ROYALS
Kate Middleton Insisted On "Recollections May
Vary" In Palace Response To Harry And Meghan's Oprah Interview
“The issues raised, particularly that of race, are
concerning…. they will be addressed by the family privately."
BY TARA
ARIANO
JULY 1,
2023
The past
few weeks, the news cycle has been flooded with stories about Prince Harry and
Meghan Markle’s generally poor attempts to re-style themselves as content
creators — including this very day, as The Daily Beast reports that they’re
blaming bad luck, bad timing, and covid for their recent setbacks at Spotify
and Netflix. A
A new
report has at least turned attention away from their spotty business record:
their sister-in-law Kate Middleton was instrumental in crafting the “Firm”’s
response to their Oprah Winfrey interview.
It’s been
more than two years since CBS aired Markle and Harry’s interview with Winfrey
about their decision to leave the royal family. It landed like a bombshell as
Markle described how relentless racist news coverage about her (her father is
white and her mother is Black) led her to consider self-harm and suicide when
she and Harry were still actively performing royal duties; they also revealed
that when they had announced Markle’s pregnancy, at least one member of Harry’s
family asked how dark the baby’s skin might be.
Though
“Never complain, never explain” is the royal family’s unofficial motto, the
interview was too explosive to ignore, and Buckingham Palace released an
official statement two days later:
“The whole
family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few
years have been for Harry and Meghan.
“The issues
raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may
vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family
privately.
Though it
might seem simple (and clumsy, if we’re nitpicking — I’d have gone with
“disturbing” over “concerning,” personally), a new book reveals some of the
negotiations that went into its crafting. In Courtier: The Hidden Power Behind
The Crown, Times of London reporter Valentine Low writes that Harry’s brother,
Prince William, and William’s wife Middleton were involved in drafting the
statement. An insider is quoted saying that the couple wanted to “toughen [it]
up”: “They were both of one mind that we needed something that said that the
institution did not accept a lot of what had been said.”
Low’s
insider underlines Middleton’s insistence: “It was Kate who clearly made the
point, ‘History will judge this statement and unless this phrase or a phrase
like it is included, everything that they have said will be taken as true.’”
Thus the addition of “recollections may vary,” an artful if passive-voiced
phrase two sources attribute to William’s then-new aide, Jean-Christophe Gray.
Unsurprisingly,
negative U.K. press coverage of Markle continues. Just this week, the British
Independent Press Standards Organization found that a Sun tabloid column about
her by former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson was sexist, and that the paper
must inform its readers of the finding on its front page. How proud the family may be that this story
about Middleton puts her on the same side against Markle as a man whose show’s
controversies regarding homophobic and racist content have their own Wikipedia
page is unknown at this time. VF.com has reached out to the palace for comment.
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