Meghan Markle Found 1 Aspect of Royal Life ‘Unbearable,’ Former Prince Harry Friend Claims
A royal author shed light on one aspect of royal life that Meghan Markle struggled with. A former Prince Harry friend is quoted in the book as saying that Meghan found it “unbearable” she wasn’t treated like a celebrity in her royal role.
Former Prince Harry friend explains why Meghan Markle ‘hated the UK’
In his book Gilded Youth, author Tom Quinn quoted a Kensington Palace staffer who commented on how jarring it was for Meghan not to be treated like a celebrity. Meghan reportedly expected royal life to be much like her experience in the celebrity world.
Quinn also quoted a “friend of Harry from his clubbing days” who said (via Newsweek), “Meghan likes to mix exclusively with celebrities.”
The friend continued, “That was a major part of her problem in the UK — American culture is so different from UK culture. Celebrities all suck up to each other. When you are an American celebrity and you mix with celebrities in the U.S., you just get used to everyone around you saying how marvelous you are.”
Harry’s “clubbing days” pal added, “Meghan hated the UK because as a member of the royal family she realized she was going to be treated not as a celebrity but as a servant of the people. That was unbearable for her.”
Meghan Markle reportedly was ‘shocked by the palace protocol’
Quinn quoted a “staffer at Kensington Palace who remembered Meghan well” who gave some insight into Meghan’s experience with royal life.
The staff member said, “She is basically a very nice, smiley, super-positive person, but having always felt in control of her own destiny and with the sort of personality that strives to be the best, she suddenly found herself in an institution she found she couldn’t influence and that assigns roles to people that do not change.”
They added, “She was dazzled by the worldwide fame that being a princess would bring, but she was shocked by the palace protocol and by the fact that she was not and never could be first in the pecking order.”
Meghan Markle ‘hated being a second-rate princess,’ staffer says
The staff member also noted that Meghan disliked being “second to” Kate Middleton. “She hated the constraints and the rules; she hated being a second-rate princess — second to Catherine Middleton, I mean,” the staffer said.
They continued, “She thought she would be living in Windsor Castle, for example, and just couldn’t believe it when she and Harry were given Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace.”
The staff member added, “Most of all she hated the fact that she had to do what she was told and go where she was told in the endless and to a large extent pointless royal round.”
Meghan had expectations that couldn’t be met with the strict royal rules she had to follow. The staffer explained, “I don’t think in the whole of history there was ever a greater divide between what someone expected when they became a member of the royal family and what they discovered it was really like.”
Meghan was also treated “in a slightly condescending way because she was not a blood royal,” the staff member said.
