ME-ghan Remarkleable

[MajGenl.Meade]

Legendary South African actor and Lion King star Dr John Kani has been forced to deny ever having met Meghan Markle after she seemed to suggest the pair had met in London at the premiere of the live-action film.

In an interview with US magazine - The Cut, Markle claimed a “South African male cast member” had told her at the premiere that her marriage to Prince Harry had been celebrated by South Africans in the same way as Nelson Mandela's prison release in 1990.

The publication reports the former Suits actress as having said, "He looked at me, he said, 'I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison'."

But Kani, who told the Daily Mail that he was the only South African member in the cast of Disney’s remake of the animated classic, says he was in Hollywood at the time the alleged encounter took place.

"'I have never met Meghan Markle. This seems like something of a faux pas by her. I have never met the Duchess at all. I am the only South African member of the cast and I did not attend the premiere in London," he said.

[BoSoxGal]

I have really tried to keep an open mind about her, and wanted to believe she was a good person.

As time goes on it appears impossible to ignore that she is a nutty narcissist.

[Big RR]

If just avoid thinking of her at all; she has absolutely no effect on my life, so I just don't care. Her being in a so -so movie and marrying someone whose only claim to fame is being part of an inbred family that calls itself "royal" doesn't affect that opinion.

[Long Run]

And this arrives at the 25th anniversary of Princess Di's death. The only reason I knew of that is I made the mistake of having NPR on the car radio and they were hyping a story about her' death being the first mega story of its sort. However, I have never gotten the interest and even fascination people have with the royal family, at least now that we have cat videos to fill our empty time voids.

[Sue U]

I have never gotten the interest and even fascination people have with the royal family, at least now that we have cat videos to fill our empty time voids.

Me either, and cat videos are hilarious.

[ex-khobar Andy]

What I find puzzling about Meghan Markle is this. She claims the British press were very racist when she came on the scene and maybe she is right but I read the Guardian and the Daily Mail (I know - I'm ashamed) daily and sometimes the Telegraph, and I never saw it. In fact I did not know she was biracial until almost the day of the wedding. But I don't read all the UK press.

She and her husband named their second child Lilibet Diana, after her (white) great grandma and her (white) grandma. Aside from the tackiness of using a name which we all know was the family's name for (then) Princess Elizabeth ninety-some years ago, it seems that the African American side of the child's heritage was ignored.

Weirdly, while professing adoration for Diana (whom I am pretty sure I met once) they appointed Tiggy Legge Bourke as godmother to their older child Archie. Tiggy was famously accused by the sainted Diana as being the mistress - lover - next wife of Charles, and that Camilla was just a smokescreen for that romance. Either: Diana was right in which case she (Tiggy) seems to be an odd choice to be godmother; or Diana was wrong and it was all part of her (Diana's) general nuttiness and penchant for conspiracy theories.

[Big RR]

I also don't understand the adulation Diana had, but I will admit that she did do some things that were in the public interest, raising awareness of the dangers of land mines and the plight of AIDS patients. Indeed, a friend of mine who had AIDS (and is sadly gone for over 30 years) told me that he never really thought much about her until he saw her work in the AIDS area, saying it increased public awareness in a way very few other things could not. I don't understand the cult of celebrity, but she and a few, very few, others showed it can be to benefit the public.

[BoSoxGal]

I also don't understand the adulation Diana had, but I will admit that she did do some things that were in the public interest, raising awareness of the dangers of land mines and the plight of IDS patients. Indeed, a friend of mine who had AIDS (and is sadly gone for over 30 years) told me that he never really thought much about her until he saw her work in the AIDS area, saying it increased public awareness in a way very few other things could not. I don't understand the cult of celebrity, but she and a few, very few, others showed it can be to benefit the public.

This stuff is exactly the reason she was adored by hundreds of millions of people. A princess, like all us poor people read about and dream about as dirty little urchins and fantasize we could grow up to be, if we just met our prince. She met hers and for a moment it looked like happily ever after but then we saw that she too was exploited, maybe not as badly but ultimately as essentially as we are in our lives of quiet desperation as wage slaves with thwarted dreams. We saw that life can be cruel even to fairytale princesses and that she, despite the cruelty, poured on love to the common people who adored her, and manifested a substantive commitment to the betterment of exploited people all over the world. Diana was a flawed and troubled human being - like most of us are - but she was also something extraordinary. She had a natural empathy for people in pain and she used her power, her image, to make a real difference. When she touched a man with AIDS it changed the world for the better, for him and for millions more.

She didn’t have to do any of that stuff - her stuffy out of touch in-laws certainly didn’t. She did it because she was simply a better human being. And she raised better human beings than that family would have had as descendants otherwise. I am not a fan of royalty, but if they have to be there, they might as well be doing real good for the commoners. Both William and Harry are making a real difference in ending the stigma around mental health challenges, and they are both men who prioritize fatherhood over anything else - in that very important respect, Diana’s influence on them has broken a cycle of dysfunction in that family that goes back many generations.


As to the issue of the nanny - Diana was neurotic but if you married at 19 thinking it was for love and realized you really were only a brood mare, you might be neurotic too. The paranoia she had about the nanny was manufactured in large part by her interactions with Martin Bashir - it has been revealed in recent years that he presented her with false documents about an abortion Tiggy allegedly had to stoke the fear in Diana that she was having an affair with Charles, and that he might erase Diana by way of a staged auto accident in order to be free to pursue Tiggy. Diana had mental health challenges and being cruelly manipulated by many of the people around her didn’t help. The boys know Tiggy only as a loving mother figure who probably did more by miles to help them deal with the intense grief of losing their mum than anybody in their immediate family. Of course they will always love her.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The boys know Tiggy only as a loving mother figure who probably did more by miles to help them deal with the intense grief of losing their mum than anybody

That may be the most wonderful thing about Tiggy

[Big RR]

Tiggy? You guys pay a lot more attention to the soap opera than I do.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well we all know the most wonderful thing about Tiggyy is that Tiggy's a wonderful thing. Very humable.

[Joe Guy]

I'd never heard of Tiggy until today. Wikipedia tells me she shares a birthday with our old friend, RayThom.

God bless Tiggy. Dog bless RayThom. I miss him very much.