Meghan: A Hollywood Princess(47)
The difficulty of finding someone “willing to take me on” was an issue that was always at the back of his mind every time he met someone new. Were they attracted to him for his personality or his title? As one of his friends pointed out: “You have to be a very special girl to want to be a princess.”
As Meghan Markle nestled back in her seat in preparation for landing at Heathrow Airport, she had love and marriage on her mind. The actor was returning from a long weekend on the Greek island of Hydra, once home to the lugubrious poet and singer Leonard Cohen. It had been several days of wine, red mullet, hummus, and incredible yoga moves as Meghan; her best friend from college, Lindsay Jill Roth; and Lindsay’s bridesmaids discussed wedding dresses, veils, flowers, the past, and the future. Her relationship with celebrity chef Cory Vitiello had ended recently, withered on the vine as both their lives became busier and busier, and Meghan relished time away from Toronto and the house they had shared there.
As matron of honor to Lindsay, who since leaving Northwestern had embarked on a career as a TV producer and novelist, Meghan had taken her role very seriously, considerately organizing the bachelorette party on this beautiful Greek resort island rather than some raucous downtown club. “There is something wholly cathartic about being able to turn it all off—to sunbathe with no one watching, swim, eat copious amounts and toast to the day,” she wrote in her blog, The Tig. The mini vacation was a triumph, as was her earlier surprise invitation asking Lindsay to Toronto, where she had arranged a wedding dress fitting at the upmarket Kleinfeld Hudson’s Bay bridal boutique (its New York sister store was made famous by the TV show Say Yes to the Dress) with the help of another of her great friends, Jessica Mulroney, who worked in public relations for the bridal shop. Lindsay, who was marrying a British actuary, viewed a selection of dresses and fell in love with a wedding gown from fashionable Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad, who has dressed many of the Hollywood’s elite, including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Katy Perry.
Having executed her duties as the impeccable bridesmaid, once she arrived in London Meghan now went looking for her own prince charming.
With more than 300,000 Twitter followers, a morning breakfast show, and a friendship with then Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Simon Cowell, media royalty Piers Morgan was a favorable catch for an up-and-coming actor seeking her name in headlines. After all, her week-long visit to London was mainly to promote the upcoming season of Suits and to dress to impress at Wimbledon, where her sponsor Ralph Lauren held (center) court.
Already Twitter buddies who had enjoyed an energetic back-and-forth online, she contacted Piers on June 29 while she was sitting in the stands watching her friend, tennis legend Serena Williams, at Wimbledon. She suggested they meet. They arranged an early evening drink at his local pub, the Scarsdale Tavern in Kensington. Piers was a Suits aficionado, but this was the first time he had met “Rachel Zane” in the flesh. He recalled: “She looked every inch the Hollywood superstar—very slim, very leggy, very elegant, and impossibly glamorous.” Or as the landlord put it, “a stunner.”
As she sipped a dirty martini they chatted about Suits, her background, her days as a briefcase girl, gun control in America, her passion for calligraphy, women’s rights, and her one-time ambition to be a TV presenter. Piers was duly flattered and impressed; “Fabulous, warm, funny, intelligent, and highly entertaining,” he later recalled. “She seemed real, too. Not one of those phony actress types so prevalent in California.”
At eight o’clock, she left for her dinner date at the private members’ club 5 Hertford Street amid a flurry of texts, observing that she was recently single, “out of practice” with the dating scene and trying to fend off “persistent men.”
Was Meghan leaving a media prince to meet the real thing? Though Piers has a track record as a celebrity Cupid—I was at the lunch where he first introduced Paul McCartney to Heather Mills, whom he later married—it is doubtful a woman as socially careful and perkily camera ready as Meghan would have downed a couple of stiff martinis before meeting the queen’s grandson.
Professionally, the reason for her visit to London in the first place was to promote the new season of Suits and designer Ralph Lauren. Her big day was June 30, so she had to be bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready for another afternoon of dazzling smiles—and the odd glass of champagne.
With her networking hat on, Meghan was working closely with Violet von Westenholz, a Ralph Lauren PR executive, who had organized her “Suits Day” and her marketing efforts on behalf of the RL fashion brand. “How much more can I adore this gem,” an effusive Meghan wrote of her new bestie. It’s worth noting that not only is Violet a well-connected fashion maven but her father, Baron Piers von Westenholz, an upmarket interior designer, is a friend of Prince Charles while her sister, Victoria, was once seen as a possible match for Prince Harry.
For years Violet and Victoria had joined Princes Charles, William, and Harry on their annual skiing trips to Switzerland. While she has been modest about her matchmaking skills—“I might leave that for other people to say,” she told the Daily Telegraph—it seems likely that she set up Meghan and Harry on their famous blind date timed to coincide with his return from a World War One commemoration in France.
Meghan has always been very careful to emphasize that they met in July, insisting that Vanity Fair magazine, which had published a flattering article about her, print a correction when they indicated that the couple first met in May 2016 in Toronto. If Violet had the royal connections, then Meghan’s friend Canadian-born Markus Anderson, the brand ambassador for the exclusive Soho House, who had just returned from a holiday in Madrid with Meghan, was on hand to rustle up a private room at the members’ only club for an intimate evening away from prying eyes.