INTERVIEW: Lady Colin Campbell ‘Meghan and Harry. The Real Story’

The British aristocrat and New York Times best-selling author Lady Colin Campbell is receiving a lot of media attention again lately. This time, it’s thanks to her latest much-anticipated book ‘Meghan and Harry. The Real Story’, set to be released in the UK and Europe on the 25^th of June. Ikon London Magazine (Tamara Orlova Alvarez and Nicola Ziff) spoke to the seasoned royal biographer about her upcoming book, about Princess Diana, online trolling, and PR games.

“I do not believe in doing anything that is not thorough, is not accurate and will not stand the test of time.”

Check out the video below to find out more about the topics Lady Colin Campbell has covered in the biography:

• The choosing of the American PR company
• Meghan Markle falling out with the British press
• The dynamics in Meghan and Harry’s relationships

Lady Colin Campbell’s thorough research

“I wouldn’t condescend to even come to communicate directly with Harry and Megan’s PR team. I mean, spare me! Do I look as if I’m Joseph Goebbels? I’m no minister of propaganda!”

Lady Colin Campbell’s latest book is set to offer a balanced account of game changes, conflicts, and ambitions. “With a unique breadth of insight, lady Colin Campbell goes behind the scenes speaking to friends, relations, courtiers, and colleagues on both sides of Atlantic to reveal the most unexpected royal story since the Abdication. Lady C highlights the dilemmas involved and the issues that lurk beneath the surface as to why the couple decided to step down as senior Royals.” Judging by the description alone, it sounds like a very thorough book.

The royal biographer is happy to confirm that it is, indeed, a very thorough book. “I do not believe in doing anything that is not thorough is not accurate and will not stand the test of time. When I’m writing a book I am not writing it for tomorrow, and I’m not writing it for the approbation or criticisms of the day after tomorrow. I’m making it for somebody picking it up fifty years from now and saying “wow that woman really knew what she was talking about.” My books need to stand the test of time,” she attests.

It would be fair to assume then, that Lady Colin Campbell’s sources are very familiar with both the Royal Family and the Markles. Back in 2018, Lady C’s sons Michael and Dimitri took part in the MTV Reality TV series ‘The Royal World’, where they’ve met none other than Meghan Markle’s nephew, cannabis entrepreneur Tyler Dooley. And while it’s easy to draw one’s own conclusions, Lady Colin Campbell is committed to the anonymity of her sources.

“You have to offend everybody when you’re writing a proper biography because you need to be completely even-handed.”

Lady Colin Campbell at the Princess Olga Romanov’s book launch © JOE ALVAREZ

Lady Colin Cambell’s sources for the book

“In my book, I do not specifically mention which members of the Markle family have said exactly what because they are private people who, due to no fault of their own, have found themselves caught up in an international stink. My children are friendly with Megan’s nephew and I have had members of the Markle family stay here. Obviously, this was long before I even started to write the book or considered writing.”

“I am privy to information from them that I have included in the book. I do not quote any one of them directly because I believe in respecting the privacy of my sources, but you can be absolutely sure everything that I say in the book is true and fair. And where praise is due, to give praise.”

As to the Meghan Markle’s PR team and sources friendly to the young couple, Lady C was happy to dispel all rumours, once and for all. “Harry and Megan’s team have been getting in touch with me, trying to influence the narrative. Harry and Megan’s PR people are one thing – that’s come after I wrote the book.

I wouldn’t condescend to even come to communicate directly with Harry and Megan’s PR team. I mean, spare me! Do I look as if I’m Joseph Goebbels? I’m no minister of propaganda!

Before I wrote the book, mutual friends have got in touch with me and tried to influence the narrative.

The ‘standoff of biographies’ and being evenhanded

It has been reported that Meghan Markle wanted to push the publishing of her ‘hagiography’ titled ‘Finding Freedom. Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family‘ to the earliest possible date. As if to ensure her version of a story is told first.

Not surprising, as Lady Colin Campbell’s first biography ‘Diana in Private’ became the New York Time’s best-selling book and firmly placed Lady C on the list of uncompromising biographers. The book was the ‘first truly informed account of the Princess’s life and marriage’.

The author believes that Meghan might be scared of ‘the truth. In a nutshell’. “There are some people who do not like the truth.” Then, however, she is quick to clarify that the latest book is not anti-Meghan. “When I’m writing a biography, I make absolutely sure that I am so even-handed and so fair and so positive where I need to be that not only do the critics of the subject say “Oh my God, she’s been to fair”, but the subjects of the biography is thinking “Oh my God. She’s been too harsh.”

“You have to offend everybody when you’re writing a proper biography because you need to be completely evenhanded.”

“I’m happy to purvey the truth. I’m happy to purvey a balanced account of a situation but anything that’s really twisted so that it is complete fiction, I am not prepared to use. I’ll leave that to Andrew Mortons and the Omid Scorbies of this world.”

Trying to change the narrative: Princess Diana and Meghan Markle

In Lady Colin Campbell’s new YoutTube video series ‘Chatting with Lady Colin Campbell’ the biographer mentions Princess Diana and how she ‘tried and failed’ to change the narrative of the story. We ask Lady C to expand. “My first Diana biography ‘Diana in private’ started out as an authorised biography, written with her consent and approval. I even went into the palace about it.

“It was after Diana and I started to write the book, that she decided, at some point, to change her story. And at that point, I realised that she was hijacking the narrative and trying to put a spin on it. Because I knew she wanted a divorce and she wanted to get out of the marriage. She was trying to use my book as the vehicle.

“I was prepared to allow her to use it if she was speaking the truth. When I discovered she was not speaking the truth, I was not prepared to play ball. So, we came to a parting of the ways. I at that point realised, she was going to come up with someone else who would be her minister of propaganda.

Princess Olga Romanov and Lady Colin Campbell © JOE ALVAREZ

“And, sure enough, she came up with Andrew Morton who did a brilliant job of saying half the rubbish the Diana told him which, half the time, was completely untrue. She tried to alter the narrative to support herself and I refused to play ball. So that’s how that went.

As to Harry and Megan, Lady C – who is extremely well connected in aristocratic circles – confirms they have got ‘mutual friends’ who were willing ‘to leak stuff’. “Some of it was positive and I have put into the book. Some of it I was absolutely appalled by and I made my position very clear and I have certainly not put in the part of the narrative that they wished putting the way they wished it to put in. You know, I’m not going to be used by people to, basically, purvey lies. I’m just not prepared to do it. It’s just not going to happen ever.

“I’m happy to have a purvey the truth. I’m happy to purvey a balanced account of a situation but anything that’s really twisted so that it is complete fiction, I am not prepared to use. I’ll leave that to Andrew Mortons and the Omid Scorbies of this world.”

Lady Colin Campbell book. Meghan and Harry The Real Story will be released in the UK and the EU on the 25th of June and is currently available on Amazon

Is Meghan Markle being ‘mistreated due to her race’?

“I think she has let down people of colour all over the world”

Originally from Jamaica, Lady Colin Campbell has been outspoken against the idea that Meghan Markle has been ‘mistreated due to her race’. On the other side of the argument, Meghan and her husband Harry, who on a few occasions openly blamed the British public and the British press for being racists.

The writer once again reiterated her stance: “Because I’m Jamaican, and very proudly Jamaican […] I am very aware of honour that was bestowed upon Meghan Markle to represent people of colour all over the world.

“I know from my Jamaican connections and I’m also friendly with various Commonwealth High Commissioners. I know how tremendously invested hundreds of millions if not billions of people all over the world have been in Meghan being a success and embodying inclusivity and in and embodying the fact that the glass ceiling no longer exists for people of colour. And, I have to tell you, I am bitterly disappointed that Meghan has thrown away such a gift as if the wonderful beyond the price of rubies crown was a crown of thorns.

I think she has let down people of colour all over the world. I do not speak for myself alone. I have interacted with hundreds, if not thousands of people of colour. And this is the theme that has come across. This is the common thread that they are really disappointed that Meghan has bolted and, instead of being a woman of substance and taking criticism when it was valid, has tried to fob it off as if it were related to her colour.

“On the one hand, I was suing because I wanted a very important truth to be told about me. While she is suing to bury a very important truth about herself.”

The biographer goes on to suggest that Meghan’s colour worked in her favour by adding that “She was embraced not only by the British royal family the British establishment and the British public in a way that no Caucasian thirty-six-year-old D-list minor starlet who had had a very checkered past would have been. Had she not been a woman of colour, she would not have been embraced the way she was. Her colour worked very much to her advantage. And I am absolutely appalled that Meghan and Harry can allow their representatives in the United States, to traduce the reputation of the British people and the British establishment and the British royal family and the British press who were not criticising her because of her colour but because of her conduct.

Meghan Markle had ‘a very checkered past’

How British press treated Meghan Markle

Both Prince Harry and ‘team Meghan’ blame British press for being too hostile. There are few people in the UK who have the hostility of the British press first hand and came as virtuous as Lady Colin Campbell. She openly speaks of the details of her court battles in one of her YouTube videos. Here, however, Lady C rushes to defend the press and tabloid papers. “The reality is that all public figures get a rough ride from the British press because the British press has a long history of iconoclasm and satirical commentary.

“Meghan chose her position. Meghan chose to be in the public eye. There are lots of us – like me – who are in the public eye who did not choose to be in the public eye. There are also some of us – like Catherine Cambridge – who chose to be in the public eye and who had a very rough ride, as does everybody in the public eye. Because the British tabloid press love to deflate the very people they are writing about.”

Kristina RIhanoff and Lady Colin Campbell © JOE ALVAREZ

And as a piece of advice to survive the scrutiny of the press, the writer continued, “it is a well-known fact that anybody in that position – if they have any sense whatsoever – grins and bears it to the full extent that they are capable of. And as long as the press will not go too far and actually defame you – which they do on the occasional occasion – you do nothing. You just grin and bear it and you ignore it. You act as if it’s not happening.”

“And I have to tell you, the British press – and I include the tabloids in that number – have actually treated Megan Markle very fairly. Her criticisms are misplaced because they [press] have sat on a wealth of information that they could have imparted and chose not to.”

“…Meghan Markle came into the British royal family claiming to know how the British press functioned. Claiming to be well used to the tabloids. Of course, she wasn’t. She was not important enough to be tabloid fodder until she linked up with Harry.

” I do not know who Meghan thinks she is, is but I would recommend that she has sufficient modesty as to understand that there is an elaborate protocol governing the press and the royal family and their interactions.

“These are two organs of the nation. They have evolved over the centuries. There are protocols in place to protect the interests of both. There is latitude for error on the side of both. All of this I explained very carefully in my book. Because it’s a very important issue and I don’t know who the hell Meghan Markle thinks she is that she’s going to just sail in and decide “I don’t like the way it works and your gotta change it for my convenience.” I’m afraid that’s not how life works.”

“And I have to tell you, the British press – and I include the tabloids in that number – have actually treated Megan Markle very fairly. Her criticisms are misplaced because they [press] have sat on a wealth of information that they could have imparted and chose not to.”

IKON London Magazine spoke to Lady Colin Campbell about her latest book ‘Meghan and Harry. The Real Story’

Suing the British press: “There is a hell of a difference…”

Lady Colin Campbell is somebody who has famously successfully sued most of the British tabloids for pursuing and publishing lies about her back in the 1970s. Coincidentally, Meghan and Harry are suing the British press for ‘invading the privacy’ and ‘breach of copyright’. The latter, for publishing Meghan Markle’s private letter to her father that he willingly and readily shared with the press.

The author begs not to draw parallels between the two situations: “There is a hell of a difference between me suing the tabloids for repeating libels that they knew to be untrue […] and Meghan Markle suing the Mail on Sunday for comments that her father was forced to make to preserve his reputation. A reputation that she assisted her friends in seeking to destroy.”

“On the one hand, I was suing because I wanted a very important truth to be told about me. While she is suing to bury a very important truth about herself. There is a hell of a difference between the two situations. They have no parallels whatsoever.”

“Meghan’s team had been very active trying to denigrate me […]. I think it is really rather pathetic. I’m not going around telling lies about Meghan Markle and I don’t quite approve of the fact that she has her people going around trying to tell lies about me.”

Social media trolling and denigration

Diana in Private by Lady Colin Campbell

When Lady Colin Campbell’s first book about Diana was published back in 1992, there was no need to navigate the murky landscape of social media. There has allegedly been a good deal of trolling against Lady C on social media with regards to the book. The stories that Lord Colin Campbell pursued and sold to the papers are being widely voiced on Twitter. But despite that, the biographer is focusing on the positives. “Yes, there has been a degree of trolling. But there has also been a greater degree of positivity. Most of the comments, I think about 70 or 80 or maybe even 90% of the comments – I am told, are positive.

“There were attempts made to divert the narrative into a pro-Meghan stance, but my book is not anti-Meghan. My book is pro-Megan when it should be pro-Meghan. And it recounts her errors Etc. And the consequences of them and the reasons why they occurred.”

A word of warning from Lady C to look out for misinformation and attempts to sway the opinion of the public: “There are even one or two sites that are supposed to be anti-Meghan that have been set up by Meghan’s team to influence the narrative.”

“Meghan’s team had been very active trying to denigrate me […]. I think it is really rather pathetic. I’m not going around telling lies about Meghan Markle and I don’t quite approve of the fact that she has her people going around trying to tell lies about me. I think it’s low and I think it’s uncalled for and I think she might live to regret it, aside from anything else. Because my book has so much about her that is positive, I think she will ultimately realise – when she’s read the book – that, in fact, she has shot herself in the foot.”

“But it wouldn’t be the first time because Meghan Markle is one of those people who appears to be too clever by half. She’s always busy manipulating and maneuvering… [It’s] Shades of Diana. Diana used to do the same thing: constantly manipulating and at the very moment that she had her hand in your pocket, denying that it was even near your being.

Meghan Markle tried to make Royal Family more current

Ahead of Harry and Meghan’s Royal Wedding – famously only attended by Doria Ragland on Meghan Markle’s side – the overwhelming sentiment of the internet seems to have been that Marke will modernise the Royal Family. To which Lady C exclaimed resolutely: “The Royal family, I would respectfully submit, was doing a very good job of being current and relevant before Meghan Markle came on the scene. They were at the peak of their popularity and had been for several years. She managed, within two years of marrying Harry, to alter this scenario to such an extent that he went from being the second most popular member of the royal family to the utterly reviled.”

As to the humanitarian work, Meghan seems to pride herself for, the author added: “I think if she really wants to be a player on the world stage doing humanitarian work, she had the God-given opportunity as a member of the Royal Family.”

A marriage of love: the dynamics in Meghan and Harry’s relationships

A bit provocative question, and one that undoubtedly requires speculation, is whether Meghan Markle is really in love with the prince and whether Harry is happy in his marriage. Harry’s somewhat lackluster appearance in the latest Zoom videos is further supported by statements of ‘friends close to the family’ that the prince is facing hard time adjusting to his new life.

“In the course of my 70 years, I have run across quite a few Meaghan Markles and there can be no doubt that you can spot them a mile off. Beyond that, I will not say any more.

“I’m not going to say whether I think Meghan is genuinely in love with Harry or not. What I will say is that I have no doubt that he thinks she has been genuinely in love with him. And I also think, going off other people I have known, who were extremely ambitious – and whose ambitions could be realised only through association with men – that for the full length of time, that it was in their interest to tell themselves that they were totally in love with the man, they did.”

“And there was always a dramatic of volte-face when they decided it was no longer in their interest to be worshipping at the altar of that God with whom they were so completely in love with.”

And as if hinting to an inevitable breaking down of the marriage, Lady C added: “Now, Meghan does have a history of ‘adoration – denigration – discard’. Don’t take my word for it, ask Trevor Engelson. More than that, I will not say.”

Meghan and Harry posing with newborn Archie

As to what Harry must be reliving, Lady Colin Campbell attested: “I have seen very close up in my own personal life a relationship that was very similar to Harry and Meghan, which is why when I’m asked if I think Harry will leave Meghan or is he about to leave Meghan, I give the answer that I give in the book. This is a subject I cover in the book because it’s an important subject.

Daughter of Narcissus by Lady Colin Campbell

It is not incidental that Lady Colin Campbell mentions her personal experience. One of her earlier books is titled ‘Daughter of Narcissus‘ and describes, in great detail, her narcissistic mother. Drawing from her own experience, Lady C can recognise these patterns of ‘adoration – denigration and discard’. ”

Yes, I do have a regrettable amount of experience in troubled relationships and I also have the experience of having to survive them to such an extent that one of the world’s greatest psychoanalysts, Dr. Erica Freeman, suggested that I write a book that I wrote called ‘Daughter of Narcissus’, which is a serious examination of a condition called the narcissistic personality disorder.

“Regrettably, personality disorders flourish more and more the higher up you go in the food chain. I am not in this interview going to go any further in so far as this present book ‘Meghan and Harry‘ is concerned.”

“So, I think that should  […] also to show that my eyesight in this area of life is 20/20 and I sniff things out – to mix my metaphors – like my dog Mickey sniffs its prey.

Lady Colin Campbell’s much-anticipated book is due to be released in the UK and Europe on the 25th of June and in the US, on the 25th of July. It’s currently available to pre-order on Amazon.

What do you think about Meghan Markle and Harry’s marriage and about the upcoming book? Join the conversation on social media!