Normally, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry take great pride in being on the same page about different things. For example, Harry is very sensitive to media pressure blaming his spouse for their mutual decision to step back from royal responsibilities and leave the country. He doesn’t want this to be known as “Megxit” when he wanted to leave, too.
But that doesn’t mean these two always see eye-to-eye. And there was one time in particular that Meghan embarrassed Harry in front of his entire family.
What was this incident, and why was it so embarrassing? Let’s find out!
Meghan’s embarrassing move
Meghan’s humiliation of Harry isn’t something that happened super-recently. In fact, it all goes back to October 2018, during the wedding of Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie to Jack Brooksbank.
At this point, Meghan was pretty new in the Royal Family. After all, she had only married Prince Harry five months earlier. So she could be forgiven for not understanding certain royal rules and protocols.
However, some mistakes are more unforgivable than others. During Eugenie’s wedding, Meghan announced that she was pregnant with her and Harry’s first child, Archie. Meghan likely intended to simply spread the joyful news, but she ended up embarrassing Harry and her new in-laws instead.
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How could Meghan make such a social faux pas?
Meghan’s revelation that she was pregnant at Princess Eugenie’s wedding was a huge faux pas, especially among the Royal Family.
You’re not supposed to steal someone else’s limelight on their big wedding day. That is certainly the conclusion that royal experts Andy Tillett and Dylan Howard reached in their book Royals at War, which gives special insights into the typically-reclusive Royal Family.
As The Sun reports, these two thought Meghan’s announcement was in shockingly poor taste. “Meghan put her foot in it when she decided that it would be the ideal moment to announce that she and Harry were expecting their first child,” they wrote. “This was a huge social gaffe, even if you were not a royal.”
But since she was now a royal, this surprise announcement was a major embarrassment for both Meghan and, by extension, Harry.
How Eugenie reacted to Meghan’s announcement
It’s one thing to simply find Meghan’s actions tacky. For example, thinking that even outsiders would know not to steal someone else’s spotlight on a day when they are surrounded by their famous family members
However, it’s another thing to make the bride angry. And as reported by The Sun, the authors of Royals at War claimed that Meghan’s surprise announcement did just that. They said she was busy “stealing the limelight from Eugenie, who was furious, as was her mother, Sarah.”
Part of what makes this story so interesting is that previously, the Royal Family denied that Meghan had made an announcement about being pregnant at this time. This may point to the royals simply wanting more privacy extended to everyone involved. Of course, the official objections may make you ask whether you trust the account that these authors are giving.
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A shifting story
When, then, does the Royal Family say that Meghan officially announced her pregnancy? As Marie Claire reports, the official story is that she made the announcement on October 15, 2018 right before she and Harry kicked off their tour of Australia and New Zealand. If true, this means they were well clear of the October 12 date of Princess Eugenie’s wedding.
The Royals at War book tells a different story, of course. The book alleges that Meghan broke the news to the Queen and Prince Philip as well as Prince Charles, Camilla, Princess Eugenie, and Jack.
Given these differences in the narrative, it’s tough to know who to believe. On one hand, the Royal Family is notorious for being secretive, and it would make sense for them to tell a white lie about a social gaffe. On the other hand, Royals at War is marketed as an exposé of the Royal Family, so we might expect both embellishment and bias on the part of the writers.
The real question is, how did Meghan’s alleged announcement affect her relationship with Eugenie?
How does Eugenie feel about Meghan now?
How did this incident change the relationship between Meghan Markle and Princess Eugenie? Potentially, quite a bit!
According to Express, Eugenie was one of Meghan’s earliest and closest friends in the Royal Family. At one point, Meghan recounted a great anecdote to Ellen DeGeneres where she, Harry, Eugenie, and Eugenie’s then-fiancé Jack snuck off for a Halloween celebration. This was basically Meghan’s last real hurrah before she was officially part of the Royal Family, changing her life forever.
Given this information, we might have expected Eugenie to stay mad at Meghan. However, that never happened. According to Vanity Fair, Eugenie showed her support for Meghan and Harry by participating in their 40×40 charity initiative, and Eugenie has also defended Prince Harry against British tabloid accusations. It looks like whatever anger Eugenie might have felt towards Meghan and her family is something she soon got over!