In the past year, Meghan Markle has been caught up in numerous scandals related to the content of two controversial books, neither of which she had a hand in writing.
Back in January, Prince Harry’s memoir hit stores, and soon after, Meghan found herself on the receiving end of some of the harshest criticism of her career.
And just as the tension between the Sussexes and the rest of the royals began to subside, a new literary controversy emerged.
This one had to do with a book written by journalist Omid Scobie, a longtime supporter of Harry and Meghan.
Scobie makes no effort to conceal his pro-Sussex bias, so it was assumed that the book would only benefit Harry and Meghan.
Instead, it created some major headaches for the couple.
The trouble began when a Dutch translation of the book was sent out with an un-redacted passage that identified King Charles and Kate Middleton as the royals who made racist comments to Meghan during the brief time she lived in London.
Even though Meghan was the obvious victim in the encounter described by Scobie, the allegations against Charles and Kate wound up rebounding on the Duchess of Sussex.
Shortly after news of the scandal became public, one UK politician called for Harry and Meghan to be stripped of their royal titles.
And a prominent British tabloid journalist has predicted that Meghan will be dropped by her talent agency as a result of this latest round of bad press.
It’s unlikely that Meghan will suffer any consequences quite that severe — after all, she’s the victim in all of this.
But even the Sussexes’ biggest supporter in the media believes that the most recent royal scandal might require Meghan to put her career plans on hold.
Speaking with Newsweek about the rumors that Meghan is working on a memoir, Scobie revealed that he believes such a move would be ill-advised at this time.
“To gain the respect of the reader, you have to be completely human in your portrayal, transparent in your portrayal of yourself,” he told the outlet.
“It has to be candid, it has to be embarrassing in places, it has to be all of these things to be the true portrait of a human being rather than the varnished image of a public figure that wants to be seen in a certain way,” the author continued.
“And it’s why I think his [Harry’s] book would always be more interesting than say if Megan wrote a memoir, because I think Megan has a much more curated take on what her image is and how it should be. Harry has always been a very candid, candid man.”
It was a diplomatic response from Scobie that skirted the issue of how Meghan’s potential memoir might have been impacted by the current scandal.
But he made a valid point in his assertion that Meghan is more careful with her public image because she has to be.
It’s a set of circumstances that would make a memoir a very risky undertaking for the duchess.
But there may come a time when Meghan has no choice but to set the record straight in her own words.