This week, there’s been a bizarre focus on the Duchess of Sussex’s relationship with Edward Enninful, the now-former editor in chief of British Vogue. Something feels inorganic about this focus, like Enninful and his people are currying favor with the Windsors by helping along certain storylines about Meghan. A few days ago, the Mail claimed (out of nowhere) that Meghan and Enninful had a falling out in 2022 over his refusal to give Meghan a cover, a story I did not believe whatsoever. And now this curious story is circulating – another Mail exclusive, about Meghan taking SEVEN MONTHS OFF in 2019 so she could guest-edit British Vogue. What are we doing here? She did not spend seven months guest-editing Vogue.
Meghan Markle’s notorious Vogue cover raised eyebrows for her ‘snubbing’ of the late Queen and apparent ‘dig’ at Kate Middleton. The Duchess of Sussex guest-edited the September 2019 Forces for Change issue of British Vogue which featured 15 ‘trailblazing change makers’ on its cover. It became the fastest-selling issue in the magazine’s 104-year history, selling out in ten days – but questions were raised over why the Duchess only carried out 22 royal engagements in the seven months she spent as an unpaid guest editor.
Among the advocates featured on the cover were Greta Thunberg, Sinéad Burke, actors Gemma Chan and Jameela Jamil and then-New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. But critics pointed out that the Queen was not among the 15 ‘women she admires’ featured, and neither were nurses, doctors, lawyers and teachers. Ingrid Seward of Majesty magazine told the Sun: ‘The Duchess of Sussex has done a huge favour for the House of Conde Nast and rather less for the House of Windsor’.
In the book Battle of Brothers, royal author Robert Lacey wrote about the huge unpaid time commitment Meghan made to the magazine. He wrote: ‘In the same seven months, January to July 2019, the Court Circular showed the Duchess of Sussex carrying out just 22 royal engagements, less than one per week – though this period did include Meghan’s maternity leave, along with a three-day tour to Morocco with Harry. But why had this “powerhouse” recruit to the highest echelons of the House of Windsor spent seven months labouring so intensively on behalf of British Vogue – entirely unremunerated it must be emphasised again – while doing hardly any work at all for the British Royal Family?’
Again, she did not spend seven months guest-editing Vogue. Again, this seven-month period of time was mostly her maternity leave. As we also know now, Meghan was in a major mental health crisis and she was being refused mental-health help from the palaces, the same palaces which had been targeting her in a racist smear campaign for several years (at the time). Not to mention, this was also the period of time when Meghan was being purposefully sidelined by the royal courts – they were so jealous of the attention she got, they told her that she just needed to stay home and not do public events. My question: what’s going on with all of these Vogue-related stories? Is Camilla angling for a Vogue cover or something?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, cover courtesy of British Vogue.
