JAN MOIR: Meghan’s become just another pay-per-view plugger turning her high profile into high profit

Between not launching her lifestyle brand, not being invited to A-list events and not visiting the UK with her husband, where does Meghan find the time to be an international businesswoman, that is what I want to know.

This week, the Duchess of Sussex interrupted her trade and industry schedule to give an interview to the New York Times. How unlike her, is what you are thinking, and I agree.

Meghan breached her ongoing quest for privacy, piercing that pearly shell of seclusion and confidentiality, to talk to one of the few publications in the world — along with People magazine, her trusty in-house trumpet — that she knows will treat her waffly pensées and latest commercial undertakings with respect and deference, rather than openly laugh in her face.

And so it came to be.

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Meghan with Prince Harry during their recent trip to Colombia. She is seen sporting a handbag from Cesta Collective, a brand she has invested in
Meghan with Prince Harry during their recent trip to Colombia. She is seen sporting a handbag from Cesta Collective, a brand she has invested in
The Duchess was promoting her ‘fashion portfolio’, which is not a posh way of saying ‘knicker drawer’ but rather the small collection of female-owned brands she has ‘invested in’ over the last few years.

One recent acquisition is Cesta Collective, which produces basket bags that are handwoven by ‘talented female artisans’ in Rwanda, finished in Italy and retail for about £700 each. For a straw basket, I find myself shrieking.

To be fair, the Mini Fan Bag is a snip at £556, but I’d still expect a fully thatched roof at that price, not something the size of a soup bowl into which you can slip a credit card and what is left of your common sense.

Meghan would not tell the newspaper how much she put into the brand, nor what ownership percentage she now has in the company, but Cesta confirmed it was a minority stake.

So I am guessing that it was sixpence, a free jar of jam and a signed photograph of the Duke and Duchess being presented with their Golden Grifters of 2024 award.

Why are we all here? I’ve lost my thread. Oh, yes — to salute Meghan’s ‘ability to move merchandise’, a talent which was breathlessly admired by the NYT, as if the Duchess were a shiny fashion truck barrelling down the highway of hip.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly how she sees herself.

Back in 2017, on one of her first public events with Prince Harry, Meghan carried a bag from the Scottish brand Strathberry — and it sold out online in 11 minutes. That ‘changed everything in terms of how I then looked at putting an outfit together,’ she said. I bet it did, darling!

However, the exiled Duchess has had to wait until now to fully monetise that regal power and fully invest in herself — while also helping struggling fashion brands establish themselves, of course. Of course.

‘I support designers that I have really great friendships with, and smaller, up-and-coming brands that haven’t gotten the attention that they should be getting,’ she said.

Unknowns such Oscar de La Renta and Givenchy, along with St Ella of McCartney and an obscure apprentice tailor from Milan called Mr G Armani, are all so grateful for her help. As, indeed, are Cesta.

When Meghan was photographed with one of their bucket bags on a dinner date with Harry last year, sales rocketed. Then, when she offered to become their first outside investor, I guess they had to say yes.

Yet Cesta hardly needed any help. Vogue was writing about them as far back as 2018 and their celebrity-approved bags have been sold on luxury sites such as Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and Net-a-Porter for years. It is not some struggling little brand desperate for a boost.

However, it is the kind of performative philanthropy business model that appeals to a global humanitarian such as Meghan; someone who is always keen to burnish her caring credentials on a global stage and await the dutiful surge of admiration that follows.

The baskets are woven in Rwanda by women whom Cesta vaguely claims are paid ‘four to five times the average national salary’ which is around £170 per month.

The £568 ($750) handbag from Cesta Collective in the color ‘Panna’
The £568 ($750) handbag from Cesta Collective in the color ‘Panna’
If you factor in that the women get paid per basket and it takes three to five days to make each one, then by my rough calculation they receive about £113 per basket.

Wonderful if true, but it does put these part-time artisanal weavers on the same kind of salary scale as doctors and business executives in Kigali.

The degree of Cesta’s benevolence in Rwanda is ambiguous, but the bags are beautiful and the company has to be doing some good, right?

It is certainly the kind of good our Meghan wants to dock her dinghy of humanity alongside and scramble on board quicker than you can say ‘basket case’.

The Duchess also told the newspaper that, when it comes to being a businesswoman, she is a dolphin, not a shark.

And also that she is better than you, but you knew that already.

During the pandemic, you just scrolled through the internet, looking at pictures of dogs and cottages for sale in Wiltshire while drinking rose wine, didn’t you?

Meghan, on the other hand, was busy, busy, busy scouring her screen for fashion brands she liked in the hope of coming to some sort of financial arrangement with them — and if she could dress it up as philanthropy, all the better.

‘When people are online looking for things or reading things, I’m trying to find great new designers, especially in different territories,’ the Duchess told the NYT.

Like all influencers — which is what she has become — Meghan always seems to be invested in the higher purpose of self-valourising while imposing her superior taste on the scabby masses for clicks and cash.

Look. Plenty of celebrities and even some royals get clothes and accessories for free — but that is not enough for the Sussexes. I imagine long Montecito nights of the soul when Meghan and Harry just burn with pure fury at the thought of anyone else, from handbag maker to napkin embroiderer to dress designer, making money out of them.

So perhaps it should be no surprise to anyone that she seems to be turning herself into just another pay-per-view professional plugger, a walking billboard in a perennial marketing campaign for herself, a duchess who has transmogrified her high profile into a high profit, with a price on everything from her ethical diamond earrings to the soles of her shoes.

The problem is that, collectively and individually, Harry and Meghan haven’t got any actual talent to monetise — all that is left to milk is the very fact of their celebrity itself.

For he is a prince who will never be crowned and she is an actress who will never get a part. And it was always, always coming to this sad point.

Celine’s not afraid to be real

Celine Dion has made a documentary about Celine Dion, but it’s not the usual celebrity flannel. I Am: Celine Dion (Amazon Prime) tells the story of her struggle with Stiff Person Syndrome — a rare and incurable neurological condition which has affected every aspect of her life.

Sometimes Dion is unable to walk and, in some of the more painful scenes, she is unable to sing, too. Towards the end of the film she has a full-blown seizure. And the camera keeps rolling. Her medical team are there, administering drugs — but we see her terror and humiliation. It’s rare to see a celebrity reveal herself in such a vulnerable moment — and it is hard not to be moved by this incredible, admirable woman who fights her terrible illness with grace and courage.

And you also see, in the raw, the emotion and ambition that drives the true diva, even now.

Welcome to two-tier land
Paramedics are to teach 50,000 St John Ambulance volunteers how to treat severe bleeding due to the terrible rise in knife crime. What a tragic sign of our times.

Yet Keir Starmer and zealots such as London Mayor Sadiq Khan will not increase police powers to stop and search — the only thing that might deter these knife-wielding maniacs from taking their weapons on to the streets. They don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings in two-tier Britain.

So let me get this right. The Prime Minister won’t stop knife crime, he won’t stop the boats, he won’t stop the orgy of violence and drug taking at public events such as the Notting Hill Carnival, but he will criminalise smoking in a pub gardens and restaurant terraces. What a crazed control freak he is — but in two-tier land, he only targets certain sections of British society.

Liam (left) and Noel Gallagher are reuniting for an Oasis tour next year
Liam (left) and Noel Gallagher are reuniting for an Oasis tour next year
The Oasis reunion is on, but can warring brothers Noel and Liam stay friends until the concerts next year? Of course they can. Why? This might come as a shock, our kid, but the story isn’t morning glory — if you ask me, they’re only doing it for the money. Now fans are upset that even standing tickets are £150. They feel the working-class, Labour-supporting supergroup should’ve done more for their followers. Isn’t that naivety terribly touching?

Who needs friends like Lily?
Lily Allen is a bad person, in my view. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Recently she called James Corden a ‘beg friend’ — a nasty term for someone she felt was always asking favours of her.

Even if it’s true – and even if it is James Corden – it is such a horrible thing for one celebrity to say about another, in full knowledge of the personal harm and public blowback it would bring. Now Lily is experiencing some heat herself for admitting she returned her rescue dog Mary because it ate the family passports Lily had left lying around.

The online rage has been righteous and momentous to behold. You can be cruel to your friends and fellow stars, but any sign of mistreating a little rescue puppy will never – and I mean ever – be forgiven by the British public. However, I think Mary had a narrow escape — and will thrive with a nicer and more thoughtful owner.

What is going on with my favourite couple, Doddery Sir Roddy and Penny the Policewoman? Penny was said to be angry with husband Sir Rod Stewart because he promised to move back to the UK and sell his mansion in LA, but reports say now he does not want to return to Blighty. Clacton or California? I can’t say I blame him. Penny also complains that her marriage is at a ‘stalemate’ — but what 17-year-old marriage isn’t, sigh my long-married friends.

Hang on. Incoming from Rod. There is ‘absolutely no rift’ between himself and his wife, he insists, adding that they ‘could not be more in love’. Do you know, I totally believe him. It is rare to find a couple in public life who look so happy together. Rod and Penny look like they still enjoy each other’s company, which is charming and cheering in equal measure.

And remember: Rod was one of the first out of the traps back in 1975, when he applied for citizenship and moved to America after the then Labour government brought in the punitive 83 per cent tax rate for high earners.

Stewart was criticised for making his Atlantic crossing at the time — but who could blame him? As we prepare for more preposterous tax hikes under Keir Starmer’s government, is history repeating itself? Or is Rod going to do the right thing and stay with Penny, never mind the pennies.

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