Within a day of what the Sussexes no doubt considered another triumphant show of compassion, captured on camera volunteering during the LA wildfires, a real Hollywood star, Justine Bateman, condemned them as ‘no better than ambulance chasers’.
Just as they sat back, self-satisfied in their nine-bedroom £23million Montecito mansion – which they claim they have opened to friends fleeing the carnage – the floodgates opened.
Rather than gushing gratitude for their kindness, a tidal wave of criticism followed – led by Bateman who reflected the mood of countless others worldwide on social media.
‘What a repulsive ‘photo op’ they achieved,’ she wrote on X.
Pointing out that they live 90 miles away from the LA fires, she added: ‘They don’t live here, they are tourists, Disaster Tourists.’
Despite fulsome and grovelling gratitude from the local mayor Victor Gordo who said they were ‘great people’ with ‘great personalities’, the public had already made up its mind.
With their popularity tanking in the US, this was just another attempt by Megs and Harry – who were previously described by the boss of Spotify as ‘f****** grifters’ – to cleanse their reputation and polish up their tarnished halos.
And they are in desperate need of good publicity ahead of Meghan’s new Netflix series With Love, Meghan – upon which their future finances depend.
Harry and Meghan were labelled ‘disaster tourists’ after travelling 90 miles from their home where they were captured on camera as they met victims of the LA fires
Hollywood actress Justine Bateman condemned the Sussexes as ‘no better than ambulance chasers’
Due to launch tomorrow, Sussex sources say the duchess asked for her series to be delayed out of respect for the victims of the fires. Good move, Megs, as that wouldn’t be a good look: a carefree millionaire duchess turned ordinary mom cooking up love and compassion while LA burns to the ground.
Such is the scepticism towards Megs and Harry, there were even scathing reports on social media that their photo op last Friday was all a set-up. Social media users claimed they had appeared at the evacuation centre for only 17 minutes, accompanied by their security detail and a woman they hugged who arrived and left with the Sussexes.
Oh dear, how did it all go so wrong for Megs and Harry? Perhaps because every time they reach out – often trailled by a camera crew – to show their calculated compassion and care, all we can remember is Meg’s abandonment of her father Thomas or Harry’s cruelty to his own family.
And yet it could all have been so different. If only the smug, bit-part actress Meghan – who thought she knew it all – had taken a leaf out of Kate’s book in handling grief with dignity.
Before Kate and William made an emotional pilgrimage to Southport weeks after the horrific murders of three little girls, we understand they sent private messages of comfort to the grieving families.
And in a deeply personal public message, the Princess of Wales – then still recovering from chemotherapy – wrote: ‘As parents we cannot begin to understand what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through.’
That visit to Southport in October was Catherine’s most significant public engagement since her illness was announced. She and William met each of the grieving families of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, for half an hour – in private.
No media was tipped off about the visits. No cameras were allowed to witness their harrowing meetings. There was no film crew to catch Kate’s tears, offering comfort from one mother to another. No pictures of William’s despair as a man who could perhaps understand the depths of such loss, having lost his own mother so young.
Kate and William meeting one of the emergency services crew who dealt with the aftermath of the knife attack on children in Southport in July that left three girls dead – the couple’s meeting with bereaved families was kept private
Their meetings were completely covert and not announced publicly until Kate and William had left. No single detail of those meetings was released to the media ‘in respect for their ongoing grief’.
They also met privately with dance teacher Leanne Lucas, 35, who was seriously injured as she shielded youngsters when they were attacked by a knifeman during a Taylor Swift-themed summer holiday class in July.
A small media contingency was allowed to briefly film their visit to the first responders and others affected by the tragedy – and that was it.
The future King and Queen left quietly, without fanfare, and without a Netflix film crew in tow. Only a keen eye would have noted how distressed Kate, especially, looked.
And they kept their promise to keep the little girls and their families in their prayers. Kate invited the children who survived the Southport stabbings to her Christmas carol service as special guests, the charity Stronger Together ensuring they were supported along with their families in London for three days.
All of which reminded me of the finest example of dignity in grief, when the late Queen Elizabeth was originally pilloried for not immediately visiting the Welsh mining village of Aberfan in 1966 after a devastating coal slurry avalanche killed 144 people – including 116 children still in their classrooms.
First responders, as we call them today, all said the Queen did the right thing in arriving eight days after the disaster. Her presence there, with all the security and preparation a visit from the Queen would involve, would have got in the way of their work trying to save the few survivors and recover the broken bodies of children for their loved ones to bury.
Royal author Penny Junor said that, far from being apathetic towards the tragedy, she ‘showed her humanity’ to the locals in a quiet manner.
When she arrived, the Queen spoke privately for half an hour with families who had lost husbands, wives and children – including one woman grieving the loss of seven members of her family.
Junor recalls: ‘The Queen just sat with her, quietly, saying nothing for half an hour. That was the Queen showing her humility.’
Our late Queen Elizabeth and our future Queen Catherine both understood what comfort is to those suffering such terrible tragedies, about the dignity and most importantly privacy such grieving requires.
Dignity and privacy are two concepts Meghan will never understand. Sadly for her, as she has demonstrated, no good deed is worth doing unless you have a camera crew around to capture every second of your compassion.
The Mail’s royal expert, Robert Hardman, set the record straight saying that the Queen was unable to visit Aberfan ‘until she could control her heartfelt emotions, as a young mother herself, she knew she would be as overwhelmed as everyone else’.
After all, he added: ‘The last thing people want is a sobbing Queen on their shoulder.’
Did Meghan ever consider, as she tearfully hugged the victims of the LA fires, that the last thing they needed was a publicity-seeking, celebrity duchess sobbing on their shoulder?
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