Meghan Markle has spent recent weeks declaring that her “superpower” is motherhood — the ability to “juggle it all with grace and grit.” In a promotional Q&A for the couple’s latest Archewell production, she told children that being a mum is what makes her special and that her daughter Lilibet inspires her to feel brave.
The internet, and a growing number of observers who have watched the Sussexes’ carefully staged brand for years, is having none of it. The real superpower on display is far less flattering: an almost supernatural talent for turning every opportunity into public embarrassment, alienating the very institutions and audiences they claim to care about, and dragging Prince Harry along for the ride.
Just days after Meghan’s motherhood remarks, the couple’s first theatrical feature as executive producers, the Girl Scout cookie documentary Cookie Queens, collapsed at the box office. It opened to a pitiful $327,797 across 446 screens — roughly $735 per screen — and finished outside the top ten, beaten by a compilation of internet cat videos. Critics had been kind; audiences stayed away. Industry voices called the numbers “pitiful.” One analyst noted the film missed the actual Girl Scout cookie season, but many online observers pointed to a simpler explanation: the Sussex name itself has become box-office poison.
This is only the latest failure in a pattern that stretches back years. Harry’s high-stakes legal war against the British press ended in crushing defeat this summer when a High Court judge dismissed every one of the claims against the Daily Mail’s publisher. The timing could not have been worse — the verdict landed while Harry was in the UK trying to promote Invictus events. Plans for statements were abruptly cancelled. The couple’s security “psychodrama” in the run-up to that visit — leaking claims that protection had been pulled “at the 11th hour” when they had long known the reality — was widely seen as emotional blackmail aimed at the King and the British taxpayer. Meghan and the children initially stayed away, then reversed course for a tightly controlled private meeting that produced no public warmth and left lingering bitterness.
Even their social appearances now invite ridicule. A red-carpet moment at David Foster’s foundation gala in Canada sparked days of speculation that the host had walked past Meghan. Foster later insisted it was positioning for photos and that the couple are “dear friends,” but the viral clip fed the narrative of a woman whose presence creates awkwardness wherever she goes. Meanwhile, Martha Stewart publicly questioned Meghan’s authenticity as a lifestyle figure and implied the duchess had been gossiping about her recent private meeting with King Charles. Meghan’s camp hit back by suggesting Stewart was “confused,” a move royal commentators called “incredibly stupid” given the duchess’s already low public goodwill.
The couple continue to demand privacy while flooding Instagram with curated family holiday dumps from Portugal, Scotland and Althorp — locations they simultaneously claim must be protected from paparazzi. Polls show Meghan’s favourability in Britain scraping historic lows. Hollywood interest has cooled. Their Netflix deal has produced diminishing returns. And every attempt at “reconciliation” with the royal family seems to reopen old wounds rather than heal them.
Prince Harry, once a popular working royal with genuine military service and the Invictus Games to his name, now appears reduced to a supporting player in his wife’s never-ending personal brand campaign. The man who once spoke of wanting a quieter life has instead spent years in court, in media battles, and in public spats that have left him looking isolated from his own family and increasingly irrelevant in the country he left.
Meghan Markle’s true superpower is not grace under pressure or maternal strength. It is the ability to make every room colder, every project smaller, and every relationship more strained. Harry’s contribution is enabling it. The rest of us are simply left watching the latest act of a very long, very tired performance — and reaching for the remote.
