It’s no secret that marrying into the Royal Family can be a difficult adjustment for many brides and grooms alike.
The current Queen consort – Camilla – herself was reviled by the public for many years due to the role she played in the breakdown of King Charles and Princess Diana‘s marriage.
However, with the help of Charles she was able to navigate these difficulties.
According to royal author Tina Brown, it was Prince Harry who could have helped Meghan Markle stay the course within the Royal Family and adapt to palace life but yet did not do this because ‘he didn’t want to’.
In her best selling biography Palace Papers, Brown said: ‘So why didn’t Harry help navigate Palace culture for his future wife? He didn’t want to.
‘Their new complicity required Meghan to fight all the norms he had kicked against for so long. She was now his comrade in arms.’
Brown goes as far to claim that one aide called their confrontational stance as a mutual ‘addiction to drama’.
But this would lead to what Brown described as ‘partially self-inflicted’ wounds for the Sussexes.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the Invictus Games. The Prince would have been well suited to help his wife navigate royal life
Harry and Meghan during their controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip during the wedding service for Harry and Meghan at St George’s Chapel, Windsor
This damage started even before Harry and Meghan had walked down the aisles and said ‘I do’ at St George’s Chapel in May 2018.
Brown wrote: ‘The speed with which Meghan seemed to dispense with people was becoming a meme. Bad karma rained down from her spurned half-siblings.
‘Living in Florida and Oregon, respectively, Samantha, 53, and Tom, 51, had always been cash-strapped loose cannons.’
Indeed the half siblings did not help themselves when they started criticising the soon-to-be Duchess of Sussex publicly.
Brown said: ‘Samantha had called Meghan “narcissistic and selfish” as early as November 2016, before Meghan and Harry were engaged, but she was stirred again by Harry’s insensitive remark on BBC Radio 4’s Today show about the royals being “the family, I suppose, that [Meghan’s] never had”.
‘This seems rich, given what Harry has since told the world about his miseries as a misfit in the royal cage… But in a contest of dysfunctional families the Markles versus the Windsors is probably a toss-up.’
The Royals believed that despite the obvious bad blood, it was best to invite all of Meghan’s family members.
As Lady Anne Glennconner told Brown: ‘We all have black sheep in our families, don’t we? But you know you have to somehow round them up and get them onside and bring them all in and stick them somewhere.’
Harry and Meghan in New Zealand in 2018. Their behaviour during their time as working royals led to some ‘partially self-inflicted’ damage
Harry and Meghan wave at well-wishers during their wedding.The couple’s dramatic time as working royals started even before Harry and Meghan had walked down the aisles and said ‘I do’ in St George’s Chapel
Tina Brown’s best seller ‘The Palace Papers’ claims that Harry and Meghan were ‘addicted to drama’
‘Though Americans are more inclined than the British to exclude difficult or embarrassing relatives, wiser heads would have recommended that Meghan grit her teeth and invite Samantha and Tom, with PR clamps firmly in place,’ Brown said.
But Meghan was ‘a brand now as much as a bride’ and filled the pews of St George’s Chapel with the ‘famous, the beautiful and the influential‘.
Why Meghan Markle ‘threw a cup of tea into the air’, royal author claimsThis guest list only led the half siblings to double down on the ‘trash talk’ with Tom Jr claiming in an interview that Meghan’s refusal to invite him has ‘torn my family apart’ and Samantha tweeted: ‘It’s time to “man up”… “shout outs” about humanitarianism don’t work when you are allowing Meg to ignore the Markles.’
Then Tom Jr wrote an open letter to Harry in which he said the marriage was ‘the biggest mistake in Royal wedding history’ and described Meghan as a ‘jaded, shallow, conceited woman that will make a joke of you and the royal family heritage. Not to mention, to top it all off, she doesn’t invite her own family and instead invites complete strangers to the wedding.’
Harry and Meghan’s ‘addiction to drama’ followed by ‘self-inflicted’ wounds continued while they were working royals and even after ‘Megxit’.
During their royal tour of Australia in the autumn of 2018, the couple were praised for what was by all accounts a successful trip.
However, behind the scenes the Sussexes’ relationship with their royal aides was not so rosy and the couple’s obsession with how they were being perceived by the public allegedly led them to clash with their team.
Writing in his royal bestseller, titled Revenge, Tom Bower claimed that in contrast to ‘glowing photos’ of Harry and Meghan being recorded daily, the mood in Sussex headquarters was ‘miserable’.
Royal insider and award winning journalist Tina Brown claims that ‘the speed with which Meghan seemed to dispense with people was becoming a meme’
Prince Harry in April 2025. The Prince was allegedly obsessed with the Sussexes coverage in the press
Harry and Meghan at their last official engagement as working royals in 2020
In one particularly dramatic outburst, Bower claimed that Meghan ‘allegedly threw a cup of tea into the air’.
The tension within Sussex HQ was apparently partly caused by the Duke and Duchess’ obsession with their media coverage during the games.
Bower wrote Meghan’s anger may have been ‘partly fuelled by Harry. Every night, he trawled social media, searching for snide comments on the internet. Every morning he and Meghan turned on their phones to surf the internet. Thin-skinned, they were inflamed by the slightest criticism’.
‘Then, both bombarded their staff with demands for retribution and removal of the criticism.’
It was at this time that fresh stories about Meghan’s father were reported in the America media including claims that Thomas Markle had first heard Meghan was pregnant on the radio, that he snorted cocaine and visited a Playboy club in Manila.
Despite the stories having emerged in the American press, Harry allegedly ‘blamed British newspapers for those reports’.
Bower said: ‘But the only jibe he could attach to the accompanying British journalists was a report that one of Meghan’s outfits cost £19,660. As a sign of Meghan’s intentions, she also wore a Serena Williams brand jacket. Soon afterwards, it was promoted on Instagram.’
This coverage still angered Meghan, causing her to become ‘irate’ and blaming the senior royal aide Jason Knauf and his staff for not suppressing the stories ‘Hollywood-style’.
Harry and Meghan attending a Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey in central London, on March 12, 2018
Royal aide Jason Knauf (pictured) was blamed for not suppressing stories about Meghan
‘Her mistake, she would lament, was “believing them when they said I would be protected”,’ Bower wrote.
He added: ‘Unsurprisingly, Meghan’s fury influenced Harry’s attitude towards the small British media contingent accompanying the couple. “Thank you for coming, although you weren’t actually invited”, he sniped. He also brusquely snapped unprovoked abuse at a TV reporter.’
‘The altercation bewildered the media. Beyond the Sussexes’ entourage, no one was aware of the turbulent background in Kensington Palace and at the Sussexes’ headquarters in Sydney.’
And rumours of Harry and Meghan’s troubled relationship with Jason and the other royal aides were growing.
This included allegations that Meghan sent emails to staff at 5am and that her assistant Melissa Toubati quit after she was driven to tears by the duchess.
But no falling out was as dramatic as the one which occurred between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Jason.
In fact, Meghan’s falling out with Jason was so bad that the Duchess did not even let him know when she was making a surprise appearance at an award ceremony, much to the anger of the royal press pack.
He would step down as a royal aide in March 2019.
After Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals in 2020 a major flashpoint of drama occurred in March 2021 during Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s bombshell interview with Oprah in which serious allegations were wedged against the Royal Family.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney. The games capped off a royal tour of Australia which by all accounts had been a resounding success
One claim was the Sussexes’ suggestion that the Royal Family was collectively racist, pointing the finger at one – unnamed – member who, they alleged, had speculated about the colour of their son Archie’s skin when Meghan was pregnant in a racist way.
While the allegations were shocking it was the Queen’s calm and measure response that was widely praised.
Writing in his tell-all book Courtiers, royal author Valentine Low reveals how the Queen’s carefully crafted response became ‘the stuff of royal legends’.
After the interview was broadcast the Queen’s first response was to stay quiet.
‘The palace stayed completely silent, because the Queen decided she wanted to sleep on it,’ Low said.
‘She was not going to be rushed into saying anything precipitate.’
Eventually a statement was released the next evening which read: ‘The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan. The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.
‘Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much-loved family members.’
According to Low, the statement ‘some recollections may vary’ not only instantly became the stuff of legend but it also proved that the Queen was still firmly in charge of the family.
Meghan in Australia in 2018. The Duchess of Sussex clashed with royal aides throughout the trip
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex troubled relationship with the aides led to rumours throughout the royal households
‘The statement was notable for two other things: for the informality – and affection – for which it referred to Harry and Meghan, rather than the Duke and Duchess of Sussex , and for the fact that it dared confront the issue of race,’ Low wrote.
The Queen’s response was widely praised at the time.
Speaking to MailOnline in 2021, Royal author Phil Dampier said: ‘The phrase “recollections vary” is telling.
‘The Queen is really saying that Harry and Meghan might be giving their version of events or their interpretation of a conversation a couple of years ago, without going so for as to say they are lying, which they might not be.
‘Clearly she has spoken to the person who allegedly made the remark about Archie and they have given her their version of events.’
Likewise it was warmly received by the British public, with polls finding an increase in support for the Royal Family after an interview and a decrease in support for the Sussexes.
Ofcom also received over 6,000 complaints about the interview which became the most complained about show of April 2021.
And while the rift between the family does now appear to be healing, the interview did lasting damage to the Sussexes’ relationship with the rest of the family.
