Fatuous, irrelevant and no sense of purpose - what a fitting backdrop Manhattan's 'Women of Vision' made for the vapid La Markle herself! Fellow guest MAUREEN CALLAHAN's sparkling account of Meghan's word-salad gala appearance
By Maureen Callahan For DailyMail.Com
She so badly wants to be the Queen of Hearts.
But, as she arrived on Tuesday night, making her grand entrance in Midtown Manhattan, sauntering past that rental-car backdrop, it was more like the Queen of Hertz.
Of course, as the world is now all too aware, Meghan Markle capped off winning a meaningless award with what we’re told was a ‘near catastrophic’, ‘two-hour’ car chase through the streets of Manhattan.
Yes, according to a spokesperson, Meghan, along with hapless Harry and mom Doria, were the subjects of a wild, impassioned hunt by the paparazzi.
Some sympathetic commentators have already made the gruesome comparisons to Princess Diana’s tragic final fate.
But to echo the statements made by New York City’s own mayor Eric Adams and the police department: Perhaps it didn’t quite happen the way it was painted.
Recollections may vary.
Of course, as the world is now all too aware, she capped off winning a meaningless award with what we’re told was a ‘near catastrophic’, ‘two-hour’ car chase through the streets of Manhattan.
Naturally, their mouthpiece Omid Scobie is whining that no one from the Palace has yet reached out.
Wonder why?
One also wonders what Gloria Steinem, the 89-year-old feminist icon who chose to honor Meghan as a ‘Woman of Vision’ at Tuesday night’s Ms. Foundation Gala, must be thinking now.
After all, the car ‘chase’ debacle soon stole all the thunder from her event, which I was lucky enough to witness first-hand.
Now, it was hardly the red carpet one might expect. Hardly the pomp and circumstance of, say, a coronation.
Yet Meghan forged ahead as she always does, as if this were her crowning moment, sheathed in gold as if to symbolize a crown.
Or an Oscar statuette.
Same difference, really, if your only goal is fame. That’s our Meghan, none too subtle as ever, literally going for the gold as Harry and Doria took their positions three steps behind.
Harry may be a prince of the blood, but never forget — Meghan is The Star. Her Norma Desmond-ing is among the great spectacles of our modern age.
And this image, our renegade duchess without a palace-worthy advance team to prevent such cheap optics as the Hertz hiccup, set the tone for the evening: Fatuous, irrelevant, high on its own self-regard, all sense of purpose lost.
Gloria Steinem, once the face of women’s rights, reduced to star-f***ery.
It was a bizarre night.
Upon entering the Zeigfeld Ballroom, guests were asked whether they were ‘VIP’ — seems even feminist movements have their echelons — and turfed to the lobby.
My $1,500 entry-level ticket got me a hard seat with a front-row view of coat check.
After ten minutes, circumstances having changed inexplicably, the riff-raff were allowed up to the second floor.
Here were two open bars serving top-shelf liquor and the shock of post-pandemic dress code slovenliness. One unkempt guest was wearing sparkly Birkenstock sandals and a black stretchy minidress under a pink puffer jacket.
These were the VIPs?
The only recognizable person I saw was Peloton instructor Ally Love, and that’s saying something. Where were the stars? Where were the notables of the movement? The Malalas? The Fondas? The Beyoncés?
Perhaps no one was meant to outshine Meghan. Only one feminist icon was going to enter via rental car office!
Down in the ballroom, the plated salads on our banquet tables were ready waiting for us – dry, unsightly, stringy greens that resembled nothing so much as regurgitated hairballs.
Notably, not one person I spoke to nor one speaker or honoree mentioned Meghan.
Not one said how exciting it was to have her there. Not one expressed the slightest curiosity at what she’d have to say.
If anything, as the night dragged on and the event slipped an hour behind schedule – a sudden break announced so we could finally have dinner – the crowd bristled.
It says something when a table of size-6 women tear into their heavily glazed steak and buttery mashed potatoes with abandon.
Yes, the night was pure Meghan Markle: A manufactured build-up of anticipation, a highly dramatic entrance afforded no other actual activist — Meghan climbed on stage to the Alicia Keys she-ro anthem ‘Girl on Fire’ — and then... a whole lot of nothing.
Verbiage and word salad that were content-free, except when speaking on her favorite subject: herself.
Here, in real time, we observed Meghan’s inability to read a room. She thanked the ‘other honorees’ without naming them.
‘Congratulations,’ she said, ‘and frankly, well deserved.’
It was all so smug and supercilious, this glorified podcaster telling these boots-on-the-ground activists — no matter what one thinks of their politics — that they had, in fact, earned their place on the same stage as the great Meghan Markle.
The night was pure Meghan Markle: A manufactured build-up of anticipation, a highly dramatic entrance afforded no other actual activist — Meghan climbed on stage to the Alicia Keys she-ro anthem ‘Girl on Fire’ — and then... a whole lot of nothing.
Notably, not one person I spoke to nor one speaker or honoree mentioned Meghan. Not one said how exciting it was to have her there. Not one expressed the slightest curiosity at what she’d have to say.
That ‘frankly’ was so typical. It was meant to redound to Meghan’s benefit, as the lone wolf daring to speak the unspeakable.
There was the cringe-inducing humblebrag, calling her new friend Gloria ‘Glo’.
It brought to mind the forced intimacy of meeting Kate Middleton barefoot and insisting that the pair share lip gloss.
It's 'Glo' to Meghan, but Meghan is 'Duchess' to us.
‘We all bear witness,’ Meghan continued of her fellow honorees, ‘to you standing in elegance and the power of your strength.’
Huh?
This crowd was not convinced. This crowd was checking their watches. There were trains to catch, children to kiss goodnight. Alas, we were stuck with the vapidity of La Markle.
Her speech didn’t even deliver fresh content! She repeated the story, as told on her podcast, of poor little Meghan coming home from school to her TV dinner, cat collars and copies of Ms. Magazine strewn about courtesy of her mother — even though it’s well-documented that her father primarily raised her.
‘Having these pages in our home,’ she went on, ‘. . . signaled to me that there was so much more than the dolled-up covers and those images that you would see on the grocery store covers. It signaled to me that substance mattered.’
Says the former D-list actress and former briefcase game-show girl who used her looks to get ahead. Who has posed for those very same magazine covers.
This crowd was not convinced. This crowd was checking their watches. There were trains to catch, children to kiss goodnight. Alas, we were stuck with the vapidity of La Markle.
This warmed-over speech, less heated than our steaks, was Meghan’s greatest hits:
‘Change is just one action away.’
‘You can be the visionary of your own life.’
‘Daily acts of service, in kindness, in advocacy, in grace and in fairness.’
‘The imprints that were forged in my mind — I can now connect the dots in a much better way to understand how I became a young feminist and evolved into a grown activist.’
A feminist who, let us not forget, has publicly demonized her famous sister-in-law — ‘Waity Katie’ to Oprah and an audience of millions.
Kate made me cry! WAAAGH!
In truth, Meghan's a self-identified 'grown activist' who has done nothing. The pontification, her sing-song-y cadence as she luxuriated in her own praise, was as insufferable as it was revealing.
‘Ms.’ she said, ‘was formative in [my] cocooning. It piqued my curiosity, and it became the chrysalis for the woman that I would become and that I am today.’
Right: The woman who vilified the institution headed-up by Queen Elizabeth II in her final years. The woman who heavily alleged institutional racism until her husband finally backed away from that terrible smear.
A woman with no substance and no accomplishments as a feminist. A woman who is still trying to one-up the royals, even from a car-park adjacent ballroom with no red carpet.
Meghan is the personification of Ms. as an organization that has lost its way.
Indeed, most of the night was spent advocating not for women but for trans rights and Critical Race Theory.
‘Abortion is racist,’ we were told.
Beware the ‘the white supremacist patriarchal system.’
Yes, even the Ms. Foundation – established for biological women out of a deep, and enduring, necessity – has been subsumed by men who identify as women.
How fitting then that the night was overshadowed by a grasping phony whose empty platitudes on stage failed to make headlines, whose spokesperson told a wild story of a high-stakes car chase.
Pity Meghan, but recognize her strength. Admire her, but never laugh at her. And never, ever question her veracity.
Worldwide Privacy Tour Part 2, it seems, is well underway.
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