Prince Harry Never Really Wanted Meghan Markle to Fit in With His Family, According to Princess Diana’s Friend
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were married in 2018, but 18 months after the former Suits star joined Britain’s famous family, the couple announced they were quitting royal life.
In 2021, the Sussexes sat down for a primetime interview with Oprah Winfrey. Meghan said that no one offered her any support when she became a member of the family, so she tried to take in everything and learn on her own.
“Unlike what you see in the movies, there’s no class on how to … how to speak. How to cross your legs. How to be royal,” the duchess told Oprah. “There’s not of that training. That might exist for other members of the family. That was not something that was offered to me. Even down to, like, the national anthem, no one thought to say, ‘Oh, you’re American. You’re not going to know that.’ That’s me, late at night, googling, ‘How … what’s the National … I’ve got to learn this … I need to learn these 30 hymns for church.’”
Meghan’s comments had some wondering at the time why Harry was not teaching her some of the hymns or at least the words to “God Save the Queen/King.” Now, someone who knew the prince’s mother is claiming the duke didn’t help his bride because he”didn’t want” her to catch on and fit in the royal world.
One family member’s help was reportedly offered to show Meghan the ropes
Following Meghan’s claim that no one was willing or offered to help her, English broadcaster and friend of the late Queen Elizabeth, Gyles Brandreth, countered that in his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait. Brandreth wrote that the late monarch suggested Prince Edward’s wife, Sophie (formerly the Countess of Wessex), could act as a mentor to Meghan and show her “the ropes.”
According to an extract from his book published in the Daily Mail: “The queen (who, of course, had seen it all before) understood that Harry’s girl might find adjusting to royal life ‘challenging to begin with’ (as she put it). ‘It is very jolty, but you soon get used to it’ — that was Her Majesty’s experience going back many years. To help Meghan, the queen suggested that her daughter-in-law, Sophie Wessex, would be an ideal mentor. ‘Sophie can help show you the ropes,’ said the queen.”
Brandreth added that despite the offer, “Meghan made it clear that she did not feel she needed Sophie’s help. She had Harry.”
Author and confidant of Princess Diana insists Harry ‘didn’t want’ Meghan to fit in
But Meghan’s account of having to learn everything herself didn’t make it sound like Harry was much help at all.
Tina Brown is the former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and the founder of The Daily Beast. She was also one of Princess Diana’s confidants who met with the royal mere weeks before Diana died following a car crash in Paris.
In her book, Palace Papers, Brown gave her take on why the Duke of Sussex wasn’t much of a help to Meghan.
“So why didn’t Harry help navigate Palace culture for his future wife?” Brown asked. “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.”
The author also insisted that the prince has an “addiction to drama” and blamed that as the reason for his not wanting to help Meghan’s transition.
