It’s an understatement to say Meghan Markle‘s relationship with the rest of the royal family could be better. The Suits star had a rocky introduction to royal life. Now, she’s opening up about how it could all have been a lot easier.
Imagine transitioning from an ensemble cast member on a popular cable show to joining the most famous family on the planet. In an interview with The Cut, Markle says the transition was hard. She viewed being a princess as another role.
“I was an actress,” Markle says. “My entire job was ‘Tell me where to stand. Tell me what to say. Tell me how to say it. Tell me what to wear, and I’ll do it.’ And I’ll show up early, and I’ll probably bake something for the crew.” Learning to be royalty was something else altogether, and Markle didn’t have a mentor.
In movies and television shows where ordinary people become royalty, there’s typically a scene where an older royal shows the new princess the ropes. Think of all the etiquette scenes in the Princess Diaries or Crazy Rich Asians. Markle says, “That would’ve been really helpful. That would’ve been a very key tutorial to have had in advance of all this.”
She Wasn’t Allowed To Move
As Markle struggled to learn the ropes, she and Harry tried to find ways to make their impossible situation more precarious. As Markle tells it, she and Harry wanted to work on behalf of the royal family in a different commonwealth country, like South Africa or Canada. “Anything to just … because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, ‘Okay, fine, let’s get out of here. Happy to.’”
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Unfortunately for Markle, she and Harry weren’t allowed to do it. “That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing,” Markle says. With no compromise possible, the two decided to leave for the United States. Perhaps having just one earnest mentor within palace walls could have prevented so much heartache.