Meghan Markle ditched best friend Jessica Mulroney in the midst of a race row in order to appear ‘woke’, people close to the Canadian stylist have claimed.
Mulroney fears she may never work again after black blogger Sasha Exeter said she was threatened during an argument over Black Lives Matter, which saw Mulroney lose jobs with Canadian broadcaster CTV and Good Morning America.
The 40-year-old’s agents are now in talks with Hollywood executives about reviving her career, but fear the Duchess of Sussex’s absence may be the nail in the coffin.
Meghan has forsaken her most loyal friend just to look woke,’ a source close to the discussions said.
Meghan and Harry are said to have been ‘educating themselves’ on race issues in recent weeks, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, before speaking out.
The Duchess voiced support for the movement in a speech to her old school earlier this year, while Harry spoke this week of his ‘unconscious bias’ and urged young Commonwealth leaders to ‘acknowledge’ the ‘uncomfortable’ past of the alliance.
Jessica’s team have made it clear that she feels completely ditched by Meghan and fears she is going to cut her out of her life for good,’ the source told The Sun.
‘She’s completely distraught and devastated because Meghan has done nothing to stand up for her publicly. Jessica is terrified she will never work again.’
Mulroney has reportedly hired lawyers, image experts and crisis PR teams to help put the backlash from her recent row behind her and stage a comeback a source told US Weekly.
‘She’s been talking to lawyers, image experts and crisis PR teams. She has been having a lot of them over to her house to brainstorm and find a way to put this behind her.’
One idea could have been to have a show of support from Meghan – such as a girl’s shopping trip, but Mulroney is slowly coming to realize that no such support will be forthcoming.
‘It’s a brutal blow after a ten-year friendship. Jessica has been there for Meghan through thick and thin,’ a source told The Sun.
‘She is losing so much work from brands who loved her connection to Meghan in the past but now feels she has become toxic,’ they said.
Soon after the race row erupted, Meghan’s publicists briefed reporters that the Duchess was ‘mortified’ by her best friend’s behavior and that she ‘could no longer be associated with her’.
Exeter claims the row stemmed from a post she uploaded to Instagram, calling out influencers for staying silent on Black Lives Matter and urging them to speak out.
She said Mulroney then started a private conversation with her, feeling that she had been personally attacked in the video – despite nobody being mentioned by name.
Exeter claims that Mulroney then sent her ‘offensive messages’ spanning the course of a week in which she offered excuses for failing to speak out.
In a 12-minute Instagram video, Exeter also accused Mulroney of threatening to speak with brands or sponsors she works with in an attempt to ruin her.
She described it as ‘a threat to my livelihood’ and an ‘attempt to silence a Black woman during this movement behind closed doors.’
Mulroney subsequently apologized, saying that watching Meghan go through her own race row had been an ‘educational’ experience while pledging to ‘continue to learn and listen on how I can use my privilege to elevate and support black voices’.
Exeter claims that, having made a public apology, Mulroney privately threatened to sue her.
The apology has since been deleted, and Mulroney has gone on a temporary hiatus from social media.
As well as costing Mulroney lucrative contract, the row has also affected husband Ben who announced he would be quitting his CTV entertainment show etalk.
Mulroney is said to feel completely unsupported by Meghan whom she believed to be her best friend.
She is now hoping to somehow resurrect her career but without any help from Meghan.
Another friend told the New York Post their relationship was already on the way out even before the row, because Meghan felt that Mulroney was ‘making a career out of the friendship’.
‘The white privilege row has really given Meghan the excuse she was waiting for to cut Jess off for good,’ they said.
‘I don’t know what the tipping point was, but Jess has been on the outs for some time.
‘Their friendship is definitely not what it was. And really, how can you have such a close friendship when one person is basically making a career out of the friendship?’
The pair were once incredibly close, having met in Toronto when Meghan was filming the legal TV drama Suits, which made her name.
Jessica’s twin sons Brian and John, now nine, were pageboys at Meghan’s wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018, with her daughter Ivy a flower girl.
Jessica helped Meghan choose her wedding dress and was reportedly made a godmother to 14-month-old Archie, although she could not attend last year’s christening at Windsor Castle.
But for now, the friendship appears to be done.
‘When Meghan makes a decision to ghost someone she doesn’t usually go back,’ a source told The Sun.
‘When it comes to Jessica, hopefully she realizes that it’s not a great idea. Jessica knows all her secrets and everything she’s been through. This is not someone she wants to make an enemy of at this time.’
Meghan made her first statement on race back in April when she delivered a speech to students at her old high school on Black Lives Matter.
Both her and Harry were said to have spoken with ‘community figures’ to ‘help form their views’ ahead of the call.
A friend described the call as ‘raw’ and delivered ‘without notes’, in which she urged young people to make their voices heard by voting in the presidential election.
‘George Floyd’s life mattered,’ she told students, some of whom were reduced to tears, naming the black man who choked to death while being arrested in Minneapolis.
‘Breonna Taylor’s life mattered and Philando Castile’s life mattered and Tamir Rice’s life mattered and so did so many other people whose names we know and whose names we do not know,’ she added.
In another call to young Commonwealth leaders this week alongside Meghan, Harry urged them to ‘acknowledged the past’ and try to ‘right the wrongs’ that were done.
Acknowledging his own ‘unconscious bias’, Harry added: ‘There is no way that we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past.
‘It’s not going to be easy and in some cases it’s not going to be comfortable, but it needs to be done, because, guess what, everybody benefits.’
Meanwhile Meghan said it is also a time of ‘reckoning’ when individuals should be putting their hands up to ‘own’ their past wrongdoings.
The previous week Harry publicly apologised for ‘endemic’ institutionalised racism, saying he is ‘sorry’ the world isn’t in the place that young people ‘deserve it to be’.
Canadian stylist Jessica Mulroney’s career had gone from strength to strength since she attended Meghan Markle’s wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018.
The mother-of-three, whose children were page boys and flower girl at the Duchess of Sussex’s nuptials, has since won an array of high profile TV contracts.
Jessica, 40, who is married to Canadian television host Ben Mulroney, son of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, announced her new wedding reality show with CTV last year.
Mulroney’s reality show, I Do, Redo, premiered on CTV at the end of March and was also released internationally on Netflix.
The series followed Jessica as she helped couples move on from their disastrous weddings by giving them the nuptials they’ve ‘always dreamed of.’
Mulroney has also been a regular face presenting a fashion segment for ABC’s Good Morning America since last year.
Jessica also became the spokesperson for The Bay’s bridal brand, which launched in fall 2018.
However Jessica’s reality TV show has been cancelled and she was fired as a bridal marketing specialist last week amid the race row.
ABC has also cut ties with Jessica in her occasional role as a fashion contributor on Good Morning America.
The Bay also released a statement, confirming that Mulroney would no longer be the face of Kleinfeld Canada.
Jessica Mulroney, who attended Meghan’s baby shower in New York in 2019, was last seen visiting Windsor following the birth of Archie last May.
Though plenty of reports followed claims over her role in Harry and Meghan’s move to Canada earlier this year, the pair have not been spotted together.
Jessica has been careful not to speak out about Meghan too extensively in public, saying last March: ‘Listen, every person has to have a bit of privacy in their life.
‘There are certain things I hold very dear and secret. There are things I’ll never talk about for sure. My life is an open book, but there’s always a few secret pages in the back that nobody will be able to read.’
But in a rare moment she previously appeared to hit out at the media in August, defending Meghan.
Mulroney took to Instagram at the time to say the Duchess of Sussex had been unfairly criticized and suggested that race was a factor.
‘When someone faces unfair criticism, you call it out. When that person is your friend and your family, you call those critics what they truly are. Shame on you, you racist bullies,’ Mulroney wrote.
She added: ‘Three years of undeserved hate and abuse. It’s enough.’
Mulroney had earlier shared a tweet by British actress Jameela Jamil that accused people of bullying Meghan because of her race.
Last month Mulroney revealed she was taking a social media break, because ‘someone dear to her’ told her being silent amid racism is not enough.
