Omid Scobie’s affiliation with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is under fire again as he becomes the target of a new book, The Good, the Bad & the Rugby—Unleashed. The British journalist and writer, who is friends with the Sussexes has written some controversial books that spotlight Harry and Meghan’s accounts of their “longsuffering” during their time as senior royals. His seeming tendency towards backing the Sussexes has earned Omid Scobie the title of Meghan Markle’s Mouthpiece. Although the journalist has continually denied claims branding him a “mouthpiece” or a “pal of the Sussexes,” it appears the title is here to stay.
Author James Haskell resurrected this tag once again in his upcoming memoir, The Good, the Bad & the Rugby—Unleashed, which he co-authored with Mike Tindall. In the book, set to drop on October 24, James took a stab at Omid Scobie, branding him “a very odd bloke,” seemingly referencing the journalist’s “favoritism” of the Sussexes that led to his labeling as Meghan Markle’s mouthpiece. He added,
“Royal fans can be mental.”
Going further, James Haskell added salt to injury by directing a stray at Omid Scobie’s fans, who he described as “f–king nuts, per DailyMail.” He noted,
“We all know that American royal fans are f–king nuts, especially Scobieites.'”
Mike Tindall Takes a Jab at Meghan Markle’s “Mouthpiece”
Mike Tindall, who co-wrote The Good, the Bad, and the Rugby, took a less direct approach to the attack on Omid. While he held back in the pages of the new book, Zara Tindall’s husband took a stab at the biographer during his interview with The Telegraph to promote the book, saying,
“If there’s any story about me or my kids, it will get entangled into a web of something else, and I’m tagged into reading all this crap. That’s the world we live in. Some have got nothing better to do than bag people.”
The father of three also clarified that he has no access to his Twitter account. Hence, when people tag him on anything they deem relevant, there is a huge chance he would not get to read them, as he randomly sifts through a plethora of other things he’s been “tagged into reading.”
His comment followed Omid Scobie’s past criticism of Queen Elizabeth’s grandson-in-law for “cashing in” on his royal connections. In his opinion piece published in 2022, the journalist condemned Mike’s signing up for I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, accusing him of leveraging his royal status. Omid Scobie went on to call out media outlets and royal observers for glorifying the former Rugby player’s actions, noting that the media wouldn’t spare either Harry nor Meghan if they made similar moves.
Omid Scobie, 43 is notable for the biography Finding Freedom, which explores Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s split from the British royal family. He co-authored the biography with Carlyn Durand in 2020 and went on to release another Sussex-friendly book, Endgame in 2023. The book stirred controversy across the world last year, as the Dutch copies namedropped two senior royals as the alleged “royal racists” who questioned the color of Prince Archie’s skin even before his birth. The Dutch copies were eventually pulled off the shelves and reviewed, but the weight of the scandal left a lasting stench, intensifying Omid’s branding as Meghan Markle’s mouthpiece.