Meghan Markle nearly eclipsed a landmark Royal birthday with the release of her new Netflix series before it was delayed in light of the devastating fires raging through the outer Los Angeles area.
Jan. 15, previously the release date for With Love, Meghan — the duchess’ brand-new lifestyle reality series — is also the birthday of Princess Michael of Kent, who turns a very round 80 years old on Wednesday. Meghan and the princess, born Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, have been at odds once in the past.
Princess Michael of Kent’s many controversies
The late Queen Elizabeth II’s first cousin by marriage, Princess Michael of Kent, borrows her name from her husband — Prince Michael of Kent — whom she married in 1978. Prince Michael is one of nine grandchildren of King George V, along with the late queen, and her sister Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. He is 52nd in line to the British throne as of 2024.
Before that, however, Michael had to forfeit his place in the royal order of succession in order to marry his current wife, since she was a Catholic divorcee. That old-fashioned decision was, of course, walked back in 2015 after 2013’s Succession to the Crown Act changed some of the rules.
But that wasn’t the only controversy surrounding Marie-Christine after she married into the British Royal Family. In 1985, the Daily Mirror revealed that her father had been a member of the Nazi paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (the SS). According to royal biographer Tina Brown, per the Daily Mail, this earned her the nickname of ‘The Fuhrer’ by Princess Diana.
Diana’s daughter-in-law, Meghan, might also not be Princess Michael of Kent’s biggest fan as, in 2017, she wore a brooch that could be considered racist to the Queen’s Christmas lunch. The jewelry depicted a Black man wearing a turban and is believed to be an example of Blackamoor, a visual motif typically found in Early Modern European decorative art featuring African men in lavish clothing. Its ties to the colonial era and slavery have led historians to label Blackamoor as racist or culturally insensitive.
Meghan, who had just initiated her life in the Royal Family as Prince Harry’s girlfriend at the time, reportedly wondered if Marie-Christine, who was then 72, was trying to send her some kind of message. “In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias,” Harry said of his royal relatives in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan years later. Princess Michael was quick to apologize for causing distress, noting that the infamous brooch was “a gift and has been worn many times before.”
Los Angeles native Meghan has been participating in fire relief efforts
Although Meghan’s solo return to the screens was much anticipated, as a Los Angeles native, the devastation of the wildfires that have been affecting the region for a week now has hit close to home for the duchess.
Meghan, along with Harry, has been an active participant in relief efforts, “red flag warning” for “extreme fire danger” thanks to the unrelenting Santa Ana winds. They have not been told to evacuate so far.
With Love, Meghan is now scheduled to hit Netflix on March 4, 2025.
Published: Jan 15, 2025 11:29 am