Meghan Markle’s glossy Bloomberg Originals sit-down with Emily Chang was sold to the public as an opportunity for candor, but it landed like another carefully staged PR moment. During the segment she leaned on the now-familiar refrain that she’s “a real person,” a line that’s supposed to humanize her while simultaneously promoting the second season of her Netflix series.
What actually played out on camera looked less like authenticity and more like a tightly managed image exercise, complete with awkward soundbites that went viral for all the wrong reasons. In one clip she jokes about “sitting here eating a smash burger” to illustrate feeling ordinary, a moment that came off as rehearsed and tone-deaf rather than relatable.
Conservative commentators and media critics weren’t buying the soft-sell approach, and Maureen Callahan’s rebuke on Megyn Kelly’s show captured why: the interview read as sycophantic and self-serving, a public relations play thinly disguised as introspection. Callahan and Kelly rightly pointed out that this kind of access is often used by celebrities to manufacture sympathy and sell their projects, not to answer hard questions or show genuine vulnerability.
The real problem isn’t just Meghan Markle; it’s the media culture that keeps enabling celebrity entitlement by trading tough reporting for puff pieces. Emily Chang’s conversation felt less like journalism and more like promotional content, giving soft prompts and polishing awkward moments until they shimmered. When entertainment platforms masquerade as serious news outlets, the public loses — hardworking Americans deserve scrutiny and truth, not polished spin.
Let’s be honest: the “I’m a real person” line is a convenient trope for someone living in a privilege bubble with every advantage money and connections can buy. Conservatives see through the performative attempts to appear ordinary while simultaneously cashing in on elite networks and taxpayer-adjacent prestige. This isn’t about hating someone’s success; it’s about resisting a culture that insists the ruling class gets both celebrity and compassion without accountability.
The Netflix push behind With Love, Meghan is a textbook example of how celebrity media cycles work — create a narrative of victimhood, stage sympathetic interviews, and hope viewers forget the substance. The American public has no shortage of problems deserving our attention, but we keep getting served celebrity therapy disguised as cultural discourse. That’s not journalism; it’s propaganda for a privileged lifestyle brand.
If conservatives want to push back, we should demand real interviews that ask real questions and stop giving elite figures press for the sake of press. The press has a duty to the truth and to ordinary citizens whose lives are affected by policy and culture, not the curated anxieties of the well-compensated. Until journalists stop treating celebrity spokespeople like untouchable royalty, the same staged cycles will repeat — and hardworking Americans will be the ones left listening to the spin.
