long, long time ago.

The Prince and the Fraud: Prince Harry and Gabor Mate

 

'Trauma expert' Gabor Mate says he bitterly REGRETS controversial Prince Harry interview because of 'demeaning, dismissive' backlash he faced - saying 'foofoo' surrounding it took over his life and made him 'lose himself'

• Harry's conversation with the doctor, 79, was fiercely scrutinized back in March
• At the time, it was revealed Gabor had previously made anti-Zionist comments
• He has now addressed the backlash, admitting that it left him in a 'dark place'

'Trauma expert' Gabor Maté has admitted that he regrets his controversial interview with Prince Harry because the 'foofoo' surrounding it took over his entire life and made him 'lose himself.'

Back in March, the Duke of Sussex, 39, spoke with the the Hungarian-Canadian doctor, 79, about 'living with loss and the importance of personal healing,' while promoting his memoir Spare.

During their sit-down, which was live-streamed on the web and cost $33 to watch, Harry made a series of bombshell claims about growing up as a royal.

The conversation was fiercely scrutinized, especially after it was brought to light that Gabor had made a series of eyebrow-raising comments in the past - like comparing Hamas to the Jewish heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis, defending Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilians, and branding Israel's government as terrorists.

He is also an outspoken supporter of decriminalizing drugs, and has used the Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat patients suffering from mental illness. 

Now, the author and physician has addressed the public's 'demeaning, dismissive, and distorted' reaction to his chat with Harry, while revealing that it left him in a really 'dark place.'

'There was an incredible social media reaction to it, which was, for the most part, so negative and so demeaning and so dismissive and so distorted,' he said during a recent appearance on Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO podcast.

'I barely even know how to talk about it. I thought by this age I would know better, but you know what, it really got to me.'

Gabor said the backlash left him in a 'really negative state of mind' and feeling like he 'lost himself' - leading to him eventually reaching out to a psychiatrist for help.

'I was in a dark place, I'm a human being like the rest,' he continued. 'It's so difficult to ask for help but I did.'

He accused the media of twisting his words and recalled them calling him things like 'stern, overbearing, and a merchant of pain.'

After speaking to a psychiatrist, however, Gabor said he later realized that his problems didn't have to do with the criticism, but rather, stemmed from an 'old unresolved wound' from his past. 

According to Gabor, he had reservations about talking to Harry from the start, since he was uncomfortable with the idea of making people pay to watch it.

Gabor said the backlash put him a 'really negative state of mind' and resulted in him feeling like he 'lost himself' during an appearance on Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO podcast

The conversation was live-streamed on the web and tickets were priced at $33. People who watched it received a copy of Harry's book, Spare

'I had a gut feeling all along that I shouldn't agree the way they set it up. Because the way it was set up, to watch it, people had to buy a copy of Harry's book,' he explained. 

'I thought, "This is not fair, four million people have already bought the book. Why can't they watch this interview?" They had to buy another copy. 

'I believed this should be a free public service from two people who are having a very interesting conversation. 

'But out of sheer opportunism I agreed to it. I didn't follow my gut feeling. I agreed to something that I didn't really like. 

'Not that I didn't like the idea of talking with him, I didn't like the idea of putting myself behind a pay wall. I lost myself just in agreeing to do it.'

Despite his regrets about the interview, Gabor insisted that he 'doesn't care' what the public thinks of him anymore.

But he said he wants people to 'see him' for who he is and 'not some distorted version.'

'I don't care if people agree with me or if they refute my ideas, but I want them to see me and what I'm actually saying, not some distorted version created by their own minds,' he concluded. 

'So what if someone says [something bad about me]. I don't live in the press. I don't live in someone else's mind. Here I am. Let them think and say what they want.'

Gabor said that after the interview, he had to reach out to a psychiatrist for help, adding, 'I was in a dark place, I'm a human being like the rest.' Harry is seen during their chat

Gabor has more than two decades of experience working with people suffering from addiction and mental illness - and he fiercely believes that all of the problems we face as adults stem from trauma we endured as children. 

Gabor has been scrutinized for comparing Hamas to the Jewish heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis, defending Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilians, and branding Israel's government as terrorists

He himself had a traumatic upbringing. He was born in Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944, and when he was five months old his maternal grandparents were among the Jews murdered in Auschwitz. He was then taken from his mother and hidden with an aunt until the war ended. 

He is an outspoken supporter of decriminalizing drugs, and has used the Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat patients suffering from mental illness. 

The psychedelic plant, which is taken as a brewed drink, causes people to experience hallucinations and other side effects, including vomiting - something Prince Harry has admitted to using to manage his 'trauma and pain.'

It remains illegal in the US, UK, and Canada, and in 2011, Canadian officials threatened to arrest Dr Maté if he didn't stop using the drug to treat his patients. 

On top of his shocking anti-Zionist comments, Gabor has also contributed to a pro-Kremlin website that defends brutal regimes around the world and has spoken warmly of the spittle-flecked Pink Floyd star and alleged 'Putin apologist' Roger Waters.

OK THEN! Time for the blogger to intervene.

I have too much to say about Gabor Mate (and won't write a poem about him, though I think I did once). I did meet the man back in 2003, interviewing him for January Magazine, an online publication which never paid me one red cent for all my hard work. He had just written his second book, When the Body Says No, which is one of those titles that sounds like a lot, but means very little. 

I think I was taken in by his guru-hood even then, though at the time he was still an actual doctor, a family practitioner working on the  cruel streets of Vancouver. He even gave me a tour of his downtown office, and showed me around the sights, i. e. the various addicts standing around in their different states of dereliction. He seemed hyper, severe, with an unreadable face that I was soon to learn only had one expression.

He's likely the only person I ever met who doesn't smile. I mean, he doesn't. In the rare "smiling" photos, it's more like a wince, with alarmingly dead eyes. He never laughs - I mean, he does not laugh. He was full of bombast during our coffee talks, but had no real warmth, no sense of the joy of living. In fact, I consider him one of the most joyless human beings I've ever met. And he cannot survive if he is not playing the role of the perpetual saviour.

Unfortunately, this has worked all too well for him, and his fans are cultish in their devotion. One even described him as "like having Jesus back here on earth". When you look at his detestable pro-Hamas views, his baffling and even frightening alliance with Russia, you've got to wonder how Jesus could have gotten so fucked up.

At any rate, though there's more, I am weary of the subject already and don't want to waste another brain cell on him. For all his Messianic posturing, the guy is about as resilient as an ice cube on a hot summer's day. There's no "there" there, no real substance, and no real joy.

The doctor has been unmasked, and he cannot stand it.. In one breath he says people's comments nearly destroyed him, then immediately says he does not care two figs about what anyone says. Hypocrisy, much? Or is his memory so faulty he doesn't remember what he said just a minute ago?