BREAKING: Megan and Harry Will No Longer Use Royal Titles

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex recently made royal news when they announced that they’d be “stepping back from their royal duties,” which led many of us to ask questions like, “What will they do instead?”, “What does that mean?”, and “The Royal Family has duties?”.

The details of said arrangement continue to unfold, but the latest bit of hot news is that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will no longer be referred to as “his/her Royal Majesty.” It’s a HUGE bombshell that’s going to affect every single one of us in our daily lives, seeing as how often we’re compelled to address members of the Royal Family.

Functionally, this means that the couple are no longer “representatives of the Queen” and also will stop receiving public funds for the royal duties they’re no longer performing. In addition, they’re refunding the taxpayers the two and a half million quid they spent refurbishing their residence. That’s roughly $3.1 million on a place called Frogmore Cottage, which to me sounds less like a royal residence and more like the abandoned cabin in the woods you used to go drinking in high school.

I think this is all great news for democracy. Any taxpayer money that the taxpayer gets to keep is a huge win in my book, and seeing as how there’s no good reason for the Royal Family to exist period, I think it’s fabulous that there’s going to be two less of them.

I’m also happy for Harry and Meghan and baby Archie. I hope their new life makes them very happy and to be honest, I’m prepared to defend Meghan Markle from every last hater out there. I mean, imagine you immigrated to a foreign country to live, which is already excruciatingly difficult, and then on top of it every detail of your life is scrutinized and criticized by people all over the globe. Imagine seeing tabloid after tabloid comparing you to your perfect sister-in-law and accusing you of “corrupting” or “manipulating” your new husband. Imagine having f*ckall to do because you’re a member of the Royal Family, and not even one in line to the throne, and looking at pictures of your deceased mother-in-law whose death was preceded by exactly the same thing, and looking at your infant child and asking yourself, is this really the best we can do for him? Do you think you’d take it all with the grace and dignity that Meghan has? I know I wouldn’t.

Meghan loves her husband enough to become a Royal, and Harry loves his wife enough to step away from the only life he’s ever known. Maybe it’s not the royal fairy tale we all grew up with, but I think it’s better.

Because none of those fairy tales included a MASSIVE reduction in tax spending.