A former magazine editor issued a scathing remark about Meghan Markle, seemingly in reference to her life after quitting royal duties in 2020. Just before her engagement to Prince Harry was announced, Meghan was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair’s September 2017 issue in an article which declared she was “Wild About Harry.”
While speaking with Interview Magazine, former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, answered a series of quick-fire questions and described Meghan Markle in a five-word takedown, as “The Undine Spragg of Montecito”. For those unfamiliar, his reference was to the main character in The Custom of the Country, a tragicomedy by author Edith Wharton that was published in 1913.
The book tells the story of Spragg, a social-climbing female who moves from the Midwest to try to make it in New York City’s high society.
Spragg then marries a man from Manhattan’s high society, but she’s never satisfied because of her greed and ambition. Spragg devours various men of stature through marriage and separations, all to obtain her goal success in the big city.
This is not the first time that a writer has compared Meghan to that of Wharton’s book character. In 2021, author Claire Messud juxtaposed Spragg to Meghan in a piece for The New York Times Style Magazine.
She wrote: “For these women, marriage often works like a business, a carefully calculated investment in the future. But perhaps the present-day celebrity who most readily recalls Undine Spragg is Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, or Rachel Meghan Markle of Woodland Hills, California, as she once was.”
Graydon Carter has previously recalled his initial reaction when Meghan was suggested for a Vanity Fair cover in 2017, which was one of his last as editor. He said: “I have no idea who that is.”
During that interview, Carter claimed Meghan questioned the journalist, asking: “Excuse me, is this going to all be about Prince Harry? Because I thought we were going to be talking about my charities and my philanthropy.”
According to Valentine Low’s book, ‘Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown’, Meghan was unhappy that, despite being a positive piece, the focus of the story was her relationship with Harry.
A source told him: “She was very unhappy with how that had been handled. And she was looking to throw blame in every possible direction, despite it having been a positive piece. She did not like the photographs. She thought the story was negative. She was upset that it was about Harry, not about her.”
She also allegedly complained that the cover line was racist, as reported in the Daily Mail, and the couple reportedly tried to have the headline on the digital edition changed.