Courting the Media? Meghan Markle Once Toured 'Us Weekly' Offices in a Bid to 'Raise Her Hollywood Profile'
Meghan Markle took a tour of 'Us Weekly's' offices in 2015 to see if there 'was something to do' about crafting her image in Hollywood.
Meghan Markle once took her publicist on a tour of Us Weekly offices, roughly a year before she met Prince Harry. The actress was starring in Suits at the time but was still relatively unknown, and asked the magazine's executives if there "was something to do" in an apparent request to help build her image.
The revelation comes in Omid Scobie's controversial new book, Endgame. In the tome, the author suggests that the future Duchess of Sussex may have come to trust him due to his time as a journalist with the publication.
"Suits was a huge thing for our magazine. Funnily enough, a year or two earlier — I wasn’t in the office at the time — Meghan’s agent or publicist had brought her in to just meet editors and see if there was something to do. She was very much on the radar, even if she wasn’t up there with the big-name celebrities," Scobie spilled when talking to host James O'Brien on the "Full Disclosure" podcast.
"We really had a lead. I had the lead in covering the early days of this relationship, and when I left the magazine, they were my focus for this [royal] beat," he added.
Scobie then claimed that his British-Persian heritage may have had something to do with why he led the outlet's coverage of Meghan and Prince Harry's early romance. "She [Meghan] had picked the people she wanted to cover it. I was able to be the one that provided the different perspective. I was known as the safe face, at least." The implication being that Scobie's mixed-race ancestry somehow made him stand out to the mixed-race duchess-in-waiting.
In 2020, Scobie co-authored the book Finding Freedom with Carolyn Durand, which took a penetrating look at the marriage of Harry and Meghan and their departure from the royal family. Released in August of that year, when "Megxit" was still a major story in the press, the biography of sorts became a bestseller before becoming notorious some months later.
There was initial speculation that the Duchess of Sussex may have helped write the narrative, but sources close to Harry and Meghan consistently denied these allegations. In 2021, it was revealed that not only did Meghan and the writer know of one another, but the former actress fed him details about her for the book through a third party. Meghan was forced to admit this while under oath in a British court.
There was also the furor surrounding Scobie's age, which he lied about in a 2020 interview. He later said he told a falsehood because he was "insecure about turning 40."
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The Telegraph reported on Scobie's remarks.
