Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, is a member of the royal family and former American actress who is married to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, the younger son of King Charles III.
Before marrying the British prince, Meghan Markle pursued an acting career, starting with her role as Rachel Elizabeth Jane in the legal drama “Suits”, and continued her charity work on women’s issues and social justice. The Duke of Sussex is not her first husband, having previously been married to American film producer Trevor Engelson, but the couple filed for divorce in 2014.
In 2016, the actress began dating Prince Harry and they married in 2018. Meghan Markle soon after retired from acting and became known as the Duchess of Sussex.
From the day Prince Harry made his relationship with Meghan Markle public, the former actress began receiving racist and discriminatory comments on social media and in the press. On Twitter, comments began appearing saying that “Meghan will never be a royal” due to “royal protocol” issues, “a disgrace to the royal family”, and “a talentless victim who is jealous of people”.
When Meghan was pregnant with her first child, even the Daily Mirror ran a story with the headline, “How dark will the baby’s skin be?” The Globe ran a story with the headline, “Meghan must go!” Comments on Twitter, along with those from magazines and newspapers, included the hashtag #megxit, which quickly gained traction among the Duchess’ haters, with comments like, “Look at this fake belly, Meghan saga.”
When Harry and Meghan actually left the royal family for Canada, a national introspection began over whether the former empire had made significant progress in addressing racism and classism. The fight was seen as the latest battle in a culture war that divides the country and beyond. In 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they would end their full-time roles in the British royal family, no longer use the title “Your Royal Highness” and would no longer receive public funding for royal duties.
The same year the couple moved to Vancouver Island, they signed a private commercial deal with Netflix to produce a documentary about their lives before and after their break with the royal family. In the series, the couple first described their struggles with the media and the press, giving background on how social media and tabloids harassed Meghan and how senior members of the royal family were indifferent to her harassment. Prince Harry said, “Meghan is so much like my mother in who she is and who she is. She has the same compassion, empathy, confidence, and warmth.” The Duke of Sussex wanted to show the “coldness” of the royal family by talking about “warmth,” and the criticism of the crown that almost every British citizen knows. But while in the case of Princess Diane, it was a very open “issue” for people—Diane called herself “the queen of people’s hearts” in her last interview before the tragedy—in the case of Meghan, it was always about race.
Meghan’s mother Ragland said in one episode that Meghan was “stalked by the paparazzi” and “felt very unsafe” after becoming a member of the British royal family. “I said to her, and I remember this very vividly, ‘This is a race issue,'” Ragland said. “‘You may not want to hear it, but it’s coming.'”
In the nearly four years since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex left Britain, much has changed in both their private and public lives.
The Archwell Foundation was launched as a charitable organization focused on non-profit activities and creative for-profit media businesses. In 2020, the Archwell Foundation funded three “community relief centers” in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Mumbai, providing special “rapidly activated service kitchens” to these areas. The foundation has partnered with a variety of organizations, including the Loveland Foundation, which provides mental health supplies for Black women, and Harvest Home, a charity that helps pregnant women who are experiencing domestic violence, drug use, and homelessness.
In 2021, the Archewell Foundation, in partnership with Women for Afghanistan, helped evacuate thousands of Afghan women and children during the 2021 Taliban offensive. The organization later supported World Central Kitchen to deliver meals to hospitals and shelters for those affected by the 2021 Haiti earthquake.
Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the group has made several donations to charities supporting the Ukrainian people.
As part of our commitment to supporting young people and intergenerational organizations engaged in the responsible technology movement, Archerwell became a founding member of the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund in February 2023.
The founders of the Archewell Foundation also signed a multi-year deal with Spotify in December 2020 to launch their podcast through their audio production company Archewell Audio, a division of Archewell Inc. The Duchess of Sussex had been working on launching her own podcast, but “platform issues” meant that the plan was only partially realized in 2022. In June 2023, Spotify terminated the couple’s contract to produce the podcast.
Is there a risk for Meghan to return to the UK?
The Duke of Sussex recently said in an interview that he still fears for his wife’s safety if she were to return to the UK “because she could be attacked here”. In his first major interview since the lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) newspaper, Harry expressed his views: “I had to go too far. All you need is one person who reads everything that is published and acts on what they read. It doesn’t matter if it’s a knife or a mountain.”
So a case has been brought against News Group Newspapers over allegations they illegally obtained information about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and a trial is due to begin in January.
Still, the question remains: is there a real threat to the Duchess of Sussex’s life in the UK? With the change of government in the UK and a less radical stance towards the separation of senior members of the royal family, that seems much less likely these days, especially after the release of the Netflix series “Harry & Meghan,” which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex themselves directed.
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