Setting the record straight. British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful got to know Meghan Markle pretty well when the two worked on the publication’s iconic September 2019 Forces for Change issue. And he has a lot to say about the criticism surrounding the former royal.
In an interview with Sky News this week, the 48-year-old magazine pro discussed his personal experiences with racism in the fashion industry, while also touching on how unfairly Markle was treated. However, he denies that her criticism was due to racism, but instead he thinks it had more to do with the fact that she didn’t know how the royal institution worked.
‘The Duchess of Sussex is a brave woman,” he said. “Parts of it were probably racism, but it was more of an institution. She walked into an institution and everyone expected her to know the rules. And I think sometimes it takes a minute to understand the rules.”
With that being said, he does fully agree that the former Suits star was treated quite harshly. “She did get a very unfair treatment, I thought,” he said. “It was harsh, it was harsh. But I wouldn’t just blame it on racism.”
Enninful and Markle made headlines back in 2019 when the then-duchess guest edited Vogue UK’s groundbreaking Forces of Change issue, featuring 15 diverse role trailblazers that included Yara Shahidi, Laverne Cox and Jane Fonda.
Just last month, Enninful received both Editor of The Year and Diversity Initiative of the Year at the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) Awards.
Serving as British Vogue’s first black editor, Enninful told Sky News that he’s no stranger to systematic racism. Recently, Enninful tweeted about a racial profiling incident that happened to him at Vogue House when a security guard told him to use the loading bay when he arrived at work. “It wasn’t an isolated incident. Of course, it takes you back to all those moments in your life when that sort of thing has happened,” he told the British publication. “For me, the beauty of that incident is that it just makes me aware to never think I’m too successful, that it can happen any day. I have to be really alert and deal with it.”
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