Another day, another social media drama for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Last week, the former Suits actress was accused of staging a video of herself and her friend jumping up and down and squealing like school children in response to the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the World Series as a seemingly uninterested Harry lounged in a recliner nearby.
This week, the ex-royals reportedly worked overtime to get the Kardashian-Jenner clan to scrub their social channels of any evidence they attended matriarch Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday bash over the weekend.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Maureen Callahan, host of MK Media’s The Nerve with Maureen Callahan, to discuss the latest faux pas and what’s really going on with the couple.
The Photo Fiasco
Jenner’s 007-themed birthday extravaganza at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s Beverly Hills mansion attracted a who’s who of stars, including Beyoncé and Jay Z, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King, Mariah Carey, Adele, Paris Hilton, Mark Zuckerberg, and more.
Harry was photographed by the paparazzi walking ahead of his beaming bride as the two arrived at the party, so it was no secret they were in attendance. After the festivities, pictures of the pair inside the fête also made their way into photo galleries posted by Jenner and Kim Kardashian on Instagram. But that was apparently a bridge too far for the couple.
The pictures suddenly vanished from social media – but not before they were screenshot for posterity. In one, Markle and Kardashian posed together. Another showed the former duchess greeting the birthday girl as a bleary-eyed Harry looked on. A third had the Sussexes snapping a photo with Jenner.
According to Page Six, a rep for Harry and Meghan asked the Kardashians to remove the photos because they “don’t want to piss off the royal family” as they are attempting a reconciliation.
While some outlets have reported that phones were not permitted inside the party so the couple may have thought they were safe from cameras, Callahan said that would be a rookie mistake. “This is a blood oath you take when you cross the threshold of any Kardashian-Jenner enterprise, you’re going to be exploited,” she said. “Your image and likeness, you are signing it away. Just kiss it goodbye.”
In Callahan’s view this particular incident reveals just how far the former royals’ stock has fallen. “The thing that struck me too about those images of Meghan entering. Harry had her by the hand, but she was several steps behind and she was beaming like this was her fullest self-actualization. She’s at a Hollywood party hosted by Kris Jenner,” she noted. “Now, if she had an iota of common sense, she would have realized that had she just stayed as a royal it would have been the likes of Kris Jenner desperate to be in a room with her.”
“How the tables have turned,” Callahan added. “She is not as clever as she thinks. She doesn’t get that this is not good for her brand.”
Megyn’s Theory
While Markle was busy getting certain corners of social media scrubbed, she did take to Instagram herself this week to announce the “holiday celebration” episode of her widely panned With Love, Meghan Netflix series is due out December 3.
Interestingly, Netflix did not cross-promote the announcement on its own feeds, but the special will no doubt keep Markle in the headlines through the end of the year. What happens after that, however, is anyone’s guess.
Megyn had a theory – based on all this recent social media hoopla – that it is not going to be smooth sailing for the couple:
“[This party incident] is like the yin to the yang of that fake video [after] the World Series win. He’s sitting there like, ‘What the hell did I marry? How did I marry it? Why is it there bothering me again?’ The contempt in his body posture. She’s trying to get the room fake excited, and only her friend is complying. He’s sitting there like, ‘I need a drink’… He was not even remotely motivated to stand up and hug her, or celebrate with her, or tell her to shut up. Not at all.
I think something is happening with them. This is my armchair analysis. You’ve heard of trauma bonding. I think they convinced themselves that they were put upon; they were attacked; they were in the midst of a trauma… after they got married because of the ‘evil,’ ‘racist’ royal family… They were behaving like spoiled brats… and they manifested it all into: We’re getting bullied. We’re not getting the things we want. They don’t appreciate us… He ran around saying she was going to kill herself… and everybody was like, ‘No one cares.’ Okay, sure. Then, they did ‘Megxit,’ and that was spun up into trauma for them, as opposed to what they were doing to the royal family and [Queen Elizabeth II] in humiliating her.
And now the trauma has kind of quieted down. The initial surge of hormones has quieted down. And now the real people are stuck looking at each other. And from his look in that video and his look at Kris Jenner, it seems pretty clear the bloom is off the rose. And now that they’ve just looked at each other without all those ornaments to make it more exciting, they’re displeased.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Callahan by tuning in to episode 1,193 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.