Meghan seems to be champing at the bit to monetise her kids – they're the only thing she has left

Telegraph

5 hours ago

Another day, another image of the kids they fought so hard to keep out of the spotlight offered up to the world's prying eyes. This time it's a Sussex family break at Disneyland to celebrate Princess Lilibet's fourth birthday, and not just a single image but a social media blitz.
Pictures of Meghan and Harry taking Lilibet and Archie, 6, on rides, including the famous log flume. Video clips of the Princess jogging excitedly alongside her parents and taking her mother's hand. Lilibet's towering, Little Mermaid -themed cake is shared, alongside the moment she and her brother are taken into a room to meet Elsa from Frozen – and more besides. But don't worry: the faces of the children are concealed throughout, either with clever camerawork or love hearts – you know, to protect their privacy.
This series of intimate aperçus comes just days after we were treated to flashback footage of a twerking, pregnant Meghan – nominally another marking of the Princess's fourth birthday – which prompted coos and cringes in equal measure. That, in turn, came on the back of a spate of performative parenting in her Netflix cookery show, With Love, Meghan. Again, there's that coyness around the children, who are never directly shown but constantly alluded to, with carrots dangled (in the shape of toddler tea parties and the like) throughout. Oh, and the Duchess of Sussex had no qualms promoting the show with an image of her daughter playing the board game Candy Land: '3 days until the party begins. All are invited @netflix'.
Capitalising on your kids is a slippery slope for public figures – and Meghan is hurtling down it. 'I give it a year until the Burberry Kids campaign,' a girlfriend messaged me back in March, after the Duchess was accused of using Archie and Lilibet as 'clickbait' in an 'act of desperation' to promote her new online shop, dubbed 'Meghan's Mall'. Because we're all thinking the same thing. Because she's tried everything else. And because, despite her being born in LA, a recent poll revealed that only four in ten Americans hold a favourable view of Meghan. So, actually, a year may be a stretch.
Let's not forget that Meghan will be being goaded into using the children by every member of her professional entourage, certainly those taking a percentage of Sussex, Inc. She may (correctly) be thinking that she can't win, having been criticised (unfairly, in my view) for refusing to pose on the steps of the hospital when she gave birth to Archie in 2019. She will definitely be overwhelmingly proud of her growing children, in the way every mother yielding to the impulse of showing yet another relative stranger a picture of their child is. And the cynical marketeers are right: those kids could very well be the answer to everything.
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First, they give Meghan the 'relatability' factor she has always lacked, partly by being very beautiful, and partly by making a series of bad judgement calls from the start. These poor judgement calls extend right up to the present day, to choosing to play a little ol' homebody making pasta sauce on screen in an all-white outfit. Not something any mother in the history of pasta sauce has ever done. But motherhood is the great unifier, and Gen Z were reportedly delighted by the video of her ' Baby Momma Dance '. Why? Because it was 'real' and showed the 43-year-old to be just as 'fun', 'goofy', and 'normal' as every mum-to-be. So you can expect plenty more where that came from.
Second, the children will keep her 'relevant'. And yes, that word comes with dollar signs attached, but it's about far more than that. In a world where attention spans are gnat-like and celebrities aren't always – how can I put this? – endowed with a whole range of talents that will ensure their longevity, remaining relevant is a constant battle and children useful tools. When those children are royal, they go from being useful to invaluable.
Third, and perhaps of particular importance to the Sussexes, if you have philanthropic pretensions and want to be perceived as having gravitas, children are an enormous asset. An endless array of worthy causes can be attached to kids, and in Meghan and Harry's case, that personal touch, that banal parenting anecdote, will always get you immediate, global attention.
Quite how Meghan plans to explain her pivot from Duchess of Privacy to Kris Jenner (I'm joking… I hope) remains to be seen. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd predict a carefully worded talk-show tirade about how the children 'shouldn't have to hide from the world', just because of the family they were born into. For that reason, she and 'Haz' have decided to 'let the kids run free'… and into the limelight. You have to be completely unashamed to pull off that kind of U-turn, but I don't think that'll be a problem.