Meghan Markle is continuing to enjoy her freedom.
The Duchess of Sussex appeared at Fortune's virtual Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday. There, she spoke with Fortune editor Ellen McGirt on the subject of "Rising to the New Reality."
The four-minute conversation saw Meghan as composed and graceful as ever. The subject turned to the controversy that happens whenever Meghan speaks publicly about anything. Meghan argued that what she's saying is never the real root of the controversy. Rather, it's the public reactions to her words that spark headline after headline.
Meghan's frank discussions of her controversial life come as she faces more legal drama. Judge Francesca Kaye issued a blow to the duchess's defense during a hearing on Tuesday. The judge ruled that Mail On Sunday can use arguments derived from the book Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Family in its defense.
Although book was published a year and a half after the newspaper published the letter, its legal team argues Meghan participated in crafting the book's narrative. Meghan sued the paper for publishing excerpts of a private letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, four months after the royal wedding.
Meghan is speaking out on the criticism she's received. In recent weeks, Meghan's made several virtual appearances talking about the importance of voting and sharing her support for Black Lives Matter. These candid opinions have been met poorly across the pond, where Brits think she shouldn't weight in.
On Tuesday, Meghan appeared on a four-minute segment of Fortune's virtual Most Powerful Women Summit. Meghan was invited to speak on the subject of "Rising to the New Reality." At the beginning of the appearance, Fortune editor Ellen McGirt referenced the graduation speech Meghan virtually delivered to her alma mater.
"You're not the only powerful woman even in this community who has had a sitting president take a shot at you, mobs come at you, powerful people, powerful forces try to take you down or try to disparage your message," Ellen observed.
"This is a tough time for people with power and platform. What is your best advice for other folks with stakeholders with a desire to weigh in on the important issues of the day to take those risks carefully, to access them correctly, and then to weigh in?"
Meghan thought about her answer for a moment before responding.
"Yes, I mean I think, it's about being authentic. And if you look back at anything that I've said, it's really interesting because it often ends up — what ends up being inflammatory, it seems, is people's interpretation of it," she noted.
"But if you listen to what I actually say, it's not controversial," she continued. "And actually some of it is reactive to things that just haven't happened, which is in some ways, I think you have to have a sense of humor about it even though there's quite a bit of gravity and there can be a lot of danger in a misinterpretation of something that was never there, to begin with. But that again is a byproduct of what is happening right now for all of us."
"I would say the biggest thing and what I have always stuck to, you know, that high school graduation speech I had done it a week or so before," she continued. "I had pre-taped it for them; it was for high school, 17-year old girls, right, so the tone and the sentiment while it was, of course, going to be a call to action, was certainly lighter than where we landed after the murder of George Floyd. I knew I couldn't use that tape."
"I really struggled, if I'm being honest, about what to say, and I didn't sit down and write anything, and I didn't ask anyone for help with how I should word this. I was just in tears thinking about it and I was explaining to my husband why I thought that it was so heartbreaking, certainly for me to be back in Los Angeles and it feeling so reminiscent to the state of Los Angeles with the riots after the Rodney King beating," Meghan recalled.
"And so for these girls to be graduating from high school, which should be a really celebratory time, to be plagued with that unrest felt troubling to me. So I just spoke from the heart, and that's probably why it doesn't look polished, and that's why it doesn't feel perfect and — but that's also why it's authentic."
"I think that is the takeaway that I have found is if you don't listen to all the noise out there, and you just focus on living a purpose-driven life, and you focus on knowing what your own moral compass is, there are always going to be naysayers, but at the end of the day, you know, I used to have a quote up in my room many, many moons ago, and it resonates now perhaps more than ever …" Meghan said.
"It's by Georgia O'Keeffe, and it's 'I've already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain, and I am quite free.' And the moment you are able to be liberated from all of these other opinions of what you know to be true, then I think it's very easy to just live with truth and live with authenticity, and that is how I choose to move through the world."
Tuesday was also an eventful day because of a pretrial meeting between Mail On Sunday and Meghan's attorney. The publication received a win when Judge Francesca Kaye ruled the newspaper could use the contents of Finding Freedom in its legal defense.
Harry and Meghan sued Associated Newspapers Ltd. for publishing portions of Meghan's private letter to her father, Thomas, which she wrote four months after he didn't attend their wedding.
Associated Newspapers' lawyers argue that Meghan made personal information public by cooperating with the authors of Finding Freedom. This is despite the fact that Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie have reiterated on several occasions that while they spoke with sources they both have access to as royal reporters, they did not speak with Harry and Meghan themselves.
Associated Newspapers isn't buying it, saying Meghan cooperated "in order to set out her own version of events in a way that is favorable to her."
One lawyer for Associated Newspapers, Antony White, said in written court statements that the book appeared to have been written with Meghan and Harry's "extensive cooperation."
Meghan is represented by the law firm Schillings, which has dismissed the accusations. Her lawyers claim the idea "has no merit and is in fact false."
"This latest hearing was, unfortunately, another step in a case that has already been drawn out by a defendant who uses the legal process to exploit the Duchess's privacy and the privacy of those around her for profit-motivated clickbait rather than journalism," the firm wrote in a statement.
This hearing is just part of the beginning steps. The trial for the case doesn't begin until January.
