It would appear that things are not about to get any less icy between Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and the rest of the British royal family, after it surfaced that Queen Consort Camilla held a star-studded lunch with two of the Duchess of Sussex’s most frothing and unhinged detractors.
According to The Independent, Camilla had hosted the Christmas lunch on Wednesday, Dec. 14, with a guest list that included the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith, and Claudia Winkleman. But unfortunately, also in attendance were notorious anti-Markle trolls Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan.
The timing of the lunch was especially unfortunate, as it took place the day before Netflix released the final three episodes of Harry and Meghan’s docuseries, and two days before Clarkson penned a scathing op-ed in UK’s The Sun.
Of course, Morgan’s uh, relationship with Markle, for lack of better term, has been well documented. The 57-year-old broadcaster famously resigned from Good Morning Britain over remarks that he didn’t believe Markle’s claims during the couple’s sit-down with Oprah that her mental health had suffered as a result of bullying in the media and that she had even experienced suicidal thoughts.
Meanwhile, Clarkson’s piece that ran on Friday was as unhinged as anything that’s ever been said about the duchess, writing that he “hates her on a cellular level” and that he’s lost sleep due to “grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”
You know, just perfectly normal things for a 62-year-old adult man to say about a woman who has absolutely no impact on his life whatsoever. But to do so just days after dining with basically her mother-in-law was appalling.
Not shockingly, as news of Camilla’s guest list began to hit the internet, people began expressing outrage that the royals would break bread with two men who would attack one of their own — regardless of the current state of affairs between Markle and the royals.
“If it’s true that Camilla just had lunch with Jeremy Clarkson this week, right before he published that, then well done to the lot of them for confirming everything the Harry & Meghan doco said was going on between the institution & the media over in the UK,” tweeted journalist Jess McGuire on Saturday, as the news began to make its way around.
Plenty of others likewise called out the hypocrisy of the royal family, suggesting that the incident has essentially proved right everything that Harry and Meghan have alleged.
As a few people have pointed out, the inclusion of Morgan and Clarkson at a lunch hosted by Camilla is particularly ghastly considering her ongoing work with charities for survivors of domestic abuse. The saying “believe women” seems to be especially relevant here.