Meghan Markle 'Hated' Playing ‘Second-Rate Princess’ to Kate Middleton, Claims Insider
Markle hadn’t just married for love; she had also signed up for a centuries-old hierarchy where Kate, the future queen, would always come first.
When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in 2018, it looked like the perfect fairytale — Hollywood meets monarchy — a recipe for a modern love story. But once the wedding glitter settled, reality was far less magical. Markle hadn’t just married for love; she had also signed up for a centuries-old hierarchy where Kate Middleton, the future queen, would always come first, and outrank her, and she despised it.
Author Tom Quinn, in his book Gilded Youth: An Intimate History of Growing Up in the Royal Family, suggests that Markle deeply resented this reality. “Never in royal history had someone’s expectations clashed so dramatically with reality,” Quinn wrote. “Meghan, who came from a world where she was used to making her own choices, suddenly found herself in a rigid institution that told her where to go, what to say, and even what to wear.” As per Quinn, the tea was spilled by a Kensington Palace staffer, who ‘remembered Meghan well.’
"She was dazzled by the worldwide fame that being a princess would bring, but she was shocked by the Palace protocol and by the fact that she was not and never could be first in the pecking order," the source argued. For Markle, those protocols meant Middleton would always have precedence. The source stressed, "She hated being a second-rate princess – second to Catherine Middleton, I mean. She thought she would be living in Windsor Castle, for example, and just couldn’t believe it when she and Harry were given Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace."
As the wife of the heir to the throne, Middleton was guaranteed a higher rank, more prominent duties, and, ultimately, a secure future. Markle, as Harry’s wife, would inevitably remain in her sister-in-law’s shadow. "I don’t think in the whole of history there was ever a greater divide between what someone expected when they became a member of the royal family and what they discovered it was really like. She was hugely disappointed. She was a global superstar but was being told what she could and could not do, what she could and could not say. She hated it,” the source noted, as quoted by Quinn.
This sense of restriction soon gave way to what Palace insiders describe as open frustration. Grant Harrold, once a butler to King Charles, said Markle’s expectations of life as a royal were far removed from the truth. “I think the problem with Markle is that she went into the organization and she assumed that after watching all the Disney princesses that she thought it was going to be like that,” Harrold argues in his new book, The Royal Butler. “When you join the royal family, you are given rules and protocols to follow.”
It was also a turning point for Harry himself. Harrold recalls, “As soon as Markle came into his life, everything changed. It could be that Harry had his own awakening and suddenly decided he didn’t like the organization, but the problem is that Markle was with him when it happened. The biggest change in Harry’s life is Markle.”
