Jeremy Clarkson’s attack on Meghan proves the royal couple right about the media

Not by the royal family, according to Meghan and Harry. The pair has long said their request for additional protection for Meghan, as a result of particularly racist media coverage – headlines like, “Harry’s girl is (almost) straight outta Compton” – was denied by the royal family. Instead, they were simply advised, “don’t say anything [to the press]” and to see the treatment as “almost like a rite of passage [for a royal spouse].” “Some of the members of the royal family were like, ‘My wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently?’” Harry added.

But, Jeremy… who?

Many Australians may not be familiar with him, but he’s one of Britain’s most influential media personalities. As the long-time host of the car show Top Gear, he was once one of the highest-paid BBC stars, largely responsible for the show drawing 350 million global visitors.

And he’s got form.

And then some. Clarkson was fired from Top Gear in 2015, after physically and verbally assaulting a producer on the show for not providing him with hot food after a long day of shooting. He’s joked that truck drivers commonly murder sex workers, that former British prime minister Gordon Brown was a “one-eyed Scottish idiot” (Brown is blind in one eye), and he once used the N-word on Top Gear.

Is there some suggestion that the royal family had a hand in Clarkson’s column?

It’s merely speculation. Omid Scobie, co-author of Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family, has claimed that Clarkson attended a Christmas party with Camilla, the Queen Consort, earlier this week, alongside conservative British broadcaster Piers Morgan. Harry himself seemed to foreshadow this possibility when he declared, in Harry & Meghan: “Everything that happened to us was always going to happen to us. If you speak truth to power, that’s how they respond.” He was referring to the “dirty game” of members of the royal family giving negative briefings to the press. He implicated his brother, Prince William, in this effort.

But Clarkson’s column has sparked family problems of his own?

It sure has. Not only has his column drawn condemnation from people here and overseas, but his own daughter, Emily Clarkson, who hosts the Should I Delete That? podcast, has spoken out against him. “I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything my dad said about Meghan Markle and I remain standing in support of those who are targeted with online hatred,” Emily, who has previously written about suffering from online abuse, posted in an Instagram story.

Can we learn something from this?

We can. “Sitting there while people [in your family] say incredibly hurtful things is not a good thing,” says clinical psychologist Tamara Cavenett, who has had clients who’ve severed relationships with family members who have vastly different political and religious views from themselves. So, she says, if you want to maintain your relationship with a family member who has said hurtful things, either “draw boundaries” and agree to not speak about the topics that divide you, or state your opposing views “in a very graceful way”. “If you really want to change someone’s view, you’re going to do that better if you are open and explorative [in conversation with them],” she says.

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