With the Harry & Meghan docuseries on Netflix doing such big numbers, you’d think the royal family would do its best to avoid having anything racist come up in the media—yet Queen Consort Camilla broke bread with two horrible men.
On December 16, the Daily Mail reported that Queen Camilla had a “glamorous private party” attended by Piers Morgan, Jeremy Clarkson, Claudia Winkleman, and Dame Judi Dench among others. Morgan himself happily tweeted about it:
Now, Piers Morgan being invited was already a red flag since he has been loud and proudly racist toward Meghan Markle for “ghosting” him. He even walked off of his own show when he got pushback from his mixed-race co-host, Alex Beresford, who called out Morgan for constantly harping on and dismissing Meghan.
The real kicker was the inclusion of Jeremy Clarkson, best known as the former host of the show Top Gear. Clarkson’s history was controversial enough—that is, until a passage from an article Clarkson wrote resurfaced in which he said, “Meghan, though, is a different story. I hate her. Not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West. I hate her on a cellular level. At night, I am unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.” He wrote this for The Sun.
When this passage resurfaced, Clarkson addressed it in a tweet: “Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it. In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.”
I find it so chilling that Clarkson addresses the Game of Thrones reference while ignoring that he said he hates Meghan Markle “on a cellular level,” and more than Rose West—a serial killer and child molester. (Who is still alive, by the way.)
This is not only disgusting, but it’s another example of how the British media’s harassment of Meghan Markle has been completely over the top, toxic, and haunting. To be compared to a serial killer and child molester for being a mixed-race woman who “stole” a 30-plus-year-old man from his deeply entitled family is completely beyond the pale. And for Camilla to host Clarkson AND Morgan at an exclusive party was shameful. That this happened so soon after the racist incident with the former Head Girl and confirmation that the threats against Meghan and Harry were viable, it feels like—rather than take any of this criticism as a chance to grow—the royal family has been fumbling in the public eye. While they might still be generally popular in the UK, the fact is that this stuff will impact how the royal family is viewed in a broader sense—especially in the Commonwealth they’re trying to keep together.
(image: Kirsty O’Connor, WPA Pool / Getty Images)
