On her side. Duchess Meghan’s (née Markle) ex-boyfriend chef Cory Vitiello’s mom, Joanne Vitiello, came to her defense on social media since she has been going through a rough time lately. “It’s about time! (So sad and shocking that there’s so much jealously, hostility and bullying directed her way!),” she wrote in a now-deleted tweet after 72 female members of Parliament wrote a letter supporting the new royal.
Meghan’s BFF Jessica Mulroney also shared the message on Twitter. “This is what I’m talking about,” the stylist, 39, wrote along with a heart emoji before she posted the open letter online. “As women MPs of all political persuasions, we wanted to express our solidarity with you in taking a stand against the often distasteful and misleading nature of the stories printed in a number of our national newspapers concerning you, your character and your family,” it began. “You have our assurances that we stand with you in solidarity on this. We will use the means at our disposal to ensure that our press accept your right to privacy and show respect and that their stories reflect the truth.”
The brunette beauty and Cory dated from May 2014 until May 2016 — right before she met her husband, Prince Harry. This isn’t the first time Joanne has expressed how she felt about Meghan, either. “We are very fond of her,” she told The Daily Mail at the time. “She is a lovely, lovely woman. Very smart, very bright, very caring. She’s a warm personality, very sincere. We very much enjoyed the time we spent with her. She fit very well into our family. The Royal Family, and Britain, [are] very lucky to have her.”
Even though Cory and Meghan didn’t end up together, Joanne admitted their relationship was intense. “I’ll just let you know that we were very fond of her,” she added. “It was serious. They were together that length of time. They were living together in the house, and they were in their 30s, so they weren’t young kids.”
While Prince Harry confirmed his feud with his brother, Prince William, in a new ITV documentary called Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, the mom of one — she shares son Archie with Harry — also got candid about what it’s like to deal with the criticism of the press. “I have said for a long time to H — that is what I call him. It’s not enough to just survive something, right? That is not the point of life,” she said. “You’ve got to thrive, you’ve got to feel happy and I think I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried, but I think what that does internally is probably really damaging. The biggest thing that I know is that I never thought this would be easy, but I thought it would be fair, and that is the part that’s really hard to reconcile.”
It’s sweet that everyone is rallying around Meghan these days — it’s just what she needs.