Meghan Markle Struggled With Understanding Difference Between Being a Celebrity and Being a Royal, Expert Says
Meghan Markle may have struggled with understanding how royal life was different from being a celebrity, one royal expert believes. According to the expert, Prince Harry likely didn’t prepare her for what life would be like.
Meghan Markle wasn’t prepared for royal life, expert says
Royal expert Duncan Larcombe shared his thoughts about the Duchess of Sussex with Fox News Digital, noting how Meghan was at a disadvantage when compared to Kate Middleton.
Larcombe believes Prince Harry fell short on properly preparing Meghan for royal life. “I feel desperately sorry for Meghan,” Larcombe said. “Harry clearly never really wanted to admit to her what was actually going to be involved with the royal family.”
He continued, “I covered William and Kate’s relationship almost from the start. And for the first seven years of their relationship, if you rang the palace to ask something about Kate Middleton, they would say we don’t talk about her when she’s a private individual.”
Kate Middleton had more time to ‘adjust’ to her upcoming royal role
Larcombe touched on how Meghan was thrust into her role more quickly than Kate, who had time to adjust.
“But [Kate] had years to adjust to the attention, and I think Meghan basically didn’t ever get straight in her mind the difference between being on the red carpet as a celebrity and the red carpet as a royal, and she just didn’t understand the incredibly important distinction,” Larcombe explained. “I don’t know that she was guided and I don’t think the royal family really knew what they’ve got when Meghan showed up.”
Meghan’s situation felt familiar to Larcombe, who explained how Princess Diana had a similar struggle. “I’ve seen it, and we saw it all the way back from Diana,” he said. “We’ve seen it time and time again with people that marry into the royal family.”
Expert points out key area Meghan Markle misunderstood about her royal role
Meghan didn’t fully understand the duty that comes with being a royal, Larcombe shared.
“As a royal on the red carpet, especially as a working royal who is directly representing the king — or in Harry and Meghan’s case, obviously, the queen. When you’re in a movie premiere, it’s because you’re in the film, or you’re a Hollywood actor, or you’re a celebrity on the red carpet,” Larcombe said. “It’s about you, that’s your image, it’s about what you get.”
By comparison, he said, “When you’re on the red carpet as a royal, it’s about the people you’re coming to meet, you’re doing it out of duty.”
Expert says Meghan ‘wanted to be rejected’
In a Daily Mail article, journalist Dan Wootton discussed the new book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown. Author Valentine Low shared royal staff member claims about Harry and Meghan in the book.
Wootton discussed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s decision to exit the royal family in 2020, calling it “inevitable,” given the book’s bombshell claims.
“It’s easy to understand why many of the previously devoted courtiers are now convinced the couple were on a self-destruct mission from day one, looking for any slight, aggrievement or apparent discrimination to weaponize against the institution that was working so hard to appease them,” Wootton noted.
“Looking back, such a decision was now inevitable,” he wrote. “Low’s book reveals Harry was terrified of becoming ‘an also-ran’ once his nephew Prince George turned 18 and stole his thunder. Meghan, meanwhile, according to a palace insider, ‘thought she was going to be the Beyoncé of the UK.’”
Wootton added, “Such a toxic combination was a recipe for disaster.”
The royal expert further noted, “The staff were treated so badly because they were the messengers who had to try and keep their aggrieved royals happy while working within the suffocating rules of the royal family. In the end, it proved to be an impossible task.”
He continued, “But I’m of the belief that Meghan never actually wanted this to work,” citing how her team “was already negotiating commercial deals” prior to the Sussexes’ exit announcement.
Wootton further pointed out how one former staffer told Low: “Everyone knew that the institution would be judged by her happiness. The mistake they made was thinking that she wanted to be happy. She wanted to be rejected, because she was obsessed with that narrative from day one.”
