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A COMMONWEALTH PRINCESS?
THE INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF
MEGHAN MARKLE’S RACE TO
CONSTRUCT HER ROYAL PERSONA
JESSIC A CAR NIEL U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H E R N Q U E E N S L A N D
ABSTRACT
Prior to the Sussexes’ departure from their roles as senior royals, there was a
significant attempt to construct for the Duchess of Sussex a specific royal persona that
can be summarized as the “Commonwealth Princess”. There were two main purposes
to this persona. The first was to use both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their
popularity to leverage a more modern face to monarchy in the Commonwealth. The
second purpose, stemming from this, was to maintain and strengthen contemporary
relations with Commonwealth nations. Markle’s biracial identity was an important
part of this strategy and persona as it became a means to connect to colonised people of
colour.
KEY WORDS
Race; Colonialism; Celebrity; Royal Persona
INTRODUCTION
In early 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – known colloquially as Prince Harry and
Meghan Markle - announced that they would be resigning from their roles as senior royals and
departing from the United Kingdom. After a brief stay in Canada (Davison 2020), they
eventually resettled in the United States, in Markle’s home state of California (Evans & Reslin
2021). A year later, the Sussexes gave a televised interview with Oprah that set the world
gossiping. One of the more salacious revelations was that a member of the British royal family
had questioned their union, asking, but what would the children look like (CBS 2021; The Sun
2021)?1 Meghan Markle, after all, is the first person of colour to marry into the British Royal
family, a lineage complicit in the historical and ongoing colonisation of people of colour
worldwide. From the outset, Markle’s (bi)racial identity - as well as her national identity as an
American – presented a core problematic to the Firm for constructing her royal persona, in part
because the main socio-political register for reading her race was colonial in nature (Ducey &
Feagin 2021; Andrews 2021; Andrews 2017; Lynch 2019).
Although these “colonial undertones” (Lynch 2019) were criticised by the Sussexes and
their supporters, these undertones were also instrumentalised by both the Sussexes and the
Firm (as the “business” of the British royal family is known). That is, prior to the Sussexes’
departure from their roles as senior royals in early 2020, there was an ongoing attempt to
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instrumentalise the Duchess of Sussex’s race by the Firm as a strategy to construct a legitimate
space for Meghan Markle in the eyes of the British public and the press, and, at a higher
symbolic level, to maintain and strengthen contemporary relations with the Commonwealth of
Nations. In this article, I argue that both Meghan Markle’s celebrity and royal personas each
incorporated her racial identity, but the latter instrumentalised it to construct a space for
Markle that reinforced rather than challenged the royal brand (Otnes & Maclaran 2015). Critical
race theory (CRT) further illuminates how public personas correspond to social structures and
systems, including race relations. Personas can be used to disrupt or to challenge the status quo
of these relations. CRT also offers an understanding of how royal personas are constructed in a
manner that is adjacent to but distinct from that of celebrity, as illustrated by Markle’s
transition between these two persona forms.
Markle’s racial identity is referred to throughout the article as “biracial” as this is the
identification Markle herself employs (Markle 2016b). She is also referred to throughout the
article primarily as Meghan Markle in recognition of the distinct celebrity persona she had
cultivated independently prior to her relationship with Prince Harry and of the agency she
exhibited in that process (Marshall & Barbour 2015). This also allows us to conceptualise “the
Duchess of Sussex”, and its subset the “Commonwealth princess”, as a separate royal persona
that drew selectively on elements of the celebrity persona “Meghan Markle”. We might
hypothesise that Markle’s current public persona since stepping down from royal duties is now
a hybrid of the two, wherein her agency - arguably compromised by the rigidity of the royal
institution and its publicity mechanisms – has been reinstated.
The article opens with a discussion of methodology, celebrity and royal personas as
interrelated concepts, and the usefulness of critical race theory in thinking about the racialized
British social structure that Markle entered. It then explores Markle’s celebrity persona prior to
her marriage, focusing specifically on the role that racial identity played in her narrativisation of
self through her blog and commissioned pieces for other publications. Markle’s explicit self-
identification as biracial has been a point of personal agency for Markle, but it has also
complicated her professional roles as both an actress and as a royal. The cultivation of the
“Commonwealth princess” by the Firm as a specific role for Markle’s royal persona sought to
carve for her a symbolic function that made sense within the British social order of monarchy
and colonialism, but that did not subvert it.
METHODOLOGY
We can identify two phases in Markle’s persona work prior to her departure from royal duties
in 2020: her celebrity phase and her royal phase; her persona work following the Sussexes’
departure from their roles as senior royals signals a third phase that is not dealt with in this
article. As persona is a mediatized phenomenon, this study focuses on publicly available media
texts that contribute to an understanding of how Meghan Markle’s celebrity and royal personas
have been both constructed and received. This includes sources authored by Markle herself,
such as her blog and commissioned magazine articles, social media accounts, official websites
for members of the royal family, print and television interviews, and media commentary. The
division between texts that contribute to her celebrity persona and those that contribute to her
royal persona are roughly chronological, with the demarcation between the two personas
located at the point where Markle’s blog and personal social media accounts were closed in
2017. This was widely – and correctly – interpreted as preparation for her new role as a
member of the royal family.
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Markle’s blog, The Tig, and her articles are particularly useful for understanding her
celebrity persona prior to her marriage. Her article for Darling, titled “It’s All Enough” (Markle
2018; originally published 2015) reflects on the relationship between ambition and self-
fulfilment. The first ELLE article, “I’m More Than An Other” (Markle 2016b; originally published
2015), articulates her biracial identity. The publication of Markle’s second ELLE article, “With
Fame Comes Opportunity, But Also A Responsibility” (2016a), coincides with Prince Harry’s
first statement admonishing the press’ treatment of his partner (Vallance 2016). This second
ELLE article, together with The Tig, are particularly useful artefacts to examine in
understanding Markle’s pre-royal celebrity persona as they are her own public articulations of
self, identity, and image.
The Tig ran from 2014 until 2017. It was self-described as “a hub for the discerning
palate - those with a hunger for food, travel, fashion & beauty” (The Tig 2017). Markle (2018)
also described it as something that “has given me a space to share my own words, to have my
own voice”. In its first year, The Tig made “Best of the Web” lists for both ELLE and InStyle. An
article in Cosmopolitan later suggested that The Tig “was well on its way to becoming the next
Goop—or at least Preserve” (Barbour 2020), referring to lifestyle blogs by actresses Gwyneth
Paltrow and Blake Lively, echoing an earlier assessment by Vanity Fair (Duboff 2017). Such
blogs, Ana Jorge (2020) argues, use the narration of everyday lives to assist celebrities in the
creation of an authentic persona for their audiences and fans. In an interview with InStyle
magazine regarding the blog’s launch, Markle emphasises this notion of authenticity: “I figured
that if I was going to start something that was an extension of me, it really needed to feel
organic, so I decided to do it myself—I write all of the content myself in order to keep the
content feeling authentic” (Meepos 2014). Authenticity is, as Sarah McRae (2017, p. 24) has
found, carefully monitored by blog audiences who can turn on bloggers whose “authenticity
labour becomes too laboured,” as this is interpreted as a marker of inauthenticity. She suggests
that although persona studies’ important contribution to cultural studies scholarship is its
renewed emphasis on personal agency over “collective configurations of meaning” (Moore &
Barbour 2015, p. 8), the incorporation of feedback from publics “can add productive nuance to
considerations of the decisions that go into persona work” (McRae 2017, p. 15).
Without an ethnographic engagement with Markle’s fans, perceptions of her persona
and authenticity labour are gleaned from media responses to her blog. While tabloids scanned
the blog for missteps and inauthenticity (see, for example, Elser 2021), fashion and culture sites
(arguably Markle’s most consistent media allies) praised the quality of its content, drawing on
notions of authenticity and personal insight. Vogue Australia, for example, frame it as “partly a
hobby in that we didn’t see any evidence of her commercialising the blog and yet it was
regularly updated and featured everything from delicious recipes to her latest musings on
female empowerment” (Gay 2020). Duboff’s (2017) analysis of the blog soon after Markle’s
relationship with Prince Harry was revealed concludes: “Upon analysis, a theme emerges:
Markle seems pretty low-key! For the most part, Markle comes off as a practical (if occasionally
quite whimsical), individual”.
The second phase of Markle’s persona, that of the royal persona and its Commonwealth
princess iteration, is constructed from media reportage, commentary and the select few
interviews she has conducted since her engagement and marriage. While “persona work”
(Marshall, Barbour & Moore 2019, p. 3) for high profile individuals is often conducted by teams
of professional support staff, such as publicists and managers, for celebrities as much as for
royals, the modern British royal family is known for its careful mediation of its public image
(Chaney 2001). That Markle’s blog and social media accounts were closed shortly before her
engagement indicates a handing-over of that persona work to her royal staff. With the exception
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of the handful of interviews Markle conducted following her engagement, analysis of this royal
persona rests predominantly on media reportage, commentary, and official social media
accounts for the Sussexes.
PUBLIC PERSONA: FROM CELEBRITY TO ROYAL
While there is a substantial body of work in celebrity studies engaged with royalty as a
particular iteration of celebrity (see, for example, Rojek 2001; Turner 2004; Bennett 2011;
Logan, Hamilton & Hewer 2013; Randall-Moon 2017), similar work in persona studies is
relatively new. Meghan Markle presents an interesting case to examine from the perspectives of
both celebrity studies and persona studies, illustrating at once the slippage between the two
areas and the unique critical possibilities each offers.
The concept of celebrity rests upon a notion of fame that can be experienced and
enacted at varying levels. Chris Rojek’s (2001) typology of celebrity comprises three categories:
celebrity that is achieved through talent and accomplishment, celebrity that is attributed
through media manufacturing (such as but not limited to reality television celebrities), and
ascribed celebrity, that is, fame achieved through heredity rather than talent, skill, or
accomplishment; royals fall into this third category. While this understanding of celebrity might
readily apply to Prince William and Prince Harry, its application to their commoner wives is less
straightforward. Furthermore, unlike Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle had attained her own
celebrity status prior to her relationship. As a working actress, Markle was undoubtedly
successful but her “celebrity” was minor; as she herself describes, had “never been part of
tabloid culture”, living a “relatively quiet life even though [she] was so focused on [her] job”
(Messer & Rothman 2017). This is also reflected in some dimensions of Markle’s public
reception. For example, the school-aged girls in Yelin and Paule’s (2021) study distinguished
between achieved and ascribed celebrity. They responded positively to Markle precisely
because they perceived her to be opposite (hardworking, black, and a successful celebrity-
through-accomplishment) to their perceptions of the royal family (white, lazy, and ineffectual).
The concept of persona is arguably more useful than celebrity for examining the public
selves of the British royal family. Persona is not contingent upon fame, but it does share with the
concept of celebrity a critical tension between the public and the private, and ideas of mediation
and construction. Persona is something arguably practiced by most, if not all, members of
(post)modern society as they negotiate the presentation of self in an increasingly mediatised
society. Marshall, Barbour, and Moore (2019, p. 238) define persona as a “strategic public
identity that is neither the true individual nor a false individual…It is a performance of the self
for strategies to be used in some public setting”. They emphasise that persona is not
synonymous with celebrity, but argue for an understanding of celebrity as a subset of persona
(Marshall, Barbour & Moore 2019, p. 4). In addition to how their celebrity is attained, the royal
family’s symbolic status in British society necessitates the cultivation of a public identity that
serves their symbolic role in a manner that differs from standard celebrity (Maclaran & Otnes
2020). These public identities are constructed differently for each member of the senior royal
ranks, particularly if we consider their assignment of duties as both aligning to and reinforcing
their designated persona. Perhaps the best equivalent is Marshall, Barbour, and Moore’s (2019,
p. 3) example of the politician whose persona might be constructed to strengthen their appeal to
the specifics of their constituency. Royals, however, differ yet again. Unlike politicians, they are
not elected to their role so do not have to appeal to constituents in quite the same way.
Nevertheless, in an era where the institution of the monarchy is frequently questioned and
debated, the Firm has a vested interest in cultivating and maintaining personas that reinforce
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the monarchy’s significance and relevance to modern British and Commonwealth societies
(Turner 2004; Randall-Moon 2017; Maclaran & Otnes 2020).
Understanding celebrity via its relationship to persona places focus on the practices and
processes of constructing and presenting a public self within the particular cultural and
economic context of the celebrity industry (Turner 2004). Similarly, thinking about royal
celebrity and royal persona highlights the specific context of the British royal family as its own
peculiar industry. The Firm (the ‘business’ of the royal family, including the professional
support staff that manage their image, among other things) is differentiated from the family
(that is, the very human people related to one another), and the institution (the symbolic
function of the monarchy that impacts the business decisions made by the Firm). Royal
personas are shaped by the needs and requirements of the Firm and the institution. Ideally,
each individual person should contribute to and be consistent within the royal brand (Otnes &
Maclaran 2015), which Maclaran and Otnes (2020, p. 14) characterize as “one of the world’s
most famous heritage brands”. The entry of Markle into the royal family highlighted the ethno-
racial dimension of that concept of heritage, necessitating the development of a royal persona
that could help align that heritage with the extant brand.
EXAMINING BRITISH SOCIETY VIA CRITICAL RACE THEORY
Although critical race theory (CRT), originating in the United States, has struggled to gain cache
in British scholarship (Meghji 2020), it is nevertheless useful for analysing the dynamics of race
and the social structure of race in British society. This, in turn, illuminates how Markle’s racial
identity presented a challenge to public perceptions of the monarchy and its heritage.
Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, and Angela Harris (2017, pp. 8-9) identify three main
tenets to CRT. First, racism is ordinary: that is, it is part of the everyday fabric of social life and
therefore difficult to address as its ordinariness can render it almost invisible to those who do
not wish to see it. Second, it is driven by material determinism, which means that those that
benefit from it - both white elites, who benefit materially, and working-class whites, who benefit
psychically - have little incentive to eradicate it. Third, it posits race and racism as the products
of social thought and relations. This forms the activist impetus of CRT as social thought and
relations can be changed, but such change needs to work against both the ordinariness of racism
and the unwillingness of those who benefit from it to change the status quo. Eduardo Bonilla-
Silva’s contribution to CRT, the “racialised social system”, is particularly useful for
understanding how race and persona intersect. He argues that “racialisation forms a real
structure — that racialised groups are hierarchically ordered and ‘social relations’ and
‘practices’ emerge that fit the position of the groups in the racial regime” (Bonilla-Silva 2015, p.
75).
In seeking to find a place for CRT in understanding British society, sociologist Ali Meghji
(2020, p. 352; original emphasis) draws specifically on Bonilla-Silva’s racialised social system to
argue that “race is a central principle of vision in British social space”. They highlight several
instances of microaggressions against Black Brits: Black politicians mistaken for cleaners in
Parliament, Black celebrities eyed askance in the first-class carriage of a train, and Black alumni
treated suspiciously when visiting their top tier universities. In addition to illustrating the
mundaneness of racism, Meghji’s examples all hold something important in common: the Black
individuals are perceived to be transgressing elite spaces of British society that have been
historically constructed as White. The British royal family is such a space par excellence, so it is
perhaps unsurprising that Meghan Markle was perceived as an interloper in that space,
particularly in media reportage (see also Ducey & Feagin 2021).
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Within a week of their courtship being made public in 2016, Prince Harry felt compelled
to release an official statement via his Communications Secretary condemning both media and
public commentary on Markle as “the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the
racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls
and web article comments” and the numerous instances of invasion of privacy and even safety
for Markle, her family, and her friends (Vallance 2016). In their first post-engagement interview
with the BBC, Markle characterised the fixation on her race by the media as “disheartening”
(Messer & Rothman 2017).
Despite this public intervention, the vitriol against Markle continued. In March 2019, the
Royal Family, Clarence House, and Kensington Palace released a set of social media community
guidelines for their social media channels. Both the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of
Sussex in particular had been the subject of sexist and racist comments. In October that year,
Prince Harry yet again made a statement on the British press’ treatment of his wife, connecting
it also to the death of his mother, Princess Diana, as a result of being hounded by paparazzi
(Windsor 2019). This statement coincided with the beginning of Markle’s law suit against the
British tabloid, the Daily Mail, for publishing a letter she had written to her estranged father. A
few weeks later, Markle admitted to ITV’s Tom Bradby, who is also a friend of Prince Harry’s,
that she had been struggling to cope with the media scrutiny while also adapting to her new
roles both as a mother and as member of the royal family (ITV 2019). Later that month, 72
women British MPs signed an open letter to the Duchess of Sussex to express their solidarity
with her in her battle against the British press. They specifically call out “what can only be
described as outdated, colonial undertones” to the stories in the press (Lynch 2019).
Markle’s entry into British society coincides with a period of heightened tensions
around immigration, xenophobia, and amplified British exceptionalism, of which Brexit is
arguably a symptom rather than a cause. Claire Alexander and Bridget Byrne (2020, p. 9)
observe that the last British census in 2011 revealed an ethnically, racially, and religiously
diverse Britain where “migration and multiculturalism form part of the mundane fabric of
everyday life,” yet highlight that a deeper examination of British society reveals how social
structures and attitudes have still not yet adjusted to address ongoing issues of racial and ethnic
inequality, discrimination, and racism. As Paul Gilroy (2002, p. xii) observes in the revised
introduction to his germinal Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (original 1987), “Today, Britain’s
black and other minority settlers still constitute a problem”.
Markle’s race certainly seemed to constitute a “problem” for many. Rachael McLennan
(2021) engages with the metaphor of a “wrinkle”, used in a Vanity Fair profile of Markle, to
explore the challenge Markle’s biracial identity represented to British society and the royal
family. Wrinkles, McLennan (2021, p. 1) explains, are “disruptive, and must be ‘resolved’”, yet
they are also considered minor issues that are smoothed over. As a result, it:
reduces the complexities of the inclusion of a biracial woman in the British royal
family to a ‘wrinkle,’ a minor issue that glosses over racism in relation to the royal
family as institution, and in relation to British cultural attitudes. (McLennan
2021, p. 2)
Maria Pramaggiore and Páraic Kerrigan also use the notion of disruption. They argue that
Markle was branded almost from the outset as a “disruptive duchess” that was furthermore
imbued with “a not-so veiled racism through the longstanding trope of Angry Black Women”
(Pramaggiore & Kerrigan 2021, p. 1). The idea of disruption is, of course, not part of the official
persona constructed for the Duchess of Sussex, but it is arguably an element of Markle’s pre-
duchess persona. After all, a dedication to social justice and humanitarianism requires an
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element of disruption to social structures and attitudes that perpetuate inequality. Importantly,
Pramaggiore and Kerrigan’s (2021, p. 4) analysis extends beyond the idea of Markle’s race or
even her politics as disruptive to highlight how Markle herself is framed as disruptive and
centred within royal family drama to “downplay…the ways her intersectional identities and
humanitarian work enable her to speak to structural racism and gendered inequality on the
global stage”.
Conversely, Markle’s disruptiveness has also be framed positively. Yelin and Paule
(2021, p. 2) suggest that Markle “represents an intervention into a ‘princess culture’ that is
repressively class, gendered and racialised”. Similarly, Connor (2021, p. 5) observes that
“Meghan Markle’s entry into the monarchy as a woman of colour and potential ‘disruptor’
represented an important challenge to the status quo”, although she also cautions again reifying
her influence too much as Markle’s actual (as opposed to symbolic) power in the system is
minimal, as also argued by Buggs (2021) and Andrews (2021).
Some public commentators optimistically heralded the union as a shift toward a modern
British monarchy. For example, British MP David Lammy (2018) tweeted of the wedding, “A
beautiful service and a beautiful couple. Making my beautiful mixed heritage family’s shoulders
stand a little taller. Against the odds a great new symbol of all that is still possible and hopeful in
modern Britain”. Writing in British Vogue before the Sussex wedding, Afua Hirsch describes
Markle’s experiences growing up biracial as “powerfully resonant with [her] own” (Hirsch &
Croft 2018). She highlights how the royal family function as “a blank canvas on to which we, as
British people, paint our feelings, fantasies, fears and identities” (Hirsch & Croft 2018); the
implication is that Markle opens up that projection for all Brits, not just those who are White.
Hirsch’s (2018) commentary in Time is somewhat more circumspect, observing, “There is
discernible weariness among some black British people that the idea of a biracial woman’s
joining the royal family would make any discernible difference to race in Britain, where the odds
remain stacked against people of color”. By the time of their departure from their senior royal
roles, Hirsch (2020) was “not at all surprised” that “the racism of the British establishment” had
driven Markle out. The importance of race in their conceptualisation of modernity positions
traditional structures that maintain White hierarchies as outdated.
MORE THAN AN OTHER: MARKLE’S ARTICULATION OF A BIRACIAL SELF
Writing for ELLE magazine in 2015, Markle articulated the challenges of her biracial identity in
American society and as an actress. Although it was not her first foray into the topic - it
regularly surfaced in her personal posts on The Tig - the essay marks her most in-depth and
widely published exploration of her identity. She wrote, “I wasn’t black enough for the black
roles and I wasn’t white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the
ethnic chameleon who couldn’t book a job” (Markle 2016b). Early in the essay, Markle recalls
being told by her seventh-grade teacher to check “Caucasian” in a class census “because that is
how you look, Meghan” (Markle 2016b). Although her parents were divorced by this stage,
Markle’s father was incensed to learn of his daughter’s experience: “If that happens again, you
draw your own box” (Markle 2016b). Markle uses “draw[ing her] own box” as an analogy for
carving out a post-racial identity and claiming agency in this process.
Markle identifies quite explicitly as biracial. Her mother, Doria Ragland, is Black and her
father, Thomas Markle, from whom she is infamously estranged, is White. As the essay details,
this has led to a variety of experiences that illuminate a binary racial politics in America that had
not made adequate room for the realities of its people and their history. Markle embraces
biraciality as a specific identity, rejecting the notion that it relegates her to “other”, whether that
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is in demographic categorisation or social acceptance. It is only since the 2000 US Census -
several years after Markle’s classroom census - that Americans were able to identify as more
than one race. Studies have found that denying the option to choose a bi- or multiracial identity
is “associated with lower self-esteem and decreased motivational outcomes” (Townsend et al
2012, p. 91). Certainly, Markle’s (2016b) own narrative of racial identification illustrates this;
she leaves the box blank, “a question mark, an absolute incomplete - much like how I felt”. The
essay then works to detail how Markle (2016b) was able to emerge from the “grey area
surrounding [her] self-identification” to find agency and empowerment in having “a foot on
both sides of the fence”. As Buggs (2021, p. 2) observes, Markle’s biraciality provides “agency in
its ambiguity”.
Yet as an actress, she was later classed as “ethnically ambiguous” (Markle 2016b), which
technically opened up both Latina and Black roles to her but, as the quote above indicates,
equally closed off other roles from her because she was never perceived as quite enough one
thing or another to fit stereotyped expectations of characters. She credits her eventual success
in Suits to its colourblind casting process, wherein they sought the character not an ethnic or
racial type. The character of Rachel Zane was then written to be biracial around her, although
not all viewers realised this until dark-skinned actor Wendell Pierce appeared as her father in
the second season. Markle recalls a variety of racist responses from viewers denying that she or
her character were Black to others claiming that they found her unattractive now that they
knew that she was. She reflected, “The reaction was unexpected, but speaks of the undercurrent
of racism that is so prevalent, especially within America” (Markle 2016b).
Despite Markle’s characterisation of biraciality as a source of personal empowerment,
Kehinde Andrews (2021, p. 5) cautions against “solidifying the category of mixed race”. He
argues that the majority of those descended from the enslaved, such as Markle herself, are likely
to be mixed to some extent: “Designating someone as mixed because they have one White
parent reifies the idea of race itself: that the mixing of two different heritages creates something
new, different and remarkable” (Andrews 2021, p. 5). These concerns are supported by the
findings of Nikki Khanna’s (2011) study of biracial identities and the practice of symbolic
ethnicity. Participants frequently claimed their White ethnic heritages as a means of
differentiating their identities beyond the presumption of what their Blackness signified to
others. That is, because their Blackness is what is initially perceived, claiming their White
ethnicities becomes an important practice for articulating the complexities of their identities;
the implication of this is that their Black identities are homogenous. Khanna (2011, p. 1063)
concludes that participants’ assertion of biracial identities “do more than navigate the existing
American racial hierarchy that relegates blacks to the lowest rung; their actions also reproduce
the hierarchy”.
In contrast to Andrews’ and Khanna’s wariness of valorising mixed-race discourse,
Māori scholar Helene Connor demonstrates how Markle’s embrace of her mixed heritage was
actually an important source of connection and kinship in the Māori reception of Meghan
Markle. Connor identifies intermarriage and its resulting biraciality, characterised within the
context of New Zealand’s official biculturalism (Bell 2006; Sibley & Liu 2007), as important to
Māori history and identity. She states, “Meghan’s bi-culturalism gives her greater symbolic
power, as she is seen to represent an experience of biculturalism that is relatable and, for Māori,
universal” (Connor 2021, p. 2). While Connor’s (2021, pp. 3-5) examples from the New Zealand
reception of Markle while on the Sussexes’ Commonwealth tour in late 2018 certainly support
her observation, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge the complexities of New Zealand’s
colonial and migration history and the operations of race within these. For example, Adalgisa
Giorgio and Carla Houkamau’s (2021) study of Māori Italians found that while participants
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embraced hybridity as a source of empowerment, they were still vulnerable to racism and
marginalisation from both Māori and Pakeha (settler) communities. For members of New
Zealand society who share similar experiences to Giorgio and Houkamau’s participants - they
cite several studies about other ethnic groups that reached similar conclusions about biracial
and bicultural hybridity in New Zealand (cited in Giorgio & Houkamau 2021) - Markle may
indeed have represented a relatable experience of biraciality, but for others she might have
represented marginalisation. Whether a source of relatability or marginalisation, Markle’s
mixed identity was nevertheless perceived as less extraordinary in New Zealand than it was in
the United Kingdom, but also charged with an entirely different politics of race than that of the
United States. The differing perspectives of Andrews and Connor as British and New Zealand
scholars respectively highlight the specificity of racial politics even within the Commonwealth
and it is important to emphasise that that these are examples from only two sites.
Unlike her experience with casting agents, as a member of the British royal family, there
was nothing ambiguous about Markle’s race. Furthermore, she was an American and a divorcee,
not a historically strong position to have amongst this particular set of in-laws. Markle was thus
marked by both her skin colour and her accent as Other to that elite context, and her behaviour
was scrutinised for evidence of her unsuitability, more so than Kate Middleton before her,
criticisms of whom were primarily (and arguably misguidedly) class-based (Lawler 2008; Repo
& Yrjölä 2015). Pramaggiore and Kerrigan (2021, p. 2) observe that comparisons by the press
between Markle and Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936,
worked to present Markle “as a threat to the very institution of the monarchy”. Given this
context, it was important to mitigate the narrative of Markle as a threat and instead present her
as a potentially unifying figure for the Commonwealth.
THE COMMONWEALTH PRINCESS: A PERSONA TO SMOOTH THE “PROBLEM” OF
MARKLE’S RACE
Prior to the Sussexes’ eventual departure, the Firm’s strategy seemed to be to instrumentalise
precisely the aspect of Markle that was problematic: her race. If Markle’s race could not be
hidden, it needed to be made useful. In addition to the usefulness of connecting to a racially
diverse British public, Markle’s race was a potential strategy to maintain and strengthen
contemporary relations with Commonwealth nations. As a Whitehall insider was reported to
observe regarding a rumour that Markle would attend the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London:
The Royals pack a formidable soft power punch around the world as it is, but
Meghan’s presence at the summit would propel CHOGM coverage to the front
pages…Which is just what we want when projecting a positive vision of Britain
overseas. (Samhan 2018)
As part of the CHOGM proceedings, held one month before the Sussex wedding, it was
announced that Prince Harry and Markle would take on the role of Commonwealth Youth
Ambassadors (Gonzales 2018). In his inaugural speech in this role, Prince Harry emphasised an
image of a youthful, environmentally-conscious, connected and, importantly, diverse
Commonwealth, and deliberately mentions Meghan’s excitement to be joining him in this role
(Dunn 2018). The Sussexes’ role in the Commonwealth was cemented with a sixteen-day tour of
the Commonwealth, as well as taking on the further role of President and Vice-President of the
Queen’s Commonwealth Trust (Sussex Royal n.d.), which supports young people’s activities
toward change in their communities (Queen’s Commonwealth Trust n.d.) and which was
amongst the last of their official duties that they relinquished. Markle’s potential - and her
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willingness - to take on duties in the Commonwealth as a core part of her royal role is indicated
by her wedding veil, which was embroidered with the flowers of the Commonwealth. This
reportedly surprise detail apparently pleased both Prince Harry and his family (Mackelden
2018). In a 2018 HBO documentary, interestingly titled Queen of the World, Markle stated, “we
[the Sussexes] understand how important this is for us and the role that we play, and the work
that we're going to continue to do within the Commonwealth countries” (cited in Mackeldan
2018). Markle had also spoken enthusiastically about their role in the Commonwealth as early
as the Sussexes’ first interview with the BBC following their engagement (Messer & Rothman
2017). That this is framed in light of her humanitarianism is, perhaps, telling of how the
Commonwealth is constructed and perceived by the Firm, but these elements were also
highlighted in other media coverage of Markle’s Commonwealth role (Gonzales 2018).
The optics resulting from the Sussexes’ first tour of the Commonwealth and their later
tour of Africa were less problematic than those of the Cambridges’ tour in 2012. In both Tuvalu
and the Solomon Islands, Prince William and Kate Middleton were carried on thrones; while this
can be understood as a traditional interaction, the colonial implications are clear. As Holly
Randall-Moon (2017, p. 405) observes, media reporting on Prince William’s royal visits to
Commonwealth nations “focuse[s] on his ability to adapt to local (Indigenous) customs while
maintaining a curative aura of divine charisma”. She argues that the use of celebrity tropes to
frame Prince William “displaces the racialised and religious sovereign features of monarchy”,
and further legitimises ongoing colonialism (Randall-Moon 2017, p. 405). Although the optics
might be better – there were no thrones on the Sussexes’ tour – the effect of the Sussexes’
presence is not only the same but arguably more problematic because a reading of the Duke and
Duchess of Sussex - and Markle specifically - as the more appropriate sovereign representatives
in the Commonwealth rests upon an essentialised reading of Markle’s race.
The centrality of the Commonwealth to the Sussexes’ future role, as planned by the Firm,
was foreshadowed as early as their first interview with the BBC after their engagement, and
resurfaces as part of the interview with Oprah in 2021. This interview in particular indicates
Markle’s willingness to inhabit the Commonwealth princess role, and her particular suitability
because of her race. She frames herself as a potential role model for young girls of colour and
suggests that the Firm had lost an advantage in this space:
I would meet [young women of colour] in our time in the Commonwealth, how
much it meant to them to be able to see someone who looks like them . . . in this
position. And I could never understand how it wouldn’t be seen as an added
benefit… and a reflection of the world today. At all times, but especially right now,
to go — ‘how inclusive is that, that you can see someone who looks like you in this
family, much less one who’s born into it?’ (The Sun 2021)
As Andrews (2021, pp. 3-4) argues, the royal family’s “Whiteness is not a coincidence, it is the
point....Celebrating a Black princess may make us feel better, but it does not change any of the
realities of structural racism”. The idea of the Commonwealth princess role for Markle – or the
“post-racial princess” for Andrews (2021, p. 2) – does not solve the problematics of postcolonial
race relations in either the UK or other Commonwealth nations, but in many ways reinforces
them. After all, the argument that, as a princess of colour, she represents something to which
young girls of colour can aspire to rests upon the maintenance of the monarchy and the
Commonwealth as institutions, not their disruption or dismantling.
Persona Studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1
43
CONCLUSION
Meghan Markle’s transition from celebrity to royal offers rich material for exploring the
slippage between celebrity and persona, and the royal subset of these categories. All personas
are strategic public identities (Marshall, Moore & Barbour 2015), but royal personas in
particular need to serve the symbolic role and status of the royal family and monarchy in British
society. As a celebrity marrying into the British royal family, she brought her achieved celebrity
into a context of ascribed celebrity (Rojek 2001), but perhaps more importantly, she brought
with her an established celebrity persona. While royalty and celebrity might share the concept
of fame, a celebrity persona does not immediately adapt into a royal persona because of the
significant differences in their socio-cultural and political functions, as well as the specificities of
the celebrity industry versus the institution of the monarchy and the business of the Firm.
Royal persona requires a new strategy and a reshaping of public identity to fit the
requirements of not just the individual role, but the overarching brand and narrative of the
royal family (Otnes & Maclaran 2015; Maclaran & Otnes 2020). Markle was both a challenge and
an opportunity to those working to cultivate the royal brand and its associated personas, such
as their publicity and communications staff. She was an opportunity to push a more modern
face for the royal family, but she was also a challenge because, fanned by British tabloid culture,
her racial identity itself signaled a transgression and disruption of the ‘tradition’ of the
monarchy – a tradition built upon race and empire (Pramaggiore & Kerrigan 2021).
The British royal family serves as a blank canvas for the British people to project their
“feelings, fantasies, fears, and identities” (Hirsch & Croft 2018). Both fears of the Other and
change, and fantasies of inclusion and modernity were projected on Markle throughout her brief
career as a working royal. Markle’s otherness - her work ethic, her race, her nationality -
positions her outside the royal family while still being an insider due to her marriage. This
insider-outsider tension reflects the dynamics of Commonwealth belonging both within the
United Kingdom and in those nations outside of it. Aided in part by the celebrity persona Markle
had carefully curated prior to her relationship with Prince Harry, the Firm coopted Markle’s
existing public self, particularly her racial identity, to diffuse criticism of the royal family as
outdated in the context of contemporary British society and the modern Commonwealth
(Randall-Moon 2017). The Commonwealth princess iteration of Markle’s royal persona signaled
an instrumentalization of Markle’s race by the Firm to carve for her a symbolic function that
made sense within the British social order of monarchy and colonialism. Despite its appearance
of modernity and progress, this persona functioned to maintain rather than to subvert the
status quo.
END NOTES
1 American journalist Christopher Andersen alleges in an unauthorised biography of the
Cambridges and the Sussexes, released November 2021, that this family member was Prince
Charles. Clarence House (the residence of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall that is
metonymic for official statement on behalf of these royals) has denied these claims as “fiction
and not worth further comment” (Grierson 2021; Sachdeva 2021).
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