Meghan and Harry are the last thing LA needs right now
The Sussexes’ performative compassion is as unbearable as ever.
Want unlimited, ad-free access? Become a spiked supporter.
Haven’t the poor people of Los Angeles suffered enough? Imagine losing everything in the incomprehensibly devastating wildfires, only to find yourself in the background of the latest photo-op by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
At the weekend, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a well-publicised visit to an evacuation centre in Pasadena, Los Angeles County. Photographers and a news crew captured them handing out meals and consoling residents who had fled their homes. In one video, Meghan – ever the actress – looks teary-eyed and embraces an evacuated resident in an awkward hug. As usual, her husband stands around looking gormless.
If you're homeless from the LA fires, have no fear! Meghan Markle and her servant Harry are here to give you a hug and send you on your way 👍🏻
— 𝗡𝗶𝗼𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗴 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) January 12, 2025
In what Meghan must have thought was a touching gesture of solidarity, she even decided to delay the release of her new Netflix lifestyle series, With Love, Meghan. Supposedly, this was in order to ‘focus on the needs of those impacted by the wildfires’.
The LA fires have so far destroyed as many as 5,000 buildings and killed 24 people since they began raging last week. It is hard to see how Harry and Meghan are really helping here. As one Babylon Bee headline sums it up, sarcastically: ‘Los Angeles saved after Meghan Markle arrives to stand around wearing baseball cap.’ Making sad faces at the cameras and handing out some sandwiches are not the heroic, selfless acts the Sussexes presumably think they are.
Filmmaker and former actress Justine Bateman went as far as to slam Harry and Meghan as ‘disaster tourists’, accusing them of staging a ‘repulsive “photo-op”’ in the rubble. Bateman also noted that the royal couple don’t even ‘live here’. Indeed, their Montecito mansion is 90 miles away from LA.
Even when disaster strikes, it seems The Harry and Meghan Show must go on. The Sussexes can apparently never pass up an opportunity for some performative compassion.
Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.
Picture from: YouTube.
You’ve read 3 free articles this month.
Support spiked and get unlimited access.
Help us hit our 1% target
spiked is funded by readers like you. It’s your generosity that keeps us fearless and independent.
Only 0.1% of our regular readers currently support spiked. If just 1% gave, we could grow our team – and step up the fight for free speech and democracy right when it matters most.
Join today from £5/month (£50/year) and get unlimited, ad-free access, bonus content, exclusive events and more – all while helping to keep spiked saying the unsayable.
Monthly support makes the biggest difference. Thank you.
Comments
Want to join the conversation?
Only spiked supporters and patrons, who donate regularly to us, can comment on our articles.