Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are seen together.(File)
Royal author Tom Bower’s 2022 book looks back at an alleged exchange between Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton that possibly deepened their rift.
One can’t help but wonder how the ever-deepening rift between Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton came to be. It’s no news that the estranged sisters-in-law have struggled to build a friendship. Despite the two women joining the Firm as non-aristocratic outsiders, they never found themselves on the same page of the conversation.
Akin to Markle becoming the target of the British press’ dart game, Kate was also referred to as a “commoner” marrying into royalty. Even with shared grounds for their unity, there’s seemingly no love lost between them.
Making matters worse, Markle’s May 2018 wedding with Prince Harry reportedly became the ground for her ultimate bitter fallout with the Princess of Wales.
Emerging reports incriminated Meghan Markle’s “cruel” words about Middleton’s daughter, Princess Charlotte, “reduced Princess Kate to tears,” thereby, cementing the distance between them.
What happened between Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton?
At the heels of Meghan and Harry’s wedding, the year’s reports excessively painted the Duchess of Sussex as the one who lit the fuse, leaving Middleton in tears over an issue with bridesmaid’s dresses.Contradicting these initial claims, it was later clarified that it was, in fact, Meghan who was reduced to tears. Prince Harry consequently confirmed that the Princess eventually sent flowers to express her apology.
Royal author Tom Bower fanned the fire by turning the picture upside down in his book, “Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors.” Therein, he quoted unnamed sources, claiming Markle “compared Princess Charlotte unfavourably to her best friend Jessica Mulroney’s daughter” (Ivy).
DailyMailOnline also reported that Bower’s book illustrated a sympathetic outlook towards Middleton, who had been “tired” after her third child’s (Prince Louis) birth.
As the Princess’ youngest child arrived in April, weeks ahead of the 2018 wedding, she was reportedly “too fatigued” to raise arms against Meghan, debating whether bridesmaids should wear tights. Royal protocol highlighted they should.
However, the duchess had decided that her bridesmaids would not wear them, and her then-pal Jessica Mulroney supported her decision. On top of that, the Duchess and Princess were reportedly at loggerheads over Princess Charlotte’s dress.
Middleton declared it “too short and anyway did not fit,” Bower’s book states. Kate seemingly couldn’t deal with Markle’s failure to “compromise” in the situation.
Meghan Markle explains her side of the story
Three years after the wedding, the Duchess of Sussex turned the tables on the story by presenting her point of view in an interview with Oprah Winfrey alongside her husband.
“[Kate] was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. And she bought me flowers… A few days before the wedding, she was upset about something pertaining – yes, the issue was correct – about flower girl dresses, and it made me cry, and it really hurt my feelings,” Meghan Markle explained.
“And I thought, in the context of everything else that was going on in those days leading to the wedding, that it didn’t make sense to not be just doing whatever everyone else was doing, which was trying to be supportive, knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot.”
Nevertheless, Meghan didn’t deem it a “confrontation. “I don’t think it’s fair to her to get into the details of that, because she apologised,” Meghan concluded.
