Truth be told, I never believed Cinderella was going to live happily ever after, well, after she marries the prince and starts a family with him with in-law issues to deal with and the cumbersome institution called the monarchy.
That’s the fairy tale of Harry and Markle, the Prince and the Duchess of Sussex. Last month they officially and permanently quit royalty to be like one of us, the common folks.
But, when you have royalty in your veins, you are royalty for life. You are therefore always fresh meat for the paparazzi. And your privacy is the only fifth estate that the fourth estate cannot wait to aim their photographic crosshair at.
So, with the spilling of beans before billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey, it is an understatement to say that it is not going to be a happily-ever-after for Markle who had married into a hailstorm of unimaginable wealth and ancient British history.
And when you marry into the monarchy, you can expect that it is not going to be just the two of you and your kids. Your family will become the goldfish tank for the world to marvel and take cheap shots at.
I guess Markle miscalculated the price of love and devotion when she (and Harry) secretly went before archbishop Justin Welby, three days before the televised wedding to be held in Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, to exchange their vows.
That’s where the reality cognitive dissonance really started - the gap between a commoner’s union and a royal wedding.
Markle said: “No one knows that. But we called the archbishop and we just said, “Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us...It was like having an out-of-body experience...I think we were both really aware, even in advance of that, this wasn’t our day, this was the day that was planned for the world.””
Ironically, when they decided to offer Oprah the happily-never-after interview before 17 million viewers and even millions more on a global scale, they have unwittingly made their less-than-blissful union a union with the world at large. No doubt the two became one, and the one is joined with millions. If three is too crowded for Diana, try a few million.
Alas, their craving for privacy before a lone bishop is now made public before the anonymous masses to be praised, judged, ridiculed, snubbed, harassed, admonished, and...you fill your own blanks with this one.
That’s the reality cognitive dissonance for them, that is, a mismatch or struggle between private goals and public ones, between getting solemnised in private and choosing to reveal the innermost secrets of their royal marital life in public.
No, I am not doubting that she went through a lot in that short two years since the walk down the aisle in the interior of a very grand castle. Their union is truly one of a kind, and the publicity for it is a dream for millions (but a nightmare for Markle, and well, Diana).
Mind you, the monarchy is an institution on its own just like a marriage. But the point is that you have to balance both interests (which can be overbearing at times) so that they complement each other over the long run, and that takes the sterling caliber of people like the presumptive heir, the Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, who herself was of royal birth (she was the first born child of the Duke and Duchess of York).
In the interview, Markle said she suffered prejudicial treatment as a biracial former actress who is also divorced. She said members of the royal family told them that “they expressed concerns about how dark the colour of (their) baby’s skin would be.” At that time, Markle was pregnant with their son, Archie.
Markle even entertained suicide thoughts. She said: “I was ashamed to have to admit it to Harry. I knew that if I didn’t say it, I would do it. I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
Wait, there’s more...
Markle also said: “It was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected, but also that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family.”
"There's the family and then there's the people that are running the institution. Those are two separate things and it's important to be able to compartmentalise that because the Queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me."
She admits she was naive before the wedding, not counting the cost of the union. “I will say I went into it naively because I didn't grow up knowing much about the royal family.”
In that two years living in padded comfort, she said that she felt like a prisoner in Kensington Palace. “I couldn’t just call an Uber to the palace.” And her “efforts to seek medical help were rebuffed by palace officials, who worried about the effect on the monarchy.”
Honestly, there is a lot of issues here at stake. You can look at it from the racism angle. Ms Bernice King, youngest child of MLK, said: “Royalty is not a shield from the devastation and despair of racism.” One American activist calls it “misogynoir at play” and “if they can do that to a Duchess, it’s happening to black women every day.”
There is also the motive angle. For a no-holds-barred POV, here’s the perpetually acerbic Piers Morgan. “This interview is an absolutely disgraceful betrayal of the Queen and the royal family. I expect all this vile, destructive, self-serving nonsense from Meghan Markle - but for Harry to let her take down his family and the monarchy like this is shameful.”
For me, it is another angle, the irony angle. I have hinted to it above. In fact, I have two ironies. Let’s go for the first one.
Yes, Harry and Meghan want they privacy more than anything else. They want to protect their kids - one may notice a baby bump during the interview. And they have moved out of the castle to migrate to Canada to live a commoner’s life, probably aiming to work from 9-to-5.
So, metaphorically speaking, they have come out of the goldfish tank, packed their things with baby in tow, to join the non-descript pond of the general population. In fact, I supported that move because if the kitchen gets too hot, then move out. Those feet were indeed made for walking, royalty or otherwise, right?
Yet, the lure of publicity never left them. In about one year of such humble, quiet living for the couple and child, the media bait dangled before them. At the end of the hook was an offer too good to resist. The fisherman or woman was none other than Oprah herself. And before even the royal gold-dust settled, we see them fessing up to Oprah, in a blitz-and-tell-all, 2-hour interview.
Have they then self-invited themselves back into the goldfish tank, a life Markle said was a sort of a prison for her? So, is it true that you can get a person out of prison, but not the prison out of that person?
That’s the irony angle. They want not what they know is what they really want. Make sense? Go figure.
And the second irony is that they are celebrities, whether they like it or not. If you want to climb down from that pedestal and live amongst us, it comes with the territory.
Yes, you are being discriminated for your skin color, for your background. I empathise with that. But, many are discriminated too. Many confront darker family feuds, for longer period of time. Many also entertained suicide thoughts at times. But many of them, in their own ways, fought back and built their own resilience, faced the issues and resolved them in a way that heals wounds, bridges gaps and deepens mutual respect (is this an Asian thingy?)
Yet, before I get misunderstood, and have to dodge fiery stones in the comments column, I am not saying you shouldn’t go seek help. Or make a report if a crime is involved. Or stand up for what is right.
But, what I am saying is, marrying into royalty comes with the territory. Choosing to be a commoner also comes with the territory. Every household has its own problem - 家家有本难念的经 (jiā jiā yǒu běn nán niàn de jīng).
The issue is, what is the right thing to do at such time? What bridges gap rather than split it wide open? How does one strive to be a peacemaker instead of a noisemaker? How to put family first and busybody outsiders last? Is airing your dirty linens in the media the best way forward? Are they only playing to and eating off the hands of the media, the one thing they are desperately escaping from?
Can you be just as effective (if not more) without the media’s involvement, especially one so public? What do you hope to achieve going to Oprah, the oracle of public therapy?
More relevantly, is the timing right? Is this about opportunity rather than family and blood-ties community? And if your goal is anonymity (the best you can) for your children, that is, a peaceful life outside the castle of oppression, isn’t shouting at the mountaintop your list of annus horribilis the last thing you want to do?
And most of all, does this help in any way in the healing process for the deep concerns of the Queen, whom they have admitted they love dearly, and for their desire for privacy? Did they at least try to talk first to the Queen and Prince Philip before rushing into it?
These are questions everyone of us faced with similar situations would have to answer. And I will not be surprised if some of us amongst the commoners come to a different conclusion.
