Since her marriage to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle has garnered the media spotlight for various reasons. Be it her fashion choices, her unwavering activism or her family life, people worldwide are always interested in Meghan’s life and what she will do next. Audible’s latest audiobook ‘Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors’, by Tom Bower brings to you startling insights about Meghan’s fraught relationship with other members of the British Royal Family and more.
Here are some bombshell revelations from the title…
- “Meghan did not feel the same towards Kate. Within a short time, she complained that Kate had not adequately welcomed her.”
Coming from different backgrounds and experiences made Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle “unlikely soulmates”. According to Bower, “The tension troubled Kate when she arrived with Charlotte, her three year-old daughter at a fitting for the bridesmaids’ dresses.” As per the audiobook, there was disagreement between the two regarding whether the bridesmaids should wear tights or not for the wedding. “Following the protocol, Kate believed they should. The Californian was uninterested in royal tradition. By then, Kate was also irritated by complaints of Meghan bullying her staff. That disagreement was followed by an argument about the length of Charlotte’s hem. Kate thought it was too short, and anyway did not fit.” This further escalated when Melissa Toubati, Meghan’s assistant, and the dress-fitters employed by Givenchy’s Clare Waight Keller, witnessed Meghan emphatically reject Kate’s observation. “The stand-offs, Kate decided, confirmed the complaints by Toubati and other members of staff about Meghan, Kate burst into tears.” This doesn’t end here. “After leaving that unhappy scene, Kate decided to make amends. She crossed the Kensington Palace corridor and presented Meghan with a bunch of flowers. Kate also told Meghan not to speak rudely to her staff. ‘That’s unacceptable.’ What followed can never be irrefutably established. In Kate’s version, Meghan slammed the door in her face and threw the flowers in a dustbin. Meghan would tell Oprah Winfrey that the tears were shed by her, not Kate, and the flowers were an apology. ‘I think that’s where everything changed,’ Meghan rightly said.”
PS: Kirstie Allsopp, a friend of Camilla, would later confirm that Kate was reduced to tears by Meghan bullying her staff.
- “To please Harry, the Queen agreed to ditch centuries of tradition. Meghan would be fast-tracked into the Royal Family before the wedding.”
In the book, Bower describes the first meeting between the Queen and Meghan in great detail. He says, “Two weeks after the Invictus Games ended on 12th October, Harry introduced Meghan to the Queen in Buckingham Palace. Over tea and sandwiches, the monarch formally approved her grandson’s engagement.” He further adds, “The 91-year-old had no choice. Apparently, she had already met Meghan in Windsor Park. In a fleeting, unexpected encounter, Meghan would claim to have performed an unrehearsed botched curtsey. During the formal meeting in the Palace, Harry would describe how the Queen’s corgis, who had for the previous 33 years barked at him, lay at Meghan’s feet and wagged their tails. Meghan described the scene as ‘very sweet’.”
- “Harry’s request for his own office or court to build the Sussex brand of philanthropy and humanitarianism, separate from Buckingham Palace but financed by the Queen and the taxpayer, was rejected.”
Going into great detail about Harry and Meghan’s marriage, Bower mentions various instances where Harry sought to placate Meghan’s demands that conflicted with the norms of the Royal family’s protocols. “A few months after the wedding, Harry asked the Queen’s permission to leave Nottingham Cottage and establish their lives beyond Buckingham Palace’s control. To accommodate her grandson, the Queen agreed that the couple should be allocated the Frogmore cottages on the Windsor estate. Although it was hard to believe that Meghan wanted to live 25 miles from London and under the Heathrow flight path, builders were contracted to rapidly convert the five dilapidated units into a luxury five-bedroom house.” The audiobook further mentions how the line was drawn, but Harry’s demands were still met. “On the Queen’s orders, he was told that he would be allocated a small office inside Buckingham Palace – and under the Queen’s supervision. While William had his own organisation, Harry was sidelined. The decision was supported by Charles.”
- ‘If you’re making an assumption that someone thought Archie would be too brown, it feels like a pretty safe one.” says Meghan Markle
In 2021, Harry and Meghan sat down with Oprah Winfrey in a much-publicised and controversial interview where the couple touched on topics such as their family and marriage, their relationship with the media and the Royal family and their mental health struggles. One of the revelations that took everyone by surprise was the discussions amongst unnamed Royal family members concerning the skin colour of their then-unborn first child, Archie. Meghan described her predicament and said, “The idea of our son not being safe and also the idea of the first member of colour in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be.” As per the audiobook, Meghan knew her argument was inaccurate. “Under a protocol signed by George V on 30th November 1917, Archie could become prince only after his grandfather, Charles, was crowned king. Moreover, on Archie’s birth, Meghan’s spokesman announced that his parents did not want their son to have a title.”
