RICHARD EDEN: The ten mistakes that show Meghan has the ‘worst judgement in the world’… and I reveal for the first time the one I was directly involved with

Former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown has described the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step down from their royal duties as a “disaster” and accused Meghan of having “the worst judgment of anyone in the world.” .

That judgment may seem a bit harsh, but Brown is a royal biographer and wise counselor who met Princess Diana for lunch in Paris just two months before her fatal accident.

As someone who has chronicled Prince Harry and Meghan’s movements since they moved to California, I share some of Brown’s views. So here are ten of the fateful mistakes I think the former actress has made since ‘Megxit’:

1) The Duke and Duchess of Sussex published the announcement in January 2020 that they were stepping down as working royals before holding talks with Queen Elizabeth. And they had launched their flashy SussexRoyal website, having applied for 100 trademarks, including pencils and bookmarks, six months earlier. This was extremely presumptuous and insulting to Harry’s grandmother, who deserved the respect she had earned during her decades on the throne. The late queen rightly forbade them from using the title ‘royal’.

2) Meghan apparently hoped that her interview with Oprah Winfrey, whom she courted before marrying Harry, would herald her entry into Hollywood. The explosive bench call in March 2021 may have helped diminish her chances of being embraced by America. Attacking the family she married into on national television, when she was already estranged from most of her own family, backfired horribly. And the choice to go ahead with the interview, even though Prince Philip was seriously ill in hospital, rubbed salt in royal wounds.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s explosive conversation with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021

3) The choice to name their daughter Lilibet, who was born three months later, was a rude decision. Lilibet was the pet name for Queen Elizabeth from childhood, used only by her close relatives. Harry and Meghan claimed they chose it as a tribute, but a palace source told the BBC the queen was not asked beforehand. This was disputed by the couple’s spokesperson. Whatever the case, it was no surprise that the Queen did not pose for a photo with her great-granddaughter when she visited the Sussexes at Frogmore Cottage during their visit for her Platinum Jubilee celebrations a year later. She was reportedly so upset by Harry and Meghan’s decision about Lilibet that she told aides, “The only thing I own is my name.” And now they’ve taken that with them.”

The Sussexes’ daughter Lilibet, whose name they said was a tribute to Queen Elizabeth

4) After the Duke and Duchess signed their $20 million (£15.4 million) deal with audio giant Spotify in December 2020, they both appeared on the pilot episode of their podcast, along with a range of celebrity guests, including Sir Elton John, James Corden and Tyler Perry. However, when their first podcast series, called Archetypes, finally aired in August 2022, Harry was conspicuous by his absence. Meghan’s decision to present the series alone was a mistake. Spotify thought it was signing a power couple, not a whiny former actress. The first series was also the last for Spotify, with one of its executives labeling the Sussexes as ‘f***ing grifters’.

5) One of the standout moments in the six-part 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan was the overly elaborate bow the Duchess gave to show how she had greeted Queen Elizabeth during their first meeting. Meghan may have wanted to show how much she wanted to impress Harry’s grandmother, but it came across as mockery. And Harry’s uncomfortable grimace as he watched her performance lingers long in the memory.

One of the standout moments in the 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan was the exaggerated extended bow the Duchess gave to show how she first greeted the Queen.

6) One of the ways Queen Elizabeth tried to make the most of Meghan’s talents was by inviting her to lead Commonwealth organizations, giving her an international role. Meghan was appointed vice-president of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, while Harry became president. And as they stepped down from their royal duties, the couple declared they would “continue to uphold our duty to the Commonwealth.” However, their Netflix series attacked the Queen’s beloved Commonwealth, with one contributor labeling the voluntary organization of nation states as ‘Empire 2.0’. As the then Tory MP Sir Hugo Swire said at the time, this was ‘either deliberate mischief or astonishing ignorance’.

7) Appearances at scenes of tragedies are always a delicate matter for members of the royal family, but Meghan’s 2022 visit to meet the parents of victims of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, risked being seen as a PR exercise . Instead of waiting for a decent amount of time to pass, the former actress rushed to the scene two days after the massacre and laid flowers in full view of the cameras. The fact that her close aide Mandana Dayani recently cited the visit as an example of Meghan’s compassion made it sound like an attempt to burnish the duchess’ tarnished image.

Meghan lays flowers at a makeshift memorial in Uvalde, Texas, two days after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers and injured 17 others in May 2022

8) Much attention is paid to the clothing that female members of the royal family wear while on duty, as Meghan has publicly acknowledged. So was her $7,629 (£5,891) outfit for a 2021 visit to underprivileged children at a school in Harlem, New York City, really appropriate? The Duchess wore a loose-fitting, burgundy cashmere pajama-style coat from Loro Piana with matching $1,779 (£1,374) trousers and $581 (£449) Manolo Blahnik red stilettos. Public data shows that 94 percent of children at the school qualified for free meals.

9) Everyone knows that Harry and Meghan despise the popular press, but hatred can lead them to make foolish decisions. I contacted Meghan’s office in March to inform them that I planned to publish an item about her plans to start a lifestyle company called American Riviera Orchard. Meghan was apparently so keen that the news wouldn’t appear first in the Daily Mail that she immediately launched her company’s Instagram page, complete with a glitzy video. Eight months later, the company still hasn’t started selling goods and interest seems to be waning. A textbook example of how not to start a business.

Branding for Meghan’s lifestyle company American Riviera Orchard

10) Nothing highlights the demise of the Duke and Duchess’s ambitions to be a “power couple” than Meghan’s solo red carpet appearances in Los Angeles. While her Hollywood agents may have advised her that she needs to be seen, her royal status diminishes every time she competes for the cameras’ attention with the great ranks of American stars, sometimes in less-than-regal outfits.

Nothing highlights the demise of the Duke and Duchess’s ambitions to be a ‘power couple’ than Meghan’s solo red carpet appearances in Los Angeles

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