Francis Gregory

At What Point Is It Enough? I’ve said it before: Meghan Sussex is not above criticism or scrutiny. Nobody is. But criticism should have a point. At what point does scrutiny stop being accountability and become punishment? Meghan’s every choice, silence, interview, and business move gets turned into another reason to put her on trial. The outlets and commentators covering her get attention and clicks. That doesn’t mean every critic has the same motive. But when one woman is repeatedly turned into content, it’s fair to ask who benefits and what they want from her. Her silence? Her disappearance? Or has the hatred become so relentless that some people no longer care if something even worse happens to her? When a woman is constantly mocked, dehumanized, and cast as a villain, we can’t pretend there are no consequences. And why are so few American media voices willing to push back when the racism and misogyny in this treatment are sitting in plain sight? Maybe part of the silence is that Meghan gets treated as not quite belonging anywhere. To some white commentators, she isn’t white enough to defend. To some Black commentators, she isn’t Black enough to claim. She’s left caught between two sets of expectations, while the people attacking her get to define her for everybody else. Meghan is confident, ambitious, mixed-race, and well educated. She can also be goofy and warm. She loves her family and cares about her work. None of that makes her immune to criticism. But it should make us question the cartoon version of her: the cold schemer, the villain, the woman who can supposedly do nothing right. Before the headlines made her a royal character, Meghan had a life and a résumé of her own. She built an acting career, starring on Suits for seven seasons, and created The Tig, a lifestyle site where she wrote about food, travel, and the people and ideas she cared about. She worked with organizations including UN Women, World Vision, and One Young World, supporting women and girls. At eleven, she campaigned against a sexist television advertisement, and got the company to change it. Later, as a member of the Royal Family, she worked with the women of the Hubb Community Kitchen on a cookbook and helped create a clothing collection for Smart Works, which supports women returning to work. She guest-edited a British Vogue issue focused on women working for change. So, after hearing who she was and what she had done, ask yourself: Is that the same person the UK media taught you to see? Or did the press take a woman with her own ambitions, opinions, warmth, and accomplishments and turn her into “Dr. Evil,” someone people could condemn without stopping to ask what was fair, what was true, or why the attacks never let up? That’s why it gave me joy to see Jason Lee, the founder of Hollywood Unlocked, push back on some of the bullshit being said about her during his appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored. As the conversation turned to whether Meghan and Harry had done enough after receiving allegations about her estranged father, Lee challenged why the focus was on Meghan rather than the authorities responsible for investigating. It was refreshing to see somebody question the premise instead of accepting it as obvious. If you’re reading this, don’t borrow somebody else’s vendetta and mistake it for your own conclusion. Don’t let a headline, a panel, or a person chasing clicks make up your mind for you. You don’t have to admire Meghan. You don’t have to agree with every choice she’s made. But you should be able to separate fair criticism from a campaign that keeps turning one woman into a villain. Read beyond the headlines. Look at what she’s done. Then decide for yourself, without letting somebody else’s obsession become your opinion. Maya Angelou wrote, “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” So ask yourself one more time: Is the woman you’ve just read about the same woman the media told you she was?