204: Decoding the Recent Meghan Markle Profile in The Cut: What She Said; What She Likely Meant

The winx redirection hidden context clues open to interpretation comments all meghan markle. Welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast where we use current events and testing media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. Meghan Markle sat down for an exclusive interview with the Cut and the blogger turned actress turned royal writer revealed many things about her new life in the article in this episode. Decoding that article, this is what she said and this is likely what she meant. Takeaways for how Megan used framing to improve her reputation did you read the interview in the Cut? The article about Meghan Markle is part of a promotion effort for her Spotify podcast, archetypes that launched last week. Now I have yet to listen, but Spotify, based on all the publicity and the promotion and the pop ups that I'm getting, desperately wants me to listen to this podcast. I am going to use this episode to discuss what I see happening in that article. There's so much commentary about Meghan Markle, about Prince Harry, about the royal family. You can google anything. It's not more than a finger touch away. This episode I just want to focus on the framing that I read in that article and highlight the different areas and what I think is the major takeaway. Now, the editor's note on this podcast is that I do not have a strong opinion one way or the other about Meghan Markle or Prince Harry. I like them. I love her style. I think she's beautiful. I would watch any documentary about her life or about their lives and what they do now. Even if it was a camera following them around their house day to day, I'd be fascinated by that. I see her also as an influencer. She holds a lot of sway, especially in fashion. I mean I, I bought a jacket at J. Crew because I saw that Megan wore it and I googled to find out what the jacket was and I found it online on J. Crew. And so it's my Megan jacket. But I'm not a Stan, which means, you know, like an uber fan. I will not wildly defend her online. And in fact, when I had posted feedback from her Oprah interview from last March, oh my goodness, so many women like, let me have it. And I wasn't even coming down hard. I was doing an analysis on the interview. Well, mine and my girlfriends as we were texting, as we were all watching it, there are just people who are blind defenders and there are also people for every blind defender of Meghan and Harry. There are the haters. So I fall right in the middle of my fandom. But I'm fast, I mean, fascinated by their pr, every single move they make. And here's just like a. Just a little aside about them and why I find it so fascinating, which could be an entire episode in and of itself. Part of the reason why it fascinates me is their PR efforts aren't that good, if I'm being honest. So from my understanding, they use Ken Sunshine's firm. He's a longtime fixer in Hollywood, in New York, and I saw him speak somewhere, I don't know, some PR conference years ago. So that is a name that's always been ingrained in my brain. So it's not to say that his firm and he doesn't have talent. I mean, certainly has tentacles that reach very far in the industry and people can make things happen behind the scenes. But I feel as if Harry and Meghan have a campaign that's always a plan B. It seems like the best laid plans that they have never work out for them. They have a plan and then it's foiled, and then they have to course correct. They come up with another plan, make a big investment, it fails, and then they have to course correct, then they invest into something else and then it's foiled. You know, it's either by their own doing or that of the royal family or the firm getting involved. So it just seems as if they don't have terrific counsel. They have people who probably understand branding and pr, but they don't know how to brand and promote them. Okay. And as another side note, I think a big part of it is because of a lack of mobilization among a fan base. That's for a different time. It's actually for my class tomorrow, I'm going back into the classroom. I'm a professor. That's how I should sign off. Professor MOLLY and we're going to talk about the first, the first class. We're talking about journalism in the press, and I'm going to talk about perception. And I think I'm just going to ease it into the semester by talking about Meghan Markle. So hopefully there'll be someone, some college students in the class that care about Meghan as much as I do at this point. But also there was a report in an article in the publication Express saying that last month Prince Harry delivered a keynote speech at the United nations when they were in New York. And that was another stumble, right? Like, they probably thought, oh, this is gonna be great for our brand. And for our reputation, they had their camera crew following them, but it was a bus. So even when they were getting the footage, if I remember watching, was half empty. The seats weren't filled. And having Harry get up to talk and lecture Americans in New York as Prince Harry, it didn't go over very well. So apparently in this article, Harry is said to be very, quote, very, very angry behind the PR and the team that Meghan's been working with. So we'll see there. And prior to the UN debacle, they also were in the UK to join in on the celebrations for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. And again, that was in June. They weren't well received. You know, they were wildly booed as they were walking out on the steps. And they did not get the positive publicity that they expected, it seems like, you know, because they had their camera crew in tow. Lilibet got to meet her namesake, her great grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. Apparently, the firm said, you may not film in here as well. So a lot of missteps. So now we have this article in the cut. It was, again, it just seems like another plan B of trying to reshape their reputation. I found this article, and this is what this episode is going to be about, is the attempts at the framing throughout the article. What I read and what I read through, you know, I'm looking for the setup. I'm looking for what the. How the reporter couched a question, how the reporter arrived at it. Was there a bias with the reporter? And what was Meghan's agenda? Harry wasn't really a part of this. He was really in behind the scenes. He was more of an ancillary character in this profile piece. But the profile piece was heavy on framing. So let's just go through it. And I just want to talk about it, you know, from the pop culture aspect, but also, you know, just the public relations piece of it and what I see happening here and many of the framing attempts that stood out to me in the interview. So, again, what she said and what I think she meant, and in the end, there was really an agenda at play here. To me, that seemed like, so brutally obvious. I'm sure everybody sees it, but maybe not. I don't know. So I'll give you my takeaway on it in the end. All right, here we go. Now, first, did you read the article? I'm including a link to the article in the show notes. Now, I was locked out of this article because I've read enough articles from the Cut that they locked me out. But I have a little decoder. Speaking of the decoder theme to be able to disable it. So thankfully I was able to read it. But I have a link in the show notes if you want to read it. But let me just grab some of the passages in here to point out where I see some of the framing. So first, let's just start with the first paragraph. This is how we're leading in. We're just, we're, we're, we're coming in and we're coming in hot. The conditions are right for a confession. I mean, right there. Okay, we're drawn in. It is a beautiful August day in Montecito, in a beautiful sitting room in a beautiful home. Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor, a lively three year old with a shock of ginger curls identical to his father's, toddles into the room demanding mama, listen to his heartbeat. With a wooden toy stethoscope. He stands, tummy protruding, while his mother, Megan, convincingly performs her glee at hearing the thump, thump, thump, thump in his chest. What does he have that she can hear that? Is it an actual toy stethoscope or do they play with real stethoscopes? That's not in the article. That's my opinion. Archie giggles and satisfied toddles right back out again. Megan, relaxing in a cozy chair, gazes over all that is climate controlled and highly ceilinged and sun dappled and perfectly marshmallowy. And hear. I love that writing. Okay, so here's our first piece of framing here. An invisible hand has lit a Soho House branded rose water candle. The founder, Nick Jones, is a friend from long before I met Harry, she says. And that scent fills the air, mingling with the gentle tones of a flamenco inflected guitar floating from a speaker. So what does this paragraph tell us? Okay, so first it tells me that the. That the author, Allison Davis. Allison Pete Davis, I believe, is writing from a point of view without a bias. Like I'm getting in here. We're going to get a very detailed and colorful description of what Megan's world is right now. We're getting the details. So we're seeing her as a mother, but at the same time, she doesn't fail to include that there is a hand coming out of nowhere. So like a handmaiden, if you will. Like lighting a candle of the. So the Soho House brand, which is a buddy of hers from Toronto. So it has that smack of social media influencer, like the tig is still very much a part of Megan's brand that she wants to recapture that. Okay, so the framing is. Let's let the PR begin. You know, the background, the cooing, the California of it all. This is the new H and M. This is performative. I have four children. I've had four young children. I don't recall ever cooing with them. In fact, my kids came down for AP English. They had to come up with the books that they read. So they both asked me, what books did you read to us? When we were little, I had to claw through the fog of time, so I caught the fog of war to remember. Like, I know I read books. Like that was my thing. But, like, God damn if I couldn't come up with those books. I had to pause on it. And then I did. I came up with them eventually, but I didn't have quite the same idyllic, Idyllic surroundings, like marshmallowy sofas. Like, me was probably actual marshmallows in my hair. Anyway, the. But the framing here is we're setting in this moment is we're getting the agenda for the interview. Okay? We're going to hear how beautiful their life is, how touched by privilege it is. But we're going to get into the real, too. We're going to the relatability of it. Like, oh, she's a mom, just like the rest of us. So back to the cut. I mean, I'm just going to read this part because this is so telling. This is really. I'm kind of. I'm giving you the bottom line up front here. But this is the moment in the article that I. That I knew the agenda behind the article. Then in the lull in conversation, Megan turns to me and leans forward to ask in a conspiratorial hush, do you want to know a secret? That line, which comes across as a throwaway line, I'll admit. First, I go to George Harrison. Lyrics and Music by Lenina McCartney. Listen, do you want to know a secret? But what Megan is doing there is. She's drawing us in. That was very intentional because we're wondering, what is the secret? Are we going to find out which member of the royal family was concerned about the color of Charlie's, of Charlie's, of Archie's skin? I said, Charlie, that was my slip. Because I think they came out and said. Or they strongly hinted that it was Prince Charles. But Megan, back to the article. Silence no more. Looks around, making sure nobody who would be listening in. Then the top secret drop. I'm getting back on Instagram, she says, her eyes alight and devilish. Devilish now this is the moment because that's the agenda, that's the clue, that is the code for don't mess with Megan. And that's it. I could end the podcast right there. I read that line right away in the beginning and I said this is a treatise for Meghan to send a message to the royal family, not Harry. Harry is suspiciously absent in this profile. This is a Meghan profile because I believe that Meghan is the one who is lobbing this over to the Royal family. The reason why I believe that Harry is taking a seat back in this profile is because there are that Queen Elizabeth's health is failing. Little drips of news coming out. I think maybe it might be like a well known secret. Over in the uk There was a story that just came out today that said the Queen to appoint the British Prime Minister at Balmoral and not Buckingham Palace. Many are suspecting that she just, her health is just not allowing this to happen. So it would be very crass for Prince Harry to be a significant part of this profile piece coming out in, in August. So he wisely, you know, stood back on it. And so this is Megan, I believe, sending her message. So now here are the other kind of like micro framing moments that I noticed in this article. So one framing point is you have no idea how it is, how bad it is to be a royal. So Megan is painting how much of an adjustment it was to acclimate to that different type of life. And I think any of us can understand that. Like, like not what it's like to all of a sudden be a princess in the royal family, to be a duchess, but certainly to live a life as an actress and then all of a sudden having to follow the protocol of the Royal family. So I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone questions how difficult that would be. But they are still, still struggling with trying to communicate how difficult that was for her. So you see that a part of their messaging often. So at this stage, now that she's in her post royal life, she's no longer holding back. Like she's just kind of opening up the doors to her life, letting people in because she wants to move away from it once and for all. Next piece of framing, they have less support than one would think. So coming away from the royal family, there were reports that they were cut off completely. Then there were reports that there was still some income coming in from Prince Charles. Then Prince Harry in the Oprah interview from last March said that he was living off of money that was bestowed to him by his late mother, Princess Diana. One thing that I found to be a bit of a plot twist is Tyler Perry, how he has introduced into Meghan's life. So according to Megan, he had reached out to her when they were married, said that he was praying for them. So that was their first point of contact. And if you remember, Oprah was at the, at the wedding. But then Perry offered her one of his homes in Beverly Hills with security detail that allowed Meghan and Harry to start their new life in Southern California. And again, you know, if the stories are true, there are people who say that Megan always wanted to be back in California all along. I mean, that's surprising. She's from there, her mother's there, her estranged father is there. But I think we all knew that that's where she would likely end up. But she has to frame it that she's only there because of Tyler Perry. And what's interesting is how they never met. They never met. And he bestowed, you know, all this benevolence onto her. Also, Perry, the godmother to his child is none other than Ms. Oprah. And Perry also has a multi year deal with Winfrey's, the own network. So there's a huge beneficial to Megan being paired up with Tyler Perry. So there's that. Okay, the next part of the framing is just the Oprah. She never directly talks about Oprah. She's always indirectly introduced into every single article about Meghan Markle. Oprah is always there. So Oprah, I think, has a big influence on Meghan's life. Like she wants to be at that Oprah level. I think we all assume, and it's been reported like she wants to be a cross between Oprah and Michelle Obama. They want to be the Barack and Michelle Obama from the UK here in the us you know, along that milieu of people, the next part of framing is that they have less financial support than one would think. So this is where it gets dicey. They have money, but then they don't. They want to be just like you and me. They want to be relatable. They have the same challenges as families, but, you know, they really have millions of dollars attached to them. So there's some serious wealth there. So they. So they're really not relatable like everyone else. So that's why they're doing a fine line here. So Megan then goes into a story about how finding a house was so difficult for them. They were looking in the area. She was referring to Montecito. And she said this house kept popping up online in searches. She was looking on Zillow for a house. Really? Like, really? Does she have a Zillow account? That's. That's being so relatable, right? Like, that's what I have. When I was looking for my home, I thought is, can I find one where I live in New England? Or also, oh, there happens to be one in Montecito. I might as well check that out. Oh, Harry and Megan already put dibs on it. Anyway, so then they find their house, but then they struggled with paying for it. How are we going to afford this? How are we going to do this? We need to find the money. So they're toggling back and forth with the wealth, the association with the royal family, the wealth for the royal family, yet not having any money to buy a house. So it's a bit of a struggle. So how they do this is quotes like, from Prince Harry. I think we always knew the first few years of creating this new life from scratch were going to be the busiest. In other words, the reason why we haven't figured out who we are yet is because we're just so busy. And Megan chimes in, well, it's a start. We were building a business. We were building it during the lockdowns. And Megan's interjecting in there. That's another piece of the story. Megan is always interjecting and interrupting Harry. It makes me wonder if she's nervous when Harry comes into these interviews, and maybe she doesn't even want him in any of these interviews because she's worried about what he's going to say. All right, so that led into the next framing, which is an explanation for their sputtering media empire. We've all heard that they want to create content out of their foundation, their archewell Foundation. They have archewell Audio, and they have an archewell production arm as well. But we know that there's been very little consumable content coming out of both of them. This last week, there was the podcast. Her Spotify podcast came out. It debuted at number one. You know, most listened. I don't know if that will sustain. So this is just like an editor's note here. Meghan Markle, even though she is a royal, she's a duchess, she's still. This is what is relatable about her, is she's really not like that special of a human being. Like, she grew up in Los Angeles. She went to Northwestern, you know, moved to Canada. She was an actress. You know, she's A model. She, you know, she was a television show, you know, and yes, I mean, the biggest, most incredible thing she did was marry Prince Harry. But what does she have built up by way of a fan base that people are gonna sit and listen and hang on her every word? So when she's interviewing Mariah Carey and talking about being a fan girl of Mariah Carey, that's incredibly relatable because she really is just like anyone else. I mean, Mariah Carey is Mariah Carey. She's the big deal. Like, she's the get in that interview. Like, I don't like Meghan Markle. She's more of a figurehead, Right? So that's why I think that's part of the reason why they're sputtering there. People are fascinated by them, but people don't think they're fabulous or people don't think they're fascinating. There's a difference there. Okay, so now they're trying to frame why it's not working so well. So first, there are reports that there's a documentary filming their love story, which I 100% believe is happening. There are reports that people see that there's camera crews following them around. And Megan says in the article, what's so funny is I'm not trying to be cagey. She says, I don't read any press, so I don't know what's confirmed what. So this is where it's difficult. You can't hate the press, avoid the press, and then monetize the press at the same time. You can't do that. It doesn't work. Well, you can do it, but you can't explain it. And if you're someone who is scrutinized that heavily, it's going to be very, very, very difficult. So again, now they're saying, oh, the media, you know, the media's out to get us. The media shaping the story around us, which definitely out of the UK, without a doubt, is 100% true. Like, you know this. You absolutely know this. But you can get the truth out of mainstream media and especially in media outlets where you're doing the interviews, they're doing the interviews, they're doing them, they're telling their own story. So that's why they're having such a difficult time doing it, because they can't tell the full story. Okay, so now she's talking about as she. As she quickly went through their media empire, the next piece of framing. So the last line that she says in there, she says, she takes a deep inhale through her nose and breathes out of her mouth. Joy and exhale and calm. It's healing. You feel free. That leads into the next framing that Meghan was a prisoner. So when she was put into the royal family via marriage, again, completely understandable that she would feel like a prisoner. You heard the stories, you know that she had to give up so many of her rights, she had to give up her passport, she had to give up mail, she had to give up privacy. Everyone can understand that. And then the level of measurement that I use in public relations is that word again, reasonable. You've heard me mention that. If you listen to the podcast, what do reasonable people think? Well, reasonable people would think if you marry into a royal family, especially if you're American, you would feel like a person prisoner 100%. So we get this. But she's really going to double down on this as much as she can to show that living with the royal family and amongst them was tenable. She just couldn't carry on that way anymore. And people can relate to that. So the next piece is in this article too is the framing is that she's a mum. Well, not a mum, a mom. Not M u m m o m. They talk about what it's like to live and work at that home and the day to day and Archie going to preschool and then interest. Note that they said the two run arch well from their shared home office, specifically from two plush club chairs placed side by side behind a single desk facing into the room like thrones. Harry said, most people that I know in many of my family, they aren't able to work and live together. That's an interesting nugget like who in his family can't do that? Harry says in passing as I take a peek at their command center. He enunciates family with a vocal eye roll. It's actually really weird because it seems like a lot of pressure, but it just feels natural and normal. Huh, that's interesting. So again, see what happens when you let Harry out to play with the reporters. So now our new framing here. This article again is a personal note to Charles, Camilla, Will and Catherine. The firm which is do not mess with us, specifically with Megan. Megan was asked in the article if she thought there was any room for forgiveness between her and her royal in laws and her and her own family, which that's a tough one too that she has to deal with her own family. The duchess responded, I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive, but it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I've really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything. So what's interesting here, she has to play both ends because she's complaining about the treatment of the royal family and how they've treated her. And she's expecting forgiveness from the royal family, yet. Yet she's giving the same treatment to her family. It's so difficult to navigate hypocrisy in media relations. It's impossible. Oh, my gosh. All right, moving on to the next piece of framing. I call this IMDb I am for Hire. International Movie Database. Megan says in the article, I was an actress. My entire job was, tell me where to stand, tell me what to say, tell me how to say it, tell me what to wear, and I'll do it. After all the drama, it looks like they designed the exact job they wanted to have as royals but were denied. Okay, so here I. Again, I think she's letting people know she's still an actress. I'm in Hollywood, I'm near Hollywood or close enough. I want to be in entertainment. So, you know, hand, hand raise. But also that she was amenable, that she went along to get along, you know, with the royal family. Harriet interjected, at this point, with everyone weighing in, if you do something, they criticize you. If you don't do anything, they criticize you anyway. It's a lot. But ellipsis, again, he's cut off by Megan, who says, oh, and then having a baby in the middle of all of it, casually. Their daughter Lilibet was born in June 2021. You know what? As a mother of four kids who had four kids in three years, I'm sorry, Like, having a baby, that's not a game ender, you know, that doesn't, that doesn't completely throw your life, like, completely in turmoil. The royal family been having babies for centuries, so I don't see why this one was that difficult for Megan. But then this is clearly getting into a territory that Megan doesn't want to talk about anymore. And also because Harry is in the room and he's speaking. So it says in the, in the article, your eye contact is good. Megan says, suddenly you're, like, looking into my soul. The reporter stammered out an apology, and then Megan says, I feel it. It's good. I'm like, like, so excited to talk. And then she stops talking. So that's such an interesting tell, right? How do you get out of a media interview? How do you get out of a piece of this interview? Well, just say some crazy inane thing about looking into the soul of the reporter. Oh, my goodness. So then we get into the background, you know, a lot of background information about Megan. We've. We've read it all before. We've heard it all before. But this last piece, too, is talking about her sadness, because she did touch on that Harry did, when they were coming out of the marriage, that she was struggling with mental health and was. And this is just trigger warning for anyone listening, talking about, you know, someone taking their own life and how serious it was for them and how serious it was, you know, for Megan. So Harry's gonna keep that conversation in there as well, because mental health is, you know, it's so important. And how Megan was really struggling with brunt of so much of it. And Harry was also dealing with such a toxic tabloid culture growing up. And Megan certainly came into that as well. And she said, Harry said to me, I lost my dad in this process. It doesn't have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that's his decision. There is some. There is some question about who Megan was referring to. It reads that Meghan was referring to Harry's father, Prince Charles. But according to reports, her press handler, Omar Scobie, came back and said, no, she was actually referring to her own family that Harry said to her that she lost her dad in the process. And then some reports said that she did that intentionally. So who knows? They truly don't get a break in any of this. But those are all the framing pieces that I saw in this article. But the key takeaway in all of this, what she said and what she meant, is I see this profile and as a chance for Meghan and Meghan alone to send a message to the royal family that they are holding back while the Queen is still with everyone. Okay. Their daughter is the Queen's namesake, Lilibet, Queen Elizabeth's pet name. And it appears that they're just keeping mum on a lot of information, probably most notably around Prince Andrew, Mary's uncle, Queen Elizabeth's second son, that they want to tell and they want to spill, making the ascension of Prince Charles to the throne and then his son will very difficult. Very, very difficult. So I see this profile as part Meghan in beautiful photographs evoking Princess Diana and also Elizabeth Holmes. There's that look in there as well. But also, I just. It's a veiled threat. I really see this profile as a veiled threat against the royal family. So that's my take on the article in the Cut and Decoding the recent mega market profile. So in every podcast I always include one indestructible PR tip. It's an easy to remember tip that will help you build an indestructible reputation if you find yourself in the middle of a profile, a media interview, television, print, whatever it is. If you have any type of duality or hypocrisy in your messaging, know that you will never get away with it. You could perhaps try if you were at the level of mass either notoriety or popularity. Megan and Harry are walking such a tight wire, so high in the air for most people that they can play games like this. They can. They can wordsmith, they can stretch the truth, bend the truth as much as they want because really their brand depends on it. But if you are doing any type of an interview about your business or about you, and there is that such obvious hypocrisy that's there, you have to land on one side. You can't poke a bear and then snuggle up with a bear at the same time. So any type of interview key messaging has to show what you believe in, what is the truth, and what you stand by and what you stand for. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. I'm going to hop on TikTok and do a quick TikTok about this topic matter, so you can certainly check me out there at MollyB McPherson. Hope you all have a great week. That's all for now. Bye.