THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

Meghan Markle Torched for Getting New Billie Eilish T-Shirt for Kid Who Lost Home in L.A. Fires

The video in which Meghan tells the self-aggrandizing story is rapidly becoming an extraordinary PR failure.

Meghan Markle has become the target of brutal online hate and accused of having “not a drop of humility” after she posted a video celebrating the fact that she had obtained some Billie Eilish merchandise for a teenager whose house burned down in the California fires.

Markle, who is a multi-millionaire thanks to the series of lucrative deals she and her husband, Prince Harry, signed after they left the royal family and spilled their secrets, posted the video to her Instagram page.

Comments have been switched off but the message has become the target of vituperative commentary on other platforms, with critics accusing her of insincerity and ill-advised self-promotion.

Meghan wore a custom sweatshirt in the film embroidered with her kids names, but one X user responded by mocking up a t-shirt bearing the legend: “My house burned down and all I got was this crappy t-shirt from Meghan Markle.”

Meghan faced similar criticism, and she and Harry were called “disaster tourists” by Family Ties star Justine Bateman, when they visited fire ravaged Altadena in January.

Meghan referenced that trip in her video, which was shot in selfie style, saying, “About two or three weeks ago, when my husband and I were in Altadina, we went to a community where all the homes were left in ashes. This mom had found a couple things, and as I was talking to her, I turned and looked, and I saw this young woman, and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, how old are you?’ She’s 15. She lives there.”

Some social media users questioned the accuracy of this part of Meghan’s account.

Meghan continued: “And her mom shared something with me and said that when they came back to see their house for the first time, which was as we were meeting them, that all that she’d been looking for in her home was the t shirt from the Billie Eilish concert that she had just gone to, that she left in the washing machine or the dryer.

“And of course, they now see their home in the washing machine the dryer are ash. They’re not there anymore. And so I said, I don’t know Billie Eilish, but I’m gonna figure out how to get you this shirt. So I thought of everybody that I knew, and I made a voice note, and I was like, please, can someone get this voice note to Billie Eilish, here’s what I’m asking guys.”

The overall vibe was not helped by a name-dropping shout out to Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and his wife, Behati Prinsloo, whom Meghan said had got her message to Eilish.

Meghan has returned to social media to promote her new Netflix cooking show which is due out next month.

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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