At first glance, the collection of photos the Duchess of Sussex posted on Instagram to mark her seventh wedding anniversary appeared to be a typical set of cherished family memories.
But scan Meghan’s ‘love story mood board’ more closely and a fascinating insight into her psyche emerges.
There is not a single image of Harry and his once inseparable brother-in-arms and best man at his wedding: his older sibling William.
Nor is there a picture of them with Harry’s sister-in-law Kate, the woman he once described as ‘the sister he never had’.
That mood board says everything about Harry’s existence now. Adorably staged pictures of his new life with Meghan but no mementos of his old one.
Apart from the glaring absence of William and Kate, there is no sign of his father, the King, nor his stepmother Queen Camilla.
Given that Charles is currently battling cancer, the fact there is no acknowledgement of him is particularly poignant.
This serves as yet another example of Harry’s sensitivity. It seems the omission is an act of retaliation, likely due to his father not taking his calls, a choice rooted in the reasonable concern that any conversation might be later disclosed in a lucrative book or on an American TV program.
It’s unsettling to see how Meghan has distanced Harry from his family. It’s worth noting, however, that estrangement appears to be part of her own family dynamics. Just ask her father, 80-year-old Thomas Markle, who was left to raise her during the years her mother Doria was notably absent when Meghan was a teenager.
That mood board says everything about Harry’s existence now. Adorably staged pictures of his new life with Meghan but no mementos of his old one
Apart from the glaring absence of William and Kate, there is no sign of his father, the King, nor his stepmother Queen Camilla
Despite this, the award-winning TV lighting director has since been callously rejected by his daughter, his removal from her life engineered with such ruthless efficiency that he has never met her husband nor his grandchildren.
Of course, there are no pictures of him either on the now notorious mood board.
It all goes to show just how right Harry was when he said, all those years ago, that he had sacrificed ‘everything that I knew to join her in her world’.
And what a ghastly world it is. A place where all their energies appear to be devoted to an exercise in money-grabbing, and if that necessitates selling out his loved ones to the highest bidder, whether it be Netflix or someone else who will stump up a sufficiently handsome fee, then so be it.
How times have changed in the seven years since their wedding. It may seem hard to believe it, but back then the nation was united in celebrating how the unlucky-in-love Prince Harry had finally found happiness with a glamorous bride whom we all adored.
Who can forget the way that the then Prince Charles, in an unprecedented act of love for his son, walked Meghan down the aisle after her father Thomas suffered a heart attack and was too ill to attend.
What we only discovered later, of course, was that the haughty and entitled Meghan had insisted she enter the church alone and walk halfway to the altar in glorious isolation so she could enjoy her moment in the spotlight.
With hindsight it was a telling clue about the true nature of Meghan’s character and so it comes as no surprise that there is no picture of her with her future father-in-law processing to the altar that day on her ‘love story’ mood board.
It says everything you need to know about Meghan – that it’s all about her, with a walk-on role for her ‘spare’ of a husband. After all, without the balding ginger whinger, what value would any of these pictures have?
There is not a single image of Harry and his older sibling William. Nor is there a picture of them with Harry’s sister-in-law Kate, the woman he once described as ‘the sister he never had’
Given that Charles, pictured with Camilla, is currently battling cancer, the fact there is no acknowledgement of him is particularly poignant
As the late Queen memorably observed after Meghan accused certain members of the Royal Family of being racists in her hateful Oprah Winfrey interview: ‘Recollections may vary.’
It is not lost on anyone that, after seven years of marriage, Meghan’s mood board reveals Harry has been reduced to a ‘plus one’ – there is room for only one star in this romance.
For after seven years of married life, the Sussexes’ career paths have dramatically diverged.
She is reportedly bent on becoming a billionaire by turning herself into a lifestyle media star – via her Netflix series With Love, Meghan and whatever other gigs she can land – and leveraging her celebrity to market her jam-to-teacups lifestyle brand, As Ever.
Meanwhile, Harry is happier concentrating on his Invictus charity and other causes close to his heart. Sadly, the charity which probably means more to him than anything else, Sentebale, founded in memory of his late mother Princess Diana, is now mired in controversy following a bitter fall-out between the board and its chief executive.
The agreement between them appears to be that Meghan takes centre stage and makes their fortune, while Harry contents himself role playing the part of stay-at-home-dad who walks the dogs and feeds their organic rescue chickens.
In the caption to her mood board. Meghan thanks all those who have ‘loved and supported us throughout our love story’.
Given her popularity in both the UK and the US has tanked, her standing in the eyes of the public now only just above that of the disgraced Prince Andrew, with Harry faring not much better, that’s frankly quite a small number of people to thank.
Yet Meghan persists in presenting their marriage as the fairytale romance of the Prince and the Pauper. As Harry gushed in their 2022 Netflix documentary: ‘This is a great love story and the craziest thing of all is that I think this love story has only got started.
‘She sacrificed everything she ever knew – the freedom and all she had (a supporting role in a cable TV series) – to join me in my world. And then pretty soon after that, I ended up sacrificing everything that I knew to join her in her world.’
The ‘mood board’, with its brazen emasculation of her Royal husband, shows Meghan for what she really is: the ultimate Mean Girl, who will trash anyone who gets in the way of her ambitions – including her hapless husband.
