A fame-obsessed Meghan Markle was convinced by husband Prince Harry and her Hollywood team that she could be as beloved as Princess Diana, according to a new book that details Megxit blow-by-blow.
The schism between Markle, Harry and royal officials began when Prince Charles confronted his son about the television appearances critical of the royals that Markle’s estranged father was making in the months after the couple wed.
“Can’t she just go and see him and make this stop?” Charles “berated” Harry, according to an excerpt from Tom Bower’s new book “Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors,” published in The Times of London on Sunday.
Instead of explaining that the two were not on speaking terms, Harry lied to the future king and said his wife did not know how to reach her father. The Sussexes then bristled at Queen Elizabeth’s request that Meghan fly to Mexico to speak with her dad, Harry began to “sympathize with her rejection of the palace’s deference and hierarchy,” the book said.
The couple grew isolated and attracted scrutiny from the British tabloids by thumbing their nose at palace sensibilities. Meghan soon began to begrudge any comparisons with her prim and proper sister-in-law, Kate Middleton.
The “increasingly fragile” former actress began to lash out at critics and blame the palace for not defending her. Tensions heightened when she decided that Princess Eugenie’s wedding reception was an appropriate forum to announce she was pregnant, Bower wrote.
Days later, Harry and Meghan went on a tour of Australia where they were greeted with a rock star reception that evoked Princess Diana’s overseas tours. The couple’s resentment of the royals and delusions of grandeur convinced them that Meghan could pick up where Harry’s mother left off in terms of garnering goodwill from the public, the book claims.
The Sussexes failed to consider that Diana’s mass appeal was charged by her vulnerability and cultivated over many years of humanitarianism and even behavior, according to the excerpt. They begin to surround themselves with Hollywood insiders who assured them they could be as popular as the late princess on their own, the book said.
The Palace was unnerved by the couple’s ensuing independent PR blitz and set up “The Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex” not as a foundation but as a charity run by trustees — which Meghan viewed as a slight.
In November 2019, Hillary Clinton threw fuel on the fire by telling Meghan the way she was being treated by the royals was “heartbreaking and wrong,” according to the excerpt. Two weeks later Megxit dominated headlines around the world.
The thin-skinned couple announced they were moving to North America, and Buckingham Palace announced a “slimmed down” monarchy as it also tried to deflect embarrassment from Prince Andrew’s sex abuse allegations.
