Is there a ‘dark art’ to Meghan Markle’s pregnancy twerking video?

The ever divisive Duchess of Sussex stirred up more controversy Tuesday by posting a video of her dancing to induce labor. But controversy could be the point.

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Maybe rookie lifestyle influencer and “female founder” Meghan Markle got some advice from her new Montecito pal Gwyneth Paltrow about cashing in on controversy online.

“I can monetize those eyeballs,” the Goop founder once told a class of Harvard MBA students about her reported special “dark art” — using “cultural firestorms” around her controversial advice on vagina steaming and other women’s reproductive health topics to drive traffic and potential customers to her website.

On Tuesday, the  “As Ever” lifestyle brand founder generated lots of attention by posting three tributes on Instagram of her daughter Princess Lilibet to mark her 4th birthday. And, one of those tributes went viral and happened to be related to women’s reproductive health — her own, in fact. It was a throwback video of the American Duchess of Sussex twerking in a hospital room to induce labor so that she could give birth to Lilibet.

The video shows a heavily pregnant Meghan with Prince Harry, as the two start dancing to Starrkeisha’s “Baby Mama” song. In a caption, Meghan explained that she was one week overdue and trying to induce labor.

“When spicy food, all that walking, and acupuncture didn’t work — there was only one thing left to do!” Over the course of a couple minutes, Meghan really gets into it, gyrating, grinding and twerking. Harry also dances along, at one point putting up the hood on his sweatshirt to look more hip.

As is typical for the always divisive duchess, her fans were “loving” her latest headline-grabbing activity, while her critics were going to town with their snark and outrage. Meghan’s Instagram settings don’t allow comments and don’t show how many people liked the video, but it incited plenty of attention on various social media platforms.

“Meghan Markle is gonna make a certain demographic very mad with her latest IG post and I LOVE IT!!!” one self-described  marketing expert wrote on X. “I’m here for it,” someone replied, while another said, “So cute!”

“I totally relate with Meghan here!” said leading Sussex supporter, Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, an attorney and women’s rights activist. “By 40 weeks of pregnancy I was a menace & wanted the babies out! I did everything possible to ‘encourage’ them out and I mean EVERYTHING!”

Not surprisingly, the anti-Sussex Daily Mail called the video “cringeworthy” in a headline. Meanwhile, U.K. journalist Dan Wootton, who broke the “Megxit” news back in 2020 (that Harry and Meghan planned to leave royal duties and move to the United States), called on King Charles III to strip them of their titles.

“This is gross and grim and deranged on every level,” Wootton said in preview for his nightly YouTube show. He despaired of Harry being fifth in the line of succession.

“Prince Harry to allow a video like that — so private — to be put out there in the public domain to try and make some kind of point is equally awful,” Wootton continued. “There is nothing royal about this. These two are now an international embarrassment for the royal family.”

Wooden and others online also discussed “the point” that Harry and Meghan may be trying to make. It has to do with a wild and rampant conspiracy theory that alleges, with no evidence, that the former Hollywood TV actor was never pregnant with either Lilibet or son Archie and that both were born via surrogate. According to the conspiracy theory, Meghan was wearing a “moon bump” — or prosthetic belly — to appear pregnant with Lilibet during her blockbuster interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021.

On Tuesday, the conspiracy theorists agreed that Meghan and Harry posted this video to try to make “the point” that she was pregnant with Lilibet. The conspiracy theorists also argued that the video proved the opposite, and cited various reasons for why they believed she was wearing a prosthetic or had shoved up pillow under her dress.

“Does the silly (expletive) not realize that she is convincing us more and more that she was never pregnant?” said one critic, while another asked, “What are they distracting from?”

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones said that Meghan tried to make this same “point” last month when she revealed a photo of herself, bare-bellied and heavily pregnant with Archie, which was part of a collection of photos that were displayed on her “mood board.” With this mood board, the duchess also shared an ultrasound image of Archie before he was born — “the ultimate behind-the-scenes selfie,”

But aside from reviving the fake-pregnancy conspiracy theories, the video has renewed the ongoing debate about the couple’s demands to have control over certain aspects of their private lives. “Are these the same couple that went at the world for “privacy?” another person said. “They literally created shows and interviews to cry about privacy!”

But there could be another “point” to the video, something that Paltrow would appreciate. It could be Meghan’s way to troll her haters, while generating publicity that she can potentially use to her advantage.

That’s a strategy that Paltrow mastered as the founder of Goop, according to a 2018 New York Times magazine profile of the Academy Award-winning actor. The story looked at how Paltrow built Goop into a $250 lifestyle and wellness brand by embracing controversy, which she found drove traffic to her site.

“Goop had learned to do a special kind of dark art: to corral the vitriol of the internet and the ever-present shall we call it cultural ambivalence about (Paltrow) herself and turn them into cash,” as the magazine reported.

It appears that some of Meghan’s fans speculate that she, too, is deploying this special “dark art” — posting the twerking video to corral the online vitriol directed at her. Certainly, being in a video that goes viral is a way of staying culturally relevant. It could also sustain interest in anything she’s trying to sell, whether it’s strawberry jam from her As Ever brand or the next season of her “With Love, Meghan” lifestyle show on Netflix. And, as one of her fans said: “I love it!”

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