Hours after Gloria Steinem died at 92, Meghan Markle posted a long, misty tribute to her “friend and mentor,” calling her “Glo,” quoting “we are linked, not ranked,” and wrapping herself once again in the story she has told for years: the little girl who became a feminist at 11 by writing to Procter & Gamble about a dishwashing-soap ad and getting on Nickelodeon.
The internet answered with a photograph.
Meghan, college-age, grinning in a crowd in a white tank top stamped with the Playboy bunny. Not a metaphor. Not a costume for an exposé. A party shirt.
Critics did not invent the contrast. Meghan did, by turning another woman’s death into another chapter of the Sussex brand.
The tribute — and the timing
Steinem died peacefully in New York on September 2. On September 3, Meghan published three personal photos: the 2020 backyard “chat,” Steinem with a toddler Archie, the two women pressed cheek to cheek in Steinem’s apartment. The caption was long, intimate, and unmistakably on-brand. Public work on voting. Thanksgiving at the Montecito house. Tea and “unrivalled cheekiness.” A bracelet she still wears “with pride.”
What it did not include: any recognition that Steinem spent part of her career attacking the very sexual marketplace Meghan once wore on her chest for a laugh.
In 1963, Steinem went undercover as a Playboy Bunny in Manhattan for Show magazine. “A Bunny’s Tale” documented low pay, demerits for a dirty cotton tail, compulsory medical exams, and men who looked at the women as objects. Steinem later called the assignment a professional trap — the bunny pictures followed her for decades.
That is what “Glo infiltrated the Playboy Club” actually means. She did it to expose the club. Meghan wore the logo.
Gloria Steinem in 1963, undercover as a Playboy Bunny for the exposé she later said haunted her career:
The origin myth she never lets die
Meghan’s feminist origin story is polished to a high shine. At 11, she objected to an Ivory/Procter & Gamble line about “women all over America” fighting greasy pots and pans, wrote a letter, appeared on Nick News, and the slogan was changed to “people.” It is a real episode. It is also the one childhood anecdote she has recycled through interviews, speeches, the Ms. Foundation stage, and now a death notice.
College is the chapter she prefers not to narrate. Northwestern, Kappa Kappa Gamma, theater and international relations, the years of modeling and Deal or No Deal and the long, hungry climb through Hollywood. The Playboy tank is not a crime. It is a tell. The woman who now lectures the world on dignity, “linked not ranked,” and the sacred work of Gloria Steinem once thought Hugh Hefner’s rabbit was a cute top for a night out.
Critics who posted the picture this week were not subtle: if the Nickelodeon letter is the proof she was a feminist at 11, the bunny tank is the proof the brand has always been selective.
Harry’s role in the performance
Prince Harry is not a bystander. He is the amplifier.
He walked into the 2020 Steinem conversation and, according to Meghan, announced, “You know that I’m a feminist too, right Gloria?!” as if the imprimatur of a working-class icon could wash the monarchy, the Netflix deals, the victim memoir, and the family demolition campaign. He has spent six years selling the couple as moral authorities while they cashed the contracts that Megxit made possible.
The Sussexes are now back in Britain — children in a pricey prep school, Montecito house still in play, acting talks for Meghan on a Guy Ritchie Netflix series, security still the open wound. The return is being sold as family, health, a “new chapter.” The old chapter is still on the internet: Oprah, the “racism” claims the Palace said “some recollections may vary,” Spare, the endless content machine.
Harry did not invent Meghan’s self-mythology. He married it, funded it, and used it as a wrecking ball against his own family. That is the condemnation he has earned.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, back in the public frame after their return to Britain:
What the pile-on actually shows
The same posts that revived the Playboy tank also dragged in the familiar swamp: old bikini and yacht pictures, screenshots from conspiracy blogs alleging “yacht girl” work, hush money, even NXIVM. Those graver claims have been repeatedly challenged or left unproven by fact-checkers; some viral “yacht” images have been misidentified. They should not be treated as courtroom fact.
They do show something else. The instant Meghan attaches herself to a dead feminist saint, a large part of the public reaches for every photograph that undercuts the halo. That reflex exists because the halo was built on demand. Meghan does not merely mourn. She curates. She names the mentor, produces the unseen family photo, restates the childhood letter, and waits for the coverage.
Steinem’s actual record is more complicated than any Instagram caption. She called Meghan’s “princess” status “a problem.” She said America had a revolution to get rid of royalty. She still sat for the backyard interview and later handed Meghan a Ms. Foundation award. Friendship and flattery are not the same as an endorsement of the Sussex project.
The brand, not the bunny
A college tank top does not disqualify anyone from caring about women’s rights. What it does is puncture the Sussex habit of speaking as if Meghan invented seriousness at age 11 and never again made a frivolous, status-hungry, image-managed choice.
She did. Repeatedly. The Playboy logo on a party shirt is the least of it. The larger indictment is the couple’s six-year pattern: attack the institution, monetize the rupture, wrap every season in a cause, and treat criticism as proof of persecution.
Gloria Steinem went into the Playboy Club to write down what the men in the room were doing to the women in the costume. Meghan put the costume’s logo on her body for a photograph and, decades later, used Steinem’s death to remind the world she has always been one of the good ones.
The picture is still there. The tribute is still there. Readers can hold both at once. That is the part of feminism the Sussexes never quite learned: you do not get to edit the archive just because the caption is long.
