MEGHAN Markle has travelled a long way since her glittering wedding exactly two years ago in Windsor.
Few among that global audience of 1 billion people could have imagined on that brilliant sunny day that the newly married Duchess would trade her new royalty for building ‘Brand Markle’ in California.
But this week’s announcement that the campaigning duchess’s charity, Archewell, will partner with an American multi-national consumer goods company, has shocked many who had hoped that the Oprah Winfrey interview in March would be followed by a long period of silence.
Instead, the Duchess has associated herself with Procter & Gamble, a company which has been associated in the past with scandals – and one that nearly 30 years ago, was condemned by Meghan as sexist.
Many will compare Meghan’s endorsement of Procter & Gamble with her own lifestyle.
The American giant’s beauty products include Olay, Ivory soap, Coty and Herbal Essences.
Will Meghan really hold Procter’s ‘Herbal Essences’ or Pantene shampoo?
In her search for ‘wellness’ therapies for a modern life, Meghan only uses products branded organic and holistic.
Visiting the most expensive shops, she searches for gongs, crystal bowls and chakra balancing.
She encourages people to pay £60 for a Vitamin B skin patch and spend £4,398 for a week in a ‘breathing workshop’.
A big U-turn
Undoubtedly P&G’s executives in Cincinnati, Ohio, are chortling about their PR coup.
Presumably, she extracted a high price to deliver her forgiveness.
In Meghan’s and Harry’s need for more money to finance their high octane celebrity lifestyle, the Sussexes’ negotiators will demand millions of dollars from corporations to be associated with Princess Diana’s youngest son.
But there is still time for Procter’s executives to wonder whether their deal will not prove to be a pact with the devil.
‘Fairy do-gooder sentiments’
Of course, Meghan’s announcement is dressed up in fairy do-gooder sentiments.
There’s all the flowery spin talk of how their partnership would “elevate the voices of adolescent girls” and “focus on gender equality, more inclusive online spaces, and resilience and impact through sport”.
Together, they are pledged to support a homeless shelter for pregnant women “to ensure parents of … all walks of life have the support they need”.
Corporations perform somersaults nowadays to tick all the politically correct boxes.
But should we believe the promises or should we blow aside the gush and look at reality?
Loved ones cut off
‘Brand Markle’, Meghan has repeatedly pleaded, exists to “build compassion around the world”.
Repeatedly, the former actress has preached about the need to “be kind to each other”.
So often, her allies denounce her critics. They plead that “goodwill runs in her bones”.
Well, speak of Meghan’s “compassion” to her father Thomas Markle who has been cruelly ostracised by his daughter since 2018.
Or tell that to Trevor Engelson, her first husband, and all Meghan’s friends who complain that they were dumped after they no longer matched her ambitious expectations.
And above all, consider Meghan’s compassion towards the Queen, William and Kate and all the other members of the Royal Family who were mercilessly trashed by their new relative during the Oprah Winfrey interview.
Ask them whether they believe in Meghan’s saintly crusade to spread goodness.
Promoting ‘Brand Markle’
Even before she married Harry, there were fears that Meghan was embarked on a mission to promote ‘Brand Markle’.
Some cautioned that the political activist’s self-promoting schemes would perilously collide with the sober caution of ‘Brand Windsor.’
Britain’s monarchy, Meghan did not seem to understand, flourishes by being dull, uncontroversial and inclusive towards the Queen’s subjects.
Nevertheless, delighted that Harry had found true love, most welcomed the Californian ‘progressive’ for embracing global causes.
Bewilderment turned into disappointment after the climate change campaigner used private jets and denied the public any sight of Archie, her new baby.
Many were outraged watching the couple in an ITV documentary standing near the world’s most deprived slums in South Africa and plead how no one sympathised with their own problems.
Many British viewers condemned the Sussexes as hypocrites.
Of course, in America Meghan touched all the right buttons when she told Oprah Winfrey how she and Archie were the victims of the royal family’s racism.
Americans believed that her pleas for help to avoid suicide were rebuffed by a senior Buckingham Palace official.
Condemning defenceless Kate as the cause of Meghan crying just before the wedding was credible to Procter & Gamble’s executives.
A partnership with the doe-eyed, tearful duchess, they think in Cincinnati, will boost their credibility.
Eventually, however, the truth will emerge.
Procter & Gamble will then need to reassess their association with Meghan.
A problematic partnership
But before then, another more mundane problem will arise.
In the near future, Procter & Gamble will discover that the contradictions in Meghan’s life – what she says and what she does – will be a stinging rebuke to their investment.
As the House of Windsor has discovered, only one person benefits from ‘Brand Markle’.
