Meghan Markle Gave Royals the ‘Ick’ With Her Behind-The-Scenes Vogue Antics: ‘They Were Very…’
In September 2019, Meghan Markle made history as the first working royal to guest-edit an issue for Vogue magazine. Her Forces for Change issue became the fastest-selling edition for the magazine in 104 years. While Markle was thrilled, royal expert Rebecca English revealed that one particular photo of the Duchess with editor Edward Enninful didn’t sit well with the royal family. She alluded that the royals thought of it as Markle leaning too much into her celebrity past, straying away from royal decorum.
English told the Daily Mail, “She did a bit of behind-the-scenes video with Edward Enninful to publicize that, and at one point they were wearing kind of party hats and things like that, and I know that didn’t go down well in Palace circles.” The expert added, “They were very supportive of her doing the project...It then slipped into quite silly celebrity territory, and I don’t think they were that happy. Someone described it to me as giving them the ick.” In the said video, Markle wore a red party hat, while Enninful wore a blue one, which greatly resembled the colorful hats often worn by royal women during public appearances and official duties. This act of Markle, having used the hats as props, must have left a bad taste with her in-laws.
The Duchess of Sussex didn't just give the royals the ‘ick’, she also brutally snubbed two senior royals during her seven-month stint with the magazine. The cover of her issue featured ‘15 trailblazing changemakers,’ women she admired and drew inspiration from. According to the Daily Mail, the late Queen was, however, left out among the 15 'women she admires,' and neither were nurses, doctors, lawyers, or teachers. Royal expert Ingrid Seward slammed Markle’s ‘snub’, saying, “The Duchess of Sussex has done a huge favor for the House of Conde Nast and rather less for the House of Windsor.”
Markle’s former friend and Vogue editor, Enninful, revealed that the Duchess chose to also leave herself off the cover to avoid appearing ‘boastful.’ The revelation didn't sit well with critics who argued that she threw shade at her sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, who had graced the cover of Vogue in 2016. Royal author Robert Lacey in his book Battle of Brothers, penned, “Many of the papers had identified Meghan's proclaimed refusal to be 'boastful' by appearing on the front of her issue as a not-so-sly put-down to Kate, whose face had featured on the cover of her own Vogue a few years earlier.”
Unfortunately for Markle, she ended up getting ‘blacklisted’ by Enninful and editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, over her diva like demands for a separate issue in 2022. As per The Sun, Enninful reportedly wanted to showcase Markle’s keynote speech at the One Young World Summit in Manchester, without giving her a front cover. A source dished, “The Duchess and her team had high expectations and were expecting she might get a print cover or at least a digital cover out of it, but Enninful was not able to meet those expectations.” Shortly after Markle ended her friendship with Enninful, he was invited to King Charles's coronation, which he attended and openly praised the monarch on social media.
