As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Queen Elizabeth II has passed away at the age of 96.

The announcement came shortly after Prince Harry arrived at his family’s Balmoral estate in Scotland, where the Queen spent her final days.

Along with his wife, Meghan Markle, Harry was in London when he received news of his grandmother’s failing health.

(Like Prince Williams’ wife, Kate Middleton, Meghan remained in London to look after the children while her husband made the trip to Balmoral.)

Harry and Meghan have resided in Montecito, California since 2020, but the couple traveled to the UK earlier this week as part of a humanitarian tour that’s generated considerable controversy in the British media.

The couple has been accused of trying to establish “their own royal family” by creating the impression that their tour is official state business.

Harry and Meghan have never made any such claims, of course, but the UK tabloid press will take any opportunity to denigrate the Duchess, even if it means finding fault with a charity tour.

And now, some of Meghan’s harshest critics have decided to the seize Queen’s death as yet another chance to vent their irrational hatred.

Some threw their shade subtly, pointing out that prior to today, Harry and Meghan did not spend any time with his family during their current trip to the UK.

“Very sad for Prince Harry that – despite being in the UK – he didn’t get to see his grandmother, The Queen, before she passed away,” wrote ITV royal editor Chris Ship.

“They were very close and he spoke to her often despite his decision to leave the Royal Family.”

“I blame his American wife,” read one reply to Ship’s tweet.

“I have no sympathy for Harry as he brought this all on himself. He allowed that witch he is married to to destroy the Queen and she made him choose between his family and her. Live with it Harry,” wrote another critic.

“He did it to himself. I’m not sad for him. We all make our own beds,” tweeted a third fount of compassion.

Fortunately, Meghan continues to have more supporters than detractors, and thousands of them have come to her defense today.

“Kate Middleton not going up to Balmoral because of childcare is all fine and good but Meghan Markle basically doing the same isn’t? the racism is jumping out once again,” journalist Shahed Ezayd tweeted.

“If you’re taking joy in news of the Queen’s health, foolishly blaming Meghan Markle or anything of the like, that’s not cool,” attorney Don Lewis wrote

“If you’re flooding social media with how Prince Harry & Meghan Markle have led to Queen Elizabeth’s stress & poor health, but are not mentioning Prince Andrew, you’ve clearly bought into the British media hate campaign against them,” the popular Tudor Chick account observed.

All of this comes on the heels of new criticism from one of Meghan’s most high-profile haters, former Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel who decried “this Meghan Markle s–tshow” on her TikTok page.

“Maybe I’ll be canceled for saying this … but I just think we have to be able to say something without getting beaten down,” Frankel said in her latest video.

“She is a terrible, terrible businessperson [and] strategist. She’s playing checkers, not chess because she is overplaying her hand, and she is painting herself into a corner, becoming a woman without a country.”

The beef between these two goes back to the time of Meghan’s interview with Oprah in 2021, when Bethenny criticized the Duchess for speaking so openly about her royal in-laws.

“She’s a polarizing person, don’t get it twisted,” Frankel said this week of the criticism she received at the time.

“It was brutal, I’m not going to lie. It would have been so easy to just not say anything … and now the tide’s turned [on her]. … It may not be the message, it’s the messenger.”

As one of the few insiders to ever speak truthfully about life among the royals, Meghan is likely to become a popular target of a lot of unfounded criticism in the days to come.

But it’s important to remember that most of the people who are hurling insults at the Duchess of Sussex now have been harboring hatred from the moment they first laid eyes on her.

Meghan is a woman of color; she’s a divorced, American former actress — the list of reasons she’s been discriminated against is a sad and lengthy one.

Of course, today seems like a good day to bear in mind that were it not for an earlier divorced, American actress, Elizabeth never would have become Queen.

Back in 1936, King Edward VII abdicated in order to pursue his relationship with Wallis Simpson — a woman who had an awful lot in common with Meghan.

Because of Edward’s scandalous affair and resulting abdication, his brother, George VI became king.

When George passed away in 1952, his daughter Elizabeth acceded to the throne, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fate works in strange ways, and no one could have predicted that a transcontinental love affair that began in 1934 would lead to a reign that continued until 2022.

Just as no one could have predicted that a former actress on a basic cable legal drama would one day cause mass psychosis throughout the UK.

Meghan Markle Slammed By Bethenny Frankel, British Media on Day of Queen’s Death: … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip .