Meghan Markle had dealt with the media whilst starring in Suits and other projects, but the scrutiny really ramped up around the time she began dating Prince Harry. In a lengthy new interview about media movements, Markle spoke with The 19th founder Emily Ramshaw, revealing she and her husband talk about how their narrative has been treated by the media all the time.
In the interview -- which hit YouTube late last week -- the actress spoke with Emily Ramshaw on everything from the various goals of The 19th to the suffrage movement in the United States. She also touched on her own feelings about dealing with the media, equating it to “toxicitiy” and revealing she shares a lot of the same feelings Prince Harry does. She noted to The 19th:
My husband and I talk about it often, this economy for attention, right? That is what is monetizable right now when you're looking at the digital space and media. And so if you're just trying to grab someone's attention and keep it you're going for something salacious versus something truthful. And I think that once we can get back to the place, which is what you're creating here, which is why I think it's so important, where people are just telling the truth and they're reporting and telling it through a compassionate or empathetic lens, it's going to help bind people as community in a way that I think [at] the moment we're feeling much more of a disconnect in a space where we could be feeling more of a connection.
Currently, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are dealing with news items on multiple fronts. There’s the high-profile way they left their royal duties and switched continents. They just bought a house in Los Angeles (reportedly for $14.5 million) people are curious about. There’s also the ongoing lawsuit the couple has filed against The Daily Mail after that outlet published a letter Meghan Markle had sent her father Thomas Markle, who had been in the tabloids.
Then, of course, there’s the book of the moment, Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Family. That book, from Carolyn Durrand and Omid Scobie, was published just a few days ago on August 11. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry reportedly did not contribute to the book. Instead, most of the narratives in it came from anonymous insider information.
Some of it is seemingly harmless, including cute stories like Prince Harry allegedly visiting Meghan Markle on the set of Suits while they were still dating, but some of it goes hard on speculation about the famous couple and the Royal Family as a whole.
Meghan Markle also name drops hanging out with Gloria Steinem and more in the video, opportunities that may not have arisen had she not taking the path she’s currently on. Everything in life has trade-offs, and every field, including the media, has a wide range of different perspectives. Clearly, Markle has been the victim of some unfair criticism over the years, but then again, she's also been the subject of some glowing profiles and been able to use the outsized media attention she gets to shine a profile on some good causes she cares about. Exactly what's true and what's not true about her personal life may never be fully clear, but maybe someday she'll cut out the media altogether and write her own book to set the record straight.
