Meghan Markle told her familiar foundation story about writing a letter complaining about a sexist dish soap commercial during her tour of Colombia over the weekend, but the much-mocked anecdote was not included in bulletins sent to global media by a journalist accompanying the tour. While the Sussex’s global head of PR, Ashley Hanson, told The Daily Beast that the bulletins written by Bianca Betancourt , Digital Culture editor at Harper’s Bazaar , were “up to her discretion,” it was notable that the reports were, without exception, hugely flattering of the Sussexes. The glowing reports were distributed to global media by the Sussex PR team.
The omission of the fact that Meghan told the dish soap story, which has been widely ridiculed and discredited, will fuel the perception that the Sussexes, who have often said they support press freedom, were trying to micro-manage media coverage of the entire tour by hand-picking and accrediting just one journalist, who does not have a news background, for the tour. Indeed, Meghan’s use of the anecdote only emerged after the Daily Mail , an outlet with which the Sussexes have been locked in a series of costly and lengthy legal battles, many of which they have won, sent their own reporter, Nick Pisa, to cover the tour . Betancourt’s account of Meghan’s words ran as follows: “I’m very very fortunate at a young age I was able to feel as though my voice was being heard and that’s a luxury that a lot of young girls and wom.