The 'strategy' Meghan Markle is using to respond to the rumours about her.

This week, five of Meghan Markle’s “best friends” gave an interview to People magazine where they refuted a lot of the nastiest rumours about the Duchess of Sussex.

The anonymous friends debunked many of the “lies and untruths” reported about the former actress, from her rumoured reputation as a “diva” to her freezing out of her father and half-siblings.

While Meghan is super lucky to have such loyal friends, this somehow appears to be more than that.

As royal watchers, including those at California newspaper The Mercury News, have theorised: this interview could be part of a strategy by Meghan and her camp to refute the rumours running rampant about her. And we happen to agree.

It makes so much sense that Meghan, and probably her husband Prince Harry, would have played a part in this People interview.

At the moment, Meghan cannot stand up for herself.

She cannot hit back at all the unsourced slurs.

She can’t come out with public statements responding to each and every insistence from an unnamed “insider” who claims that she’s a diva, who’s fighting with her family, and whose “rift” with her sister-in-law Kate is causing a “feud” between her husband and his brother William.

It’s simply not the royal way.

Instead, she has to stay silent, and smile for the cameras at her public appearances while the latest barb from her sister Samantha Markle is thrown from across the Atlantic.

Samantha Markle got called out for her attacks by Piers Morgan ahead of the royal wedding.

So what do you do when you can’t speak for yourself? You find someone to speak for you.

That’s what Meghan appears to have done. And if it’s the strategy we think it is, it’s a smart one.

By enlisting her friends to share their perspective of Meghan, she has the opportunity to get her side of the story out, without any of the backlash that those same words from her own mouth might have incurred.

This way it’s not Meghan defending herself – something in it’s very act that would provide fuel to her critics and invite a tit-for-tat from her detractors that could only ever escalate and muddy her reputation further in the process.

The narrative instead is that Meghan’s friends are coming to her defence, which manages to avoid all of the negative consequences and yet still get the Duchess’ message out clearly.

It’s also unlikely that Meghan’s closest friends would have given an interview about her without first consulting her at the very least, lest they risk losing her trust.

We don’t think for a second that Meghan’s friends didn’t genuinely believe each and every sentence they spoke, or that they weren’t using their own words, but just that Meghan’s camp may have played a part in guiding their overall message.

With this all in mind, here’s what Meghan’s friends had to say:

Meghan is not ignoring her father Thomas.
“He knows how to get in touch with her. He’s never called; he’s never texted. It’s super-painful.”

Meghan didn’t start ignoring her siblings when she started dating Prince Harry.
“[Samantha and Thomas Jr] have been made to appear as siblings who had this falling out, and that’s not the truth at all. They were not a part of her life.”

Meghan is not fake or ‘acting’.
“When you see her at walkabouts, when she crouches down to talk to the kids and genuinely has real conversations with people, that’s Meg. That’s how she engages with people and how she always has.”

Meghan is not a diva. 
According to the journalist who spoke to the friends, Meghan didn’t throw a fit about a tiara ahead of her wedding day. She does her own hair, makeup and nails. She cooks for herself and Harry.

Sounds exactly like the kind of image Meghan would like painted of herself, doesn’t it?

What do you think? Is this interview Meghan’s way of defending herself?