Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s self-absorption and sense of entitlement is truly overwhelming
SPARE a thought or a shrug for those of us who couldn’t give the remotest toss about Harry and Meghan.
It’s been a testing few weeks as, slowly but surely, we’ve all found ourselves caught up in the dumbest TV pub fight of all time.
One group of pundits shouts “hypocrites”, the other screams “racists”, and on and on it swirls until the stupidest person in the Zoom chat yelps: “Why can’t you just leave them alone?”
ALONE!??
Aberdeen sacked their manager, Derek McInnes, about an hour before ITV’s “bombshell interview”, and never in my life have I wanted to watch Sky Sports News and leave those two alone more.
But I have to follow the ratings here and 12million of you tuned into their pity party with Oprah Winfrey, another person whose alleged charm and “brilliance” has always managed to escape me.
Chicken hut
She’s a good listener but an Olympic-class sycophant and queen of the leading question — “Were you silent . . . or SILENCED?” A glorified PR who’s dangerously ill-informed about Britain and royal matters, so there was never the remotest chance of her pointing out the only member of “the institution” who’s ever been recorded making racist comments is the King of Woke himself, Prince Harry.
At best, then, I was expecting Meghan Markle’s Celebrity Big Brother eviction interview.
What I got was more like Tom and Barbara from The Good Life doing the Judges’ Houses segment of The X Factor, with a stone gazebo and a chicken hut where Meghan, minus all the subtlety of a ram raid, told Oprah: “I just like rescuing.”
Personally, I’d have kicked off massively if I thought a significant other was comparing me to a rescued battery hen, as the physical and professional likeness is far too close for comfort. Harry didn’t, bless his heart.
Nor, when he was graciously allowed to join the second half of the chat, did he react with a startled “You said WHAT?” when Oprah relayed the racism charge against a mystery member of the Royal Family.
Their accounts of this incident may differ significantly, you see, but they speak as one on everything and it’s always through the prism of Rachel Zane from Suits who seems to have a fairly flexible relationship with facts.
I am, for instance, perfectly prepared to believe that she worked at an LA outlet called Humphrey Yogart, which would be located next to the Ava Gardening Center, in a just and sane universe. But unless I’m the only one who hasn’t been invited, “tabloid holiday parties at the Palace” exist only in a fantasy world.
Oprah never challenged her on any of this, of course, and that may be the reason, having not really bothered with Harry and Meghan before, I found myself coming round to Piers Morgan’s opinion.
Their self-absorption and sense of entitlement is truly overwhelming.
To watch Meghan Markle comparing herself to The Little Mermaid, or complaining about having to google the National Anthem, without the help of a Palace flunky, is to find yourself lost in admiration for the uncomplaining lives of the Queen and Prince Philip, who both, let’s not forget, fought real Nazis during the Second World War, rather than the imaginary ones who infest the minds of Meghan and Harry’s most shrill supporters.
If you want to know the perfect way to react to Monday night’s performance, you also just need to read the Queen’s Tuesday night statement. If you want to know the wrong way to react, you can watch again Piers Morgan storming out of GMB, in a fit of pique with Alex Beresford the weatherman, of all people.
Piers quit GMB the same day and the irony here is the people out to destroy him were the same woke lobby he’s spent the last 12 months courting with all his Trump denunciations and anti- Government diatribes.
A waste of breath.
Unless you buy into their whole right-on package of political postures and truly believe feelings are more important than facts, you’ll always be targeted for cancellation.
Piers will be fine, obviously.
The people I feel sorry for are the viewers of GMB, which will probably turn into another woke wasteland filled with the sort of bland, head-tilting, privilege-lecturing cultists I could find on every other breakfast yawn, current affairs show, drama, soap and daytime programme right now. Telly sucks.
lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is Prince “Haz” and Percy from Smallfoot. Emailed in by RJ.
Picture research: Reena Ratan
ENDING UP FOOL CIRCLE
MEANWHILE, inside a block of flats in Salford, some minor celebrities are pretending to be other minor celebrities while playing Jenga and Connect 4.
But please don’t ask me “Why?”.
It’s the great imponderable that hangs over the building and The Celebrity Circle. Part of the official explanation, of course, is that they’re all taking part in this Channel 4 popularity contest/catfishing game because of the worthy charitable angle.
You strongly suspect, though, most of them would be there anyway, either dying of boredom or expiring from the simple indignity of being themselves.
In the latter category we’ve got Towie/Made In Chelsea combo Pete Wicks and Sam Thompson, who are pretending to be Rachel Riley.
Drag Race nuisance Baga Chipz is shooting for the moon as “Kim Woodburn”, while the Melvin Odoom/Rickie Haywood-Williams partnership have rather ambitiously cast themselves as “Will.i.am”.
The greatest burden is, of course, carried by Loose Women duo Kaye Adams and Nadia Sawalha who’ve taken on the identity of Gemma Collins, but only about an eighth of the carbohydrates.
Others, though, seem fairly thrilled by the idea of just being themselves, particularly “YouTuber” Saffron Barker, who admitted: “I don’t know what Denise van Outen does”, and Duncan James, who said: “People always come up to me and go: ‘Oi! Duncan from Blue’. I suppose that’s better than calling me a tt.”
Scratch beneath the confident, self-mocking exterior, however, and you discover someone who’s desperate to prove: “There’s more to me than being the pouty one from Blue.”
Which would’ve been fine by me if he’d left it at that and his next words weren’t: “I think being an Aries, in The Circle, is probably going to help me.” Tt.
Great TV lies and delusions of the week
- Lovably self-effacing Carol Vorderman: “I’ve done it all and I know the reality of being the biggest name on telly.”
- Famous And Pregnant, Sam Mucklow, with Shelby Tribble : “Mainly you might know us from a short appearance on The Only Way Is Essex.”
- The Celebrity Circle, Nadia Sawalha: “The presence Gemma Collins has is disarming.” Pass me the harpoon.
- INCIDENTALLY, entries to the Egomaniac Of The Year competition are suspended indefinitely after unfunnyman Nish Kumar, in all seriousness, apparently, told Channel 4’s The Last Leg: “Every time Meghan Markle gets in the news I’m always, like, ‘thank God,’ because it gives me a break from the same (media) outlets.” Nish Kumar, ladies and gentle-men. Coming to the front cover of Vanity Fair and Oprah Winfrey’s pagoda, no time soon.
- RANDOM MasterChef query of the week, Gregg Wallace: “A purple ring with orange buttons, what was that?” Dunno. The reason Tinky Winky got sacked from panto?
Random TV irritations
ALL the most unremarkable facts on TV being greeted with an insincere “Wow”.
Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance bending time so that 15 minutes seems more like five days.
Newsnight’s gleeful reaction to the Harry/Meghan interview demonstrating the BBC’s vile anti-British streak and just why it was so blindsided by Brexit.
And genealogy shows surely reaching the end of the line with ITV’s dismal DNA Journey, where a woman stepped forward to drop this bombshell on Jamie Redknapp: “I’m your seventh cousin . . . once removed.”
TV name of the week
The production manager on More4’s excellent Deutschland 89 is Michael Wanka, who’s not to be confused with the bloke who composed some of the soundtrack, Simply Red’s Michael Hucknall, though I could see how you might.
TV GOLD
BBC2’s The Terror and Your Honor, on Sky Atlantic, vying for the title of TV’s Best Drama.
Lisa Dwan’s show-saving presence as Tori on Bloodlands.
Most read in News
The sublime five minutes on Monday’s This Morning when James Martin was making lemon drizzle cake and they weren’t discussing Meghan and Harry.
And Tuesday’s laugh-out-loud funny episode of The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer, which began with Matt Lucas explaining: “Millionaire’s shortbread was created in 1988 in honour of MP Clare Short.”
- MIND reader of the week, The One Show, Rose Matafeo: “I think a lot of your viewers are going to think I’m a random person who’s walked in through the wrong door.” Uncanny.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “In what Asian country do thousands of dabbawalas deliver food every day?”
Ruth: “McDonald’s.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Which letter is represented in the phonetic alphabet by the word X-ray?”
Simon: “E.”
Lightning, Zoe Lyons: “Who is the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip?” Shui: “Prince Harry.”
Ben Shephard: “The posterior cruciate ligament forms part of which central joint in the human leg?”
Olivia: “Elbow.”
Bzz, don’t know your a**e from your elbow, Olivia.
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