Courtside and Unbothered: Harry and Meghan’s Valentine’s Weekend Was Everything the Tabloids Didn’t Want It to Be
While the British press spent Valentine’s weekend publishing a sixth-year retrospective on why Meghan is difficult and untrustworthy, the Duchess of Sussex was in Beverly Hills eating pasta with her husband and posting a picture of her daughter’s face to Instagram for the first time.
The contrast wrote itself.
By Sunday, Harry and Meghan were courtside at the NBA All-Star Game at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, seated next to Queen Latifah, dressed in coordinated navy and black, and doing something the Derangers find genuinely unbearable: enjoying themselves visibly and without apology.
The narrative machine had prepared for camera-hungry desperados performing for lenses that weren’t interested. What photographers actually captured was a couple holding hands, leaning into each other, laughing at the game. Harry in a gray baseball cap looking like someone who lives here now. Meghan in a navy sweater looking like someone who is exactly where she wants to be.
Social media did what social media does, and split immediately. Sussex Squad noted Harry’s protectiveness, his awareness of his surroundings, the visible relaxation that settled over him once they were seated. Several users drew comparisons to veterans they knew managing PTSD, noting how Meghan’s presence seemed to function as an anchor. Whether or not that reading is accurate, it reflects something the cameras genuinely captured: a man who arrived tense and left at ease.
The Derangers, predictably, saw something different. The same images became evidence of fame-seeking, camera-playing, manufactured happiness. One widely circulated tweet described Meghan’s smile as embarrassing, the grin of someone thrilled just to be noticed. The argument collapsed under its own weight almost immediately. A woman seated courtside at the NBA All-Star Game next to Queen Latifah, on Valentine’s weekend, with her husband, is not performing desperation. She is attending a basketball game.
The Backgrid argument resurfaced, as it always does. The suggestion that photos distributed through Backgrid indicate a paparazzi arrangement rather than simply the reality that Backgrid is one of the largest celebrity photo agencies in Los Angeles and covers virtually every public figure in the city. The talking point persists because it sounds specific enough to be damning without requiring any actual evidence.
What the weekend actually showed was simpler than any of the competing narratives. A Valentine’s dinner at a restaurant they apparently frequent regularly. An Instagram post that was personal and warm and not particularly calculated. A basketball game with good seats and a famous neighbor. A couple who have built a life in California that does not appear to require the approval of the people still furious they left.
Russell Myers was releasing excerpts about Kate’s suspicions. The palace’s crisis communications machinery was running. The Andrew story was generating questions nobody in that institution wanted to answer.
And Harry and Meghan were courtside, holding hands, watching the game.
The California life looks good on them.
The Mirror launched its four-part serialization of Russell Myers’ new biography, “William and Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story.”
PART TWO https://celebchai.com/2026/02/15/part-two-kate-william-sterilization/
PART THREE https://celebchai.com/2026/02/15/part-three-kate-william-sterilization-manages-to-discredit-them/
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