It’s the easiest question in any pub quiz: what did Meghan Markle do before she married Prince Harry and became a member of the royal family?

The answer, of course, is that she was an actor – but that probably won’t earn you a point unless you name the hit show she starred in for six years. Why? Because literally everyone knows that, from July 2011 to late 2017, Meghan played Rachel Zane in Suits. To paraphrase another hit TV show: it is known.

With this thought in mind, then, I have a more difficult question for you: why are so many tabloids falling over themselves to “expose” Meghan’s not-at-all secret past?

It seems, in the run-up to Megxit, a number of tabloids are so very desperate for Meghan-based news that they are willing to spin a story out of… well, out of something that we already know.

“Meghan Markle’s life before being a Duchess exposed thanks to unearthed Twitter pics,” screamed one headline earlier this week.

“Unseen pics of Meghan Markle shows Duchess living high life before meeting Prince Harry,” read another.

And one more plumped for the line: “Revealed – Meghan Markle’s life before Harry.”

If you click on any one of these stories, you’ll be met with the same breathless reportage. Apparently several pictures of Meghan – all of which date back to when she was still an actor living in the US – have been “unearthed” on Twitter. And, despite the fact that a picture tells a thousand words, each of these publications has made a point of staring at each photo very, very hard for a very, very long time (one assumes), before describing the image before them. In obsessive detail, too.

“There is one taken in Paris by Rick Hoffman, who starred in TV legal drama Suits alongside the Duchess,” reads one such description. “In the snap, Meghan is wearing a strapless gown as she is posing on a grand staircase.”

Journalism at its finest, wouldn’t you say?

Essentially, all of the articles make the same point: that Meghan used to hang out with Hollywood stars before she became the Duchess of Sussex. Yet, as previously mentioned, even the sea urchins clinging to the undersides of rocks know this already. Not just because she had a starring role in Suits, oh no, but because Meghan invited the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Idris Elba and Serena Williams to her and Harry’s star-studded royal wedding – not to mention countless other Hollywood stars.

So why, when the accompanying stories are so very, very banal, is there the whiff of scandal to these headlines? The answer is every bit as obvious as the response to the stupidly easy pub question I laid out for you at the beginning of this article: the media has, and will always apparently have, a problem with Meghan. They have made that abundantly clear in the plethora of ridiculous headlines she has been subjected to for the past three years, constructing narrative which employs all of the deeply sexist (and sometimes racist) semantics of modern-day language to ensure that the world knows, once and for all, that this woman is Bad News. 

However, as I’ve noted before, their tactics haven’t worked. Because all of those ridiculous headlines about Meghan’s so-called bad behaviour – her “inappropriate” black nail polish, her ‘deadly’ avocado habit, her unfortunate habit of (shock horror) wearing a bra – have done nothing more than prove that the media is afraid of her.

These latest headlines? They tell us that certain sections of the media know that their words haven’t beaten Meghan down, but made her stronger than ever. That hundreds upon thousands of people are on her side. That she is poised to unshackle herself from the limits and restrictions that come with life as a senior royal. That she is about to channel all of her energy into becoming the change maker she wants (and has the potential) to be.

Above all else, though, they know that… well, that they can’t get to her anymore. And you can practically smell the desperation. 

Images: Getty