Before 2017, Jessica Mulroney was famous or well-known in Toronto, perhaps even wider throughout Canada, but she wasn’t really known anywhere else. How much attention do you pay to the woman who married the son of another country’s former prime minister, you know? Jessica was a Canadian-only socialite/celebrity. Then Jessica’s best friend started dating Prince Harry, and suddenly Jessica made a name for herself. She was booking gigs on American television to give her style tips, her name was all over the British tabloids, and the future Duchess of Sussex asked Jessica’s kids to be part of the royal wedding in 2018. If Jessica had played it correctly, she would have been booked and busy for years to come. Alas, Jessica’s life blew up in 2020 because she was racist to an influencer, and now we’re hearing that Jessica and Ben Mulroney are getting a divorce. Well, the Mail’s sources claim that Jessica has some regrets… she regrets taking part in Meghan and Harry’s wedding??
If ever there’s a time when one needs a best friend for a shoulder to cry on, it’s when a previously happy marriage collapses. That moment came for Canadian socialite and fashionista Jessica Mulroney this week, when it was reported that the 45-year-old had split from her husband, Ben, news that has been circulating for some time in select circles. Gossips in Toronto say Ben walked away from his beautiful wife, and she is deeply upset about how things have worked out.
Jessica, meanwhile, apparently broke the news of the marriage ending to friends when she attended a wedding in Toronto last month, alongside sports icon LeBron James and the singer Drake – alone. Lawyers are apparently already involved.
Jessica, of course, is best known here for being chief bridesmaid to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, when she married Prince Harry. Indeed, so close were the two women that Jessica and her family took on prominent roles at the Royal wedding. Her twin sons, Brian and John, were pageboys – with cheeky, gappy smiles and outfits which were an adorable echo in miniature of Harry’s Blues and Royals frock coat – while daughter Ivy was a bridesmaid alongside Princess Charlotte.
Today, though, the women are best friends no more. Jessica is unlikely to receive any comfort at this difficult time from Montecito. Meghan seemingly dropped Jessica after she became entangled in a distressing and highly publicised online race row with a blogger in 2020, more of which later. In contrast, at the time Jessica’s husband, son of the late Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, appeared to back his wife to the hilt. He even left his job as a television presenter at the height of the row in support of her. Despite those efforts, now the marriage is over. A source said this week: ‘That whole incident later caused tensions, even in her marriage.’
Yet surprisingly, at root, one well-placed source says that Jessica herself traces her current unhappiness back not to her bruising online scandal – but to that glorious day in 2018 when she watched her then best friend walk down the aisle of St George’s Chapel in Windsor. So much so that now, rather than looking back on her brush with history with pride, a perfectly placed source reveals: ‘Jessica says now that she somewhat regrets becoming friends with Meghan. While she enjoyed all the exposure it brought her at the time, that same exposure is what caused her social media rift to blow up in the way it did and led to the end of her friendship with Meghan and her marriage.’
The source adds: ‘If she could go back, a part of her wishes she was never part of that wedding. She really did consider Meghan family. But now she sees that whole time as a “dark cloud”’.
I have mixed feelings about this – on one side, this statement is correct: “While she enjoyed all the exposure it brought her at the time, that same exposure is what caused her social media rift to blow up in the way it did and led to the end of her friendship with Meghan and her marriage.” That’s absolutely true – without her friendship with Meghan, the situation with Sasha Exeter would have been a local scandal, Canadian-only, and it wouldn’t have had such huge repercussions. On the other hand, if Jessica is going to regret anything, surely it’s the Sasha Exeter situation entirely, right? Like, Jessica could have just… not done or said or written any of that. She could have ignored Exeter or just said “No, you’re right, I totally agree with everything you’re saying.” Also: I have no idea if Meghan actually ended her friendship with Jessica entirely, but I suspect that if Meghan did end things, it was because Meghan felt used, and like Jessica was using Meghan’s name way too freely.
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