There’s no denying that Meghan Markle has been treated differently by tabloids, compared to her white royal counterparts.
The difference has felt especially stark this week: In the days leading up to the Sussexes’ highly-anticipated Oprah special, Buckingham Palace announced it would investigate claims she bullied former staffers.
Meghan denied the claims, calling them the “latest attack on her character” in a statement on Wednesday.
Many on Twitter couldn’t agree more and didn’t hesitate to point out what appeared to be a double standard: While Meghan will be scrutinized over the accusations, the many sexual abuse allegations against Prince Andrew have been overlooked by the royal family.
The royal family has never publicly investigated Prince Andrew’s friendship with the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, whom he got to know in 1999 and stayed in contact with, after Epstein became a convicted sex offender.
Prince Andrew, whose mother is Queen Elizabeth, said he didn’t regret his ties to Epstein in a 2019 interview. Time Magazine quoted him as saying, “the people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful.”
He stepped away from his royal duties shortly after and disavowed Epstein’s crimes, but Prince Andrew’s own sexual assault allegations have not been forgotten by the public.
People have taken to social media to express frustration and confusion over how differently the two royals are being treated:
Some took the opportunity to criticize the media’s role, given how much fodder there is to report on Prince Andrew:
He has yet to cooperate with FBI authorities investigating Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is awaiting a July trial for allegedly grooming minors for sexual abuse.
“How outrageous that it’s been a year since Prince Andrew publicly promised to cooperate with law enforcement ... it is never too late to do the right thing,” lawyer Lisa Bloom told the Independent last November.
All this is to say, a growing number of people are asking why Buckingham Palace can’t take the investigative energy directed at Meghan ― which many believe is a pre-emptive strategy to discredit her on this Sunday’s Oprah special ― and redirect it at Prince Andrew instead.
The two-hour special is set to air Sunday, March 7, at 8 p.m. EST on CBS.
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