Earlier this week, the world learned that Meghan Markle had taped an interview with Ellen DeGeneres.
Today, the conversation aired in its entirety, and there were few surprises.
Meghan spoke about her quiet domestic life outside Santa Barbara and the joy of watching her children grow.
She even shared a funny story about a secretive Halloween date that she and Harry enjoyed before they got married.
It's almost impossible to imagine that anyone could watch the interview and find anything to object to.
But one should never underestimate the sleazy desperation of the British tabloid press, who were bristling at the perceived disrespect shown by Meghan's Ellen interview long before the episode even aired.
As usual, the rudest remarks came from Angela Levin, a royal commentator who's essentially made a career out of bashing Meghan.
In comments to The Sun, Levin blasted "ruthless" Meghan as "desperate for publicity."
As the UK tabloid points out, this is not the first time that Levin has criticized the Duchess of Sussex for her "extraordinarily bad timing."
“I think the palace dread everything she says because she can be so rude. The interview with Oprah was bad timing," Levin opined earlier this year.
"Prince Harry’s grandfather was ill. It is all about what is good to her. She’s ruthless and she thinks of herself first.”
Prince Philip passed away in April, of course, and it seems the Sun has reprinted Levin's remarks in anticipation of a new round of criticism.
Rumors about a decline in Queen Elizabeth's health have been circulating for weeks now, with palace officials warning the press that the 95-year-old monarch likely will not appear in public until March of next year.
“Meghan was acting that everything was wonderful and so funny and isn’t she sweet and a bit shy. And it’s not going to work really. She’s trying to be a really natural ordinary girl," Levin said in March, remarks that are already being re-contextualized to refer to Meghan's latest act of alleged insensitivity.
"She’s desperate for publicity, desperate for people to watch and see her. There’s a saying, ‘people who go to the opening of an envelope’… Meghan will interview anywhere people want her.”
The latest backlash comes on the heels of news that Meghan and Harry will not be making the trip to the UK for Christmas.
“There’s a lot that goes into the logistics and the planning of the family Christmas, so of course, staff know that Harry and Meghan are not coming,” one royal source told Page Six.
“If they were, they would have communicated it to their family by now," the insider said.
“But this is Her Majesty’s first Christmas without her husband, so one would have hoped they would want to be with her.”
With the Oprah interview, the backlash was expected, given some of the bombshell revelations Meghan made about abuse she endured at the hands of the royals.
But the Ellen conversation is so much lighter in tone as to render the criticism absurd.
"[Harry] came to see me in Toronto and our friends and his cousin [Princess] Eugenie and now her husband Jack [Brooksbank] - they came as well," Meghan told Ellen of that low-key Halloween night out.
"The four of us snuck out in Halloween costumes to just have one fun night on the town before it was out in the world that we were a couple," the Duchess continued.
"It was a post-apocalypse theme so we had all of this very bizarre costuming on and we were able to just have one final fun night out."
These days, of course, the couple's spooky season festivities are much more subdued.
"We were home and we saw you guys which was great, but we wanted to do something fun for the kids and they were just not into it at all," Markle said of this year's celebration.
"Archie was a dinosaur for maybe five minutes. Not even five minutes."
Meghan added that daughter Lilibet dressed as "a little skunk."
"Like Flower from Bambi," the Duchess explained.
Needless to say, it's gonna be tough for the Angela Levins of the world to villainize Meghan this time around.
But you can be sure they'll try and find a way.