In her own way, Meghan Markle is one of the most fascinating members of the Royal Family. She already made headlines as an American marrying into the family, and it raised more than a few eyebrows that she had been married once before. Before too long, though, Meghan was at the center of numerous controversies within “the Firm,” and she and Harry eventually fled England to begin a new life in America.
Even for those who love Meghan Markle, this has led to a natural question: where did everything go wrong for this actor-turned-Duchess? The answers actually go back to her earliest days with the Royal Family, and if you look closely, you can see the fracture lines that eventually threatened to tear everything apart.
Ready for us to spill some really fancy tea? Keep reading to discover the shocking truth of what happened when Meghan Markle joined the Royal Family!
Meghan Markle wasn’t prepared for the realities of royal life
The truth is that Meghan Markle wasn’t really prepared for what it would be like to join the Royal Family. That’s not just speculation on our part, either, because the actor said as much during her November 2017 engagement interview. As reported by ABC News, she said that, “I think I can very safely say as naive as it sounds now, having gone through this learning curve in the past year and a half I did not have any understanding of just what it would be like.”
“I had tried to warn you as much as possible,” Harry replied. “I think you can have as many conversations as you want, trying to prepare as much as possible but we were totally unprepared for what happened after that.” At the time, all of this seemed innocent enough…who among us wouldn’t be overwhelmed by all the complexities of life as a royal? Looking back, though, it’s impossible not to view their words as a grim omen of what was to come.
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Getting off on the wrong foot with Kate Middleton
Strictly speaking, Meghan Markle wasn’t really part of the Royal Family until she married Prince Harry. The wedding was meant to be a joyous event that would help celebrate Meghan joining the most famous family in the world. Unfortunately, she got off on the wrong foot before the wedding even began thanks to an infamous argument with Kate Middleton.
In the lead-up to the wedding, there were countless tabloid headlines claiming that Meghan had disagreed with Kate over the dress Princes Charlotte would wear to the wedding, ultimately causing Kate to cry. According to Elle, Meghan later claimed that the reverse happened and that Kate made her cry. Furthermore, she saw this as a turning point in her relationship with the Royal Family: “The narrative with Kate, which didn’t happen, was really, really difficult and something that I think, that’s when everything changed, really.”
She caused a rift between Harry and William
Thanks to the differing accounts, we may never know what happened between Meghan and Kate, including who made whom cry. But we do know that Meghan caused a rift between Harry and William, though this started well before the wedding. According to Omid Scoobie and Carolyn Durand, authors of the royal tell-all Finding Freedom, William’s verdict after meeting Meghan Markle was that Harry was moving too fast and that his little brother should get to know her better before marrying Meghan.
This allegedly caused some lingering resentment between Harry and William, and things got worse after Meghan allegedly made Kate cry. Over the next few years, there were rampant rumors that the rift between Harry and William had gotten worse and that Meghan and Kate were on equally bad terms.
Sadly, those rifts never healed, and now that Harry and Meghan live in America, the gulf between the two couples has never been greater (literally and figuratively).
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Life in the Royal Family nearly drove Meghan to suicide
To this day, there are some who criticize Harry and Meghan for stepping down from most of their royal responsibilities and fleeing England altogether. After all, Meghan is leading the kind of storybook life most girls dream of: she married a charming prince and will never have to worry about money ever again.
However, to hear Meghan tell it, they left for many reasons, including the fact that staying might have led to her death. In the couples’ bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan said (as reported by the BBC) that when she was five months pregnant with Archie, she confessed to Harry that she didn’t want to be alive anymore and had been considering suicide. Meghan was dealing with all manner of stress from the family she married into, and this led to her and Harry’s decision to stop working for the Queen and leave England altogether.
The early days of Meghan’s new life with the Royal Family were plagued by shocks, scandals, and more than a few salacious headlines. Fortunately, she made it out alive, and she and Harry now seem much happier with an ocean between them and their famous family!