That thing about Harry and What’s-Her-Name

Even though I swore up and down I would never talk about Harry and what’s-her-name again (I’ve mentioned them a few times on Twitter), I guess that’ll be the first thing I do before I go off into more serious stuff in my revival of this blog.

Why? Because even here in the U.S., those two have been all over the place — and not in a good way. It started off as an insistent murmur in the last few years and at this point it’s a roar that you can’t help hearing, and it’s reached a crescendo since the Prince and Princess of Wales made a formal, elegant visit to the U.S. last week (one that was fascinating to the media here) to present some sort of award to someone, only to have the Duke and Duchess of Montecito try to upstage them by purchasing(?) an award from the Kennedy clan and attempting a glittering presentation of said award to themselves. The Montecitos’ stunt only seemed to succeed in two things: making the general public aware that they exist, and (2) making the general public wonder just how anyone can be so pathetic.

Another note in the crescendo is some sort of documentary the Montecitos produced for Netflix. I don’t have access to Netflix so can’t comment. But apparently it is about to cause the Montecitos a LOT of trouble with the Royals because…something. (Small update: I’ve now seen a clip from the documentary, I think. It’s of what’s-her-name making an exaggerated curtsy. All I could think while watching it was, “this woman is in her 40’s?”)

Some in the U.K., even in the media there, are terribly, terribly upset about what’s-her-name and Harry, and are talking about how it’s affecting the relationship between the two countries. I can assure you that it isn’t, at least not seriously. But it is getting extremely annoying as it is pushed in our faces more and more, with the wonky analysis that seems to come with it.

Before anyone shouts “RACISM!!!!” let me tell you this: I don’t see what’s-her-name as a black woman first and everything else second, simply because she seemed not to be mixed-race until it gave her an excuse to shout “RACISM!” in response to any criticism. (BTW lately there seems to be a shift from crying “RACISM” to crying “SEXISM” and railing on her podcast about being the “silenced woman.” Interesting, that.)

So what do I see her as? A malignant narcissist, an obsessed fan and a social climber (or at least a career climber). Those come in all colors.

I used to have a sister-in-law like that. The moment she married into the family she tried to separate my brother from the rest of us, and it just went downhill from there. During one visit she sat on a lawn chair alone in the back yard because she just couldn’t be in the house with her in-laws, (who I can say with some authority had done nothing to her).

Luckily the marriage only lasted 6 months…at which time she tried to lay claim to the house my brother had bought years prior to meeting her, and where she had refused to live because it was across the street from my parents’ house. She admitted somewhere along the way that she married only to have a baby (and a house). Of course she tried to claim pregnancy when the annulment papers came, but that was quickly disproven. So she ended the whole affair with no baby and no house.

I won’t go into that story any further, but let’s just look at what I’ve said and compare it to some of what’s-her-name’s actions. Maybe you’ll see what I am talking about.

First of all, what’s-her-name promptly separated Harry from his family and then started whining about how mean the family was (where have I seen this before?). A lot of her whines seem to be about titles, and a lot of her reported misbehavior and dissatisfaction seems to be about possessions — housing and jewelry and such — and how she’s been treated less royally than she feels she should be.

It all sounds a bit familiar; suffice it to say that I recognize what’s-her-name for what she is, and it ain’t the crusading do-gooder she’s pretending to be. Hell if that was all she wanted out of life, she could have done it far more effectively as a working member of the Royal Family.

Another moment that shone a light on her true nature: that time in an interview where she was apparently reminiscing about her life and announced loftily, “I’ve been a princess…” Uh..no dear you have not, unless you seriously want to call yourself “Princess Henry” — which I doubt.

More seriously, there was that time she wrote a letter about some kind of cause to a sitting U.S. Democratic Congresswoman, who — probably much to what’s-her-name’s consternation — turned around and publicly demanded to know who this person was who was signing herself “Duchess of Sussex” and what in the hell was said Congresswoman supposed to do with this letter? What a nightmare! Instead of fawning over what’s-her-name and giving WHN a photo op with a powerful person in the U.S. that could be splashed all over WHN’s blog or whatever other electronic thing she was using to promote herself at the moment, what’s-her-name got slapped in the face with this impertinent question about her own impertinence.

In short, that little caper didn’t go very well.

Then there was the time where she tried to insert herself into the grieving process after a school shooting and was told to go home, yet still managed to garner some positive publicity from the whole thing — the very result she wanted, but failed to accomplish, with some award the Kennedy family gives out. (Pro hint: many of the current Kennedys are downright useless; I’ve heard them referred to as “the best argument against royalty the U.S. has.” And there’s the lingering question about the Montecitos apparently buying their way into the award.)

On top of that are all the rumors that what’s-her-name was obsessed with Princess Diana and actually wanted to marry Harry’s older brother because that would make her Queen someday. This probably ties in with her obsession with calling herself a Princess when she is not in her own right. In addition, there’s the fact that most people in the U.S. have absolutely no idea what a duchess is, but they do know from Disney fairy-tales what a princess is. In other words, what’s-her-name is marketing herself.

And the latest item of exasperation is that apparently, eventually what’s-her-name will attempt to run for office in the U.S. If she does, she probably won’t get anywhere because Democrats are a bit less susceptible to the famous-in-other-fields than are the Republicans. But of course she does not see that. It’ll also be fun to see if she continues to style herself “Duchess of Sussex” while running (pro hint: that’s illegal for a U.S. citizen).

This brings me to the subject of self-delusion. As I said, what’s-her-name is not a princess in her own right. She is also not a major Hollywood star and never has been — yet for some reason many people in the U.K. seemed to think she was. I’m sure if we scratch the surface we’ll find a P.R. agent at work there, because the misapprehension was suspiciously widespread. I do recall seeing an avalanche of tweets about what’s-her-name’s wonderfulness around the time of the wedding, and I assumed that because I am old and gray I must have missed what’s-her-name’s status as a current cultural icon. But later I realized that I must have been reading a lot of bot-talk. Fact is, few people here in the U.S. knew anything about what’s-her-name at the time of the wedding, and they still don’t give a damn.

Also, apparently those Hollywood A-listers that she invited to her wedding (but who said later they’d never met her prior to the wedding), are shunning what’s-her-name and Harry out there in lovely Montecito. Hollywood is, after all, very hierarchical — kind of like the U.K.’s Royal Family. So much for her marriage transforming her career into that of a Hollywood superstar.

The painful reality is that what’s-her-name was and is a sort of D-list TV actor who probably saw that she was never going to get very far in her acting career and decided to take extreme measures to gain fame and influence. How better to do this than to present herself as a beleaguered Black person in the very white British Royal Family? And as she could nab one of her idol Diana’s sons in the process, so much the better. What a drama! Real-life reality TV every day of the week! Half of the U.S. and all of the U.K. closely watching her every move with worshipful respect — kind of like we did with Diana!

Before I go further, let me mention that what’s-her-name ain’t no Diana. Diana started off her public career in a massive lie born of centuries of cruel tradition, then found herself cheated on, then fell apart inside. But she never flagged in her concern for others and her good works, all of which came from a very big heart. That’s why she was loved. Yes her style and beauty were admired, but that wasn’t her entire substance — unlike with what’s-her-name for whom it is all window dressing with one selfish aim in mind.

So needless to say it’s not working, and an army of bots on Twitter isn’t going to make it work. Ultimately neither will shouting “racism” and/or “sexism” every time what’s-her-name does not get what she wants. Narcissists have a reality problem, and what’s-her-name has it in buckets. Anything that does not fit in with her fantasy is met with actor’s tears and a sort of emotional violence.

So what do I see in her future?

She and Harry will likely not be together forever. She’s the one who will walk, probably — sooner if Harry’s title, and by extension her own — is taken away (still questionable at this point); later if she just becomes bored or comes up with another scheme to become truly famous and adored. After that she will try to pretend to have political influence. She may do well in that career, as our media are obsessed with finding the least-qualified semi-famous people they can to become “commentators” whose job it is to appear on TV and mumble something every time something comes up, whether they have any expertise in it or not.

Then will come the book, which will flop. And then she will quietly disappear, probably living comfortably on hefty alimony, at which point we in the U.S. will breathe a relieved sigh of “‘bye Felicia.”

And I expect that one day in the distant future, one of her kids will write a book of their own.