Meghan's BFF Jessica Mulroney Breaks Silence on "Registering Charities" for Meghan

Update, 2/24: Over the weekend, Jessica Mulroney spoke out about the report that she'd registered a charity for Meghan, writing: "if certain investigative journalists were to do their jobs, perhaps they would see that Shoebox Project Foundation is owned by a Mr Roy in North Carolina and has no affiliations or ties to our charity The Shoebox Project. Happy Sunday."

The Daily Mail report had claimed that Mulroney had used her nonprofit—the Shoebox Project Foundation, rather than the Shoebox Project—to register domain names like sussexglobalcharities.com, presumably to hold them until Meghan and Harry were able to take them.

Original post: The Sussexes have wasted exactly zero time moving onto Plan B when it comes to their post-royal life global brand. Some context: This week, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed that they will no longer use the word "royal" in their personal brand following their royal exit. The decision to drop the "royal" from the couple's well-established "Sussex Royal" brand was reportedly the result of pressure from the Queen and Harry and Meghan made it pretty damn clear that they weren't fans of the move in their newly-released statement on their spring 2020 transition plan.

On Saturday, the Daily Mail reported that Meghan's longtime best friend, stylist, host, and entrepreneur Jessica Mulroney, had registered the website registered the website sussexglobalcharities.com through her own charity, the Shoebox Project Foundation, which supports vulnerable women.

While we normals didn't learn of the end of "Sussex Royal" until Friday, it's clear that Harry and Meghan knew (or at least suspected) where things were landing on the subject at least a few days earlier, since Mulroney registered the URL last Wednesday, presumably on behalf of the couple.

This isn't the first time the Sussexes have used friends to slyly register websites they know they might want to use in the future. According to the Daily Mail, Meghan's US-based business manager, Andrew Meyer, registered two websites—archefoundation.com and archefoundation.org—on October 23, 2018. For those doing the math at home, that's just eight days after Meghan revealed she was pregnant with the couple's first child. This also suggests that Harry and Meghan already had baby names picked out and maybe have even had a clue as to their then-future baby's sex, which is kind of fascinating in its own right.

For more stories like this, including celebrity news, beauty and fashion advice, savvy political commentary, and fascinating features, sign up for the Marie Claire newsletter.

subscribe here