MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Meet Meghan 2.0! The rebranded carefree Duchess

MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Meet Meghan 2.0! The rebranded carefree Duchess now says she doesn’t hold grudges or care that she’s missing a once-in-a-lifetime coronation. The only question… who’s buying it?

Time for a new tactic!

The Meghan Markle who bitched and moaned about every last slight, who took to multiple media platforms to insinuate the royals were racists and didn’t care that she was suicidal and that Kate Middleton made her cry — that Meghan is gone. Poof! Forget she ever existed.

In her place is Meghan Markle 2.0: easy, breezy, laissez-faire. Cool as ice.

What — you find this hard to believe? Well, just look at her on Monday, in her first speaking appearance this year, introducing a TED talk — in all her soft-focus glory via video, grieges and pinks and glossy hair, smiling away. 

Not enough? She and Harry were spotted later that night snuggling at an NBA playoff game, the LA Lakers versus the Memphis Grizzlies, a kiss-cam catching them laughing, laughing, laughing — even if Meghan’s well-placed arm kept Harry from leaning in and getting an actual kiss.

See! New Meghan is carefree, joyous, living her best life out loud, nothing at all stilted about it.

Nothing upsets this Meghan, not even a nation of Brits who, in anticipation of King Charles’s coronation, are clearly thinking what the late Queen allegedly said before Prince Philip’s funeral: ‘Thank goodness Meghan is not coming.’

Yes, our one-time Duchess Difficult would have us believe that she has chosen — despite weeks of back-and-forth negotiations with Buckingham Palace over what roles she, Prince Harry and their two children would play at the coronation — simply to not attend. To take the path of least resistance. To make it easier on the players who matter. To not pull focus.

Meghan and Harry were spotted later that night snuggling at an NBA playoff game , the LA Lakers versus the Memphis Grizzlies, a kiss-cam catching them laughing, laughing, laughing. 

And just look at her on Tuesday, in her first speaking appearance this year, introducing a TED talk — in all her soft-focus glory via video, grieges and pinks and glossy hair, smiling away.

She would have us believe that she has chosen — despite weeks of back-and-forth negotiations with Buckingham Palace over what roles she, Prince Harry and their two children would play at the coronation — simply to not attend. (Pictured: King Charles and Camilla).

This despite multiple published reports that Harry and Meghan were threatening not to go unless they had a place on the Buckingham Palace balcony. You know, with the royals who actually work without complaint. Who forgo reality shows and book deals in which they spill all manner of secrets and spite.

That is the brand, isn’t it? Resentful, vengeful, petty and profit-seeking. Yelling ‘racism!’ everywhere. Seeking out the spotlight like a special-ops team on the hunt for a high-value target, then demanding everyone leave her and Harry alone, as South Park’s ‘Worldwide Privacy Tour’ perfectly lampooned.

So when news broke on Friday claiming that Meghan wasn’t attending the coronation over an unsatisfactory exchange with Charles – personal letters she had written expressing upset over ‘unconscious bias’ within the royal family – who among us didn’t think: Yep, that sounds about right?

Not so, says Meghan. Never, ever, ever. In no universe would she dare.

Certainly not after she sat across from Oprah Winfrey in 2021, that smug Cheshire grin firmly in place, asserting that a senior royal had made inappropriate comments about the skin color of her unborn child.

It’s just not like Meghan to harp on things, you know? She would never perseverate over all the wrongs done to her — nay, to accept an award from the Kennedys, America’s own would-be royal family, for standing up to ‘structural racism’ within the royal family, only to have her husband walk back that claim weeks later.

She and Harry have so much integrity. Their stories are totally consistent. When they say something, we can really believe them.

And so over the weekend, Meghan’s mouthpiece Omid Scobie — Scooby Doobie-Doo to us faithful rubberneckers — released a strongly worded denial from a spokesperson. Care to guess how it began?

‘The Duchess of Sussex,’ — we are never, ever giving up that royal title, it seems — ‘is going about her life in the present, not thinking about correspondence from two years ago related to conversations from four years ago. Any suggestion otherwise is false and frankly ridiculous.’

Let’s take this statement apart, shall we? Break out the scalpels. Let’s slice it and dice it and dispose of it as the grade-A medical waste it is.

It’s just not like Meghan to harp on things, you know? She would never perseverate over all the wrongs done to her. (Pictured: Harry and Meghan at Monday’s NBA game in LA).

She and Harry have so much integrity. Their stories are totally consistent. When they say something, we can really believe them. (Pictured: Sussexes at Monday’s NBA game in LA).

Meghan isn’t ‘thinking about’ old grudges?

Please. Her entire tenure on the world stage has been spent ‘thinking about’ conversations and correspondence from years ago, then figuring out ways to commodify such resentments. It’s her superpower. It’s part of her origin story.

Remember when we all first met her? It wasn’t through that basic cable drama or the insipid lifestyle blog she ran. No, it was through a Vanity Fair cover story anointing her as Britain’s next royal, the coverline reading, ‘She’s Just Wild About Harry!’

And for that glowing piece, a ringing endorsement by a major US publication, setting her up as a future royal with the Palace’s implied endorsement, what did Meghan Markle do?

You got it: she screamed racism. Sure, one of the most politically correct, liberal publications in the US, edited by a half-American half-Indian woman, would set out to smear Meghan Markle with a racial epithet.

Markle’s complaint? The VF cover line referenced a song called ‘I’m Just Wild About Harry,’ sung in 1939 by Judy Garland in blackface. Who under the age of 95 would even know that?

And so our long national nightmares began, America and Britain not so united against a common enemy since WWII: a deeply hypocritical and ungracious woman who, having gotten everything she seemingly wanted — enormous fame, wealth and privilege — spent the better part of it, as the world struggled through a pandemic, carping and moaning.

Now to the second part of that statement: ‘We encourage tabloid media and various royal correspondents to stop the exhausting circus they alone are creating.’

THEY ALONE ARE CREATING!? I’m sorry — has Meghan not provided the bulk of this content? Oprah, Time magazine, The Cut, Variety (our Meghan looking saint-like, parting puffy purple clouds, Angelina Jolie successfully dethroned), ‘Finding Freedom’, her incorrectly-named ‘Archetypes with Meghan’ podcast, Netflix and Harry’s memoir — why won’t the media just leave her alone? Worldwide Privacy Tour, indeed.

In the Harry & Meghan Netflix reality show — excuse me, docuseries — Meghan had the temerity to insult the late Queen, comparing their first meeting to something hick Americans would understand, ‘Medieval Times, dinner and a tournament.’

She then theatrically mocked what it was to curtsy to Her Majesty, her pained husband looking on dumbly.

She at across from Oprah Winfrey in 2021, that smug Cheshire grin firmly in place, asserting that a senior royal had made inappropriate comments about the skin color of her unborn child.

Nothing upsets this Meghan (pictured with Harry on their Netflix series), not even a nation of Brits who, in anticipation of King Charles’s coronation, are clearly thinking what the late Queen allegedly said before Prince Philip’s funeral: ‘Thank goodness Meghan is not coming.’

In the Harry & Meghan Netflix reality show — excuse me, docuseries — Meghan theatrically mocked what it was to curtsy to the late Queen, her pained husband looking on dumbly.

This is a woman who takes ‘bite the hand that feeds you’ to new lows.

Yet we’re supposed to believe Markle’s skipping the coronation, an historic event that will be covered the world over, because she’s happily living her life? Just that full of joy? Because she’s too busy and too high-minded to obsess over years-old conversations and correspondence?

Lest we forget: her husband-slash-lapdog reprinted a private text exchange between Meghan and Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, in his memoir.

It goes without saying that’s quite a violation, but its value is in revealing how petty and small-minded Meghan is and how rudely she spoke to her future sister-in-law, one who frankly outranks her.

How vengeful Meghan was to put this in her back pocket for future use. How un-self-aware she is to see this act only makes one half of this dispute look bad, and it’s not Kate Middleton, whose toddler daughter was too small for her bridesmaid dress.

The exchange read, in part:

Kate: Charlotte’s dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on at home.

Meghan: Right, and I told you the tailor has been standing by since 8 am. Here. At KP [Kensington Palace]. Can you take Charlotte to have it altered, as the other mums are doing?

(‘The other mums.’ Translation: You may be the future Queen of England, but you’re not that special.)

Kate: All the dresses need to be remade.

Meghan: I’m not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn’t fit then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He’s been waiting all day.

This is a woman (pictured with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Harry) who takes ‘bite the hand that feeds you’ to new lows.

Yet we’re supposed to believe Markle’s skipping the coronation because she’s too busy to obsess over years-old correspondence? Lest we forget: Harry reprinted a private text exchange between Meghan and Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, in his memoir.

That exchange, a masterclass in American passive-aggression, dates back to 2018. Meghan clearly gave it to her husband for use in his poison-pen memoir, which was published in January — five years later.

So when Meghan tells us how ‘ridiculous’ it is to suggest that she’s consumed with years-old discontents — well, forgive us if we don’t believe her.

No doubt our Duchess of Endless Despair and Grievance will overtake this new Cool Girl incarnation, but in the meantime, the royals once again have played their hand expertly.

The palace’s feeling on all this? Meghan’s biographer Tom Bower says he believes that – in the spirit of the late Queen – everyone’s ‘delighted’ she’s not coming.

On behalf of sane Americans everywhere: so are we.

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