Meghan Markle‘s childhood boyfriend broke his silence saying that the bullying allegations against her cannot be true and that she might refuse to ‘fall in line’ and speak out against being disrespected.
In an interview with US Weekly, Joshua Silverstein, a Los Angeles-based actor, said that he does not ‘personally see her’ bullying the staffers of the royal family.
Days before Meghan and Prince Harry‘s tell-all with Oprah Winfrey, The Times reported that their household staff in London were in trauma after working with the Duchess, and senior members of their team were deeply concerned at the mistreatment of the junior staff.
“I see her doing whatever it is she feels like she should do in order to be happy and coexist within a system that has probably not been very welcoming to who she is and where she comes from,” Joshua told US Weekly.
“When you find women of color, particularly black women, standing up for themselves and speaking out and speaking against what they feel [is] disrespect or oppression, oftentimes whiteness tends to classify that in negative ways because they don’t want that to happen,” he said.
“It’s almost like people are expected to know their place and whenever they don’t fall in line with that, then people say it’s a problem.”
The Times reported that staffers couldn’t stop shaking and crying after a confrontation with Meghan – a claim that the Duchess denied.
Joshua, now a married father of two, added that he doubted the ‘scrutiny’ and ‘negative criticism’ will disappear with the Sussexes settled in California, but he said that Meghan’s happiness was all that mattered.
“She’s probably having to make hard decisions and uncomfortable ones for the sake of just being able to smile the next day,” Joshua said. “That’s what life is about, making tough decisions so that you can live the life that allows you to thrive as the person you want to thrive as.”
“As long as she’s happy and he’s happy, that’s all that matters.”
Joshua and Meghan’s teen romance started after they met at a summer camp organized by the Agape International Spiritual Center in California.
Joshua described the 13-year-old Meghan as being ‘very sweet’, charming, and ‘quirky’ but already showing the strong determination that took her to success in Suits.
“Meghan as a 13-year-old was very kind, very sweet, very talented, very interested in the theater camp. It was then that we saw how impressive she was on stage,” Joshua said. “She was charming and quirky.”
“She wasn’t a stereotypical 13-year-old girl; she wasn’t decked out in pink every single day, she wasn’t flaunting make-up or anything,” he added. “She was her own person, very authentic to who she was at the time, she was curious, I think she was serious about her craft.”
Joshua said that they broke up at the end of the summer before starting high school. The reason is that neither wanted to let it put a ‘dampener’ on their interactions with others.
After that, Joshua saw Meghan only ‘three or four more times’ – all during their high school years – and always at church, he said.
“After high school, I hadn’t seen her,” Joshua said. “But her mom still went to Agape (church) so I saw her mom often and I was friendly with her mom.”
“Her mom would always fill me in, ‘oh Meghan’s overseas modeling or Meghan’s acting now’. I think the last check-in I had with Meghan’s mom was Meghan was getting married [to ex-husband Trevor Engleson].”
“Or it might have been Meghan’s on a show, I can’t remember the show details,” he said. “But I think that there was always a sense of pride from Meghan’s mom, whatever Meghan was doing, she’s proud of Meg.”