Will & Grace icon Leslie Jordan wants Meghan Markle to know the gays have got her back
The Will and Grace star is here for Meghan: ‘She needs to speak her truth’. (NBC/OWN)
Will & Grace icon Leslie Jordan has come out swinging for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry after the pair gave a bombshell interview to Oprah Winfrey.
The 65-year-old took to Instagram Sunday (7 March) to back Markle following the two-hour CBS special where she discussed her fraught relationship with the barbed British tabloids and the way royal life battered her mental health.
“Leslie Allen Jordan, reporting for duty,” he told his 5.6 million followers. “I’ve been watching this Oprah interview with Meghan Markle, woo-hoo.
“S**t’s getting real. She needs to speak her truth. That’s wonderful.
“I’m just afraid those royals gonna smoke her. But you don’t tell any queen, let alone the queen, to apologise for losing a war of drama.
“I hope those kids know what they’re getting into.
“But I will say this, listen. Gays, we gays, we know drama better than anybody. We got her back.
“Yes, ma’am. Miss Markle, the gays have got your back.”
“We got your back, honey,” Leslie Jordan added in the caption. “We’ve got more queens than they do.”
In Oprah Winfrey interview, Meghan Markle outlines Royal ‘concerns’ over son’s skin tone
From celebrities like Leslie Jordan to White House officials, America has responded to the explosive interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with alarm and anger.
The takeaways were vast. Among them – and there were many – Markle said the treatment she weathered while living and working as a member of the royal family battered her to the point of suicidal ideation.
“I was ashamed to have to admit it to Harry,” she recalled. “I knew that if I didn’t say it, I would do it. I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
A “senior royal” refused her request to seek inpatient care, saying it “wouldn’t be good for the institution”, Markle said.
Her race, Markle explained, immediately became a target for the press to launch relentless attacks toward.
And in one startling moment that left Winfrey visibly aghast, Markle gave a secondhand account of a conversation Harry had with his family while she was pregnant with Archie.
Markle said: “We have in tandem the conversation of: ‘He won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title.’
“And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
“For anyone to come forward and speak about their own struggles with mental health and tell their own personal story, that takes courage,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki commented Monday of the interview.
“And that’s certainly something that the president believes, and he’s talked about the importance of investing in a lot of these areas that they’re committed to in the future as well.”
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk).
Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
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