Meghan Markle 'Icily' Muttered 'Don't I Have a Voice' During Panel Interview Next to Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate Middleton

Meghan Markle felt "voiceless" long before she spilled about her royal life to Oprah Winfrey in 2021. The Duchess of Sussex reportedly muttered "don't I have a voice" during a 2018 panel interview with herself, Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate, the then-Duchess of Cambridge.

During a Royal Foundation Forum interview in early 2018, just months before she became "Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex," Meghan Markle allegedly felt ignored during the panel.

The summit was a chance for the four millennial royals to lay out the causes for the initiatives they wished to champion in the coming years. The filmed discussion took place three months before Harry and Meghan's wedding. The forum led to the quartet of thirtysomethings being labeled the "Fab Four" by the British press, which was to be short-lived. According to the Duke of Sussex's memoir, Kate and Meghan started having issues at that event, and it happened backstage.

But Meghan's feeling of not having a voice was not the only animosity simmering under the radar at the event. In fact, the Duke of Sussex wrote about the panel interview in his 2023 memoir, Spare.

"All this came on the heels of an awkward moment backstage. Meg asked to borrow Kate's lip gloss. An American thing. Meg forgot hers, worried she needed some, and turned to Kate for help," the prince wrote.

Describing the animosity that festered between the Duchess and Duchess-to-be, Harry added, "Kate, taken aback, went into her handbag and reluctantly pulled out a small tube. Meg squeezed some onto her finger and applied it to her lips. Kate grimaced. Small clash of styles, maybe? Something we should've been able to laugh about soon after. But it left a little mark. And then the press sensed something was up and tried to turn it into something bigger. Here we go, I thought sorrowfully."

This incident would be soon followed by the Princess Charlotte bridesmaid dress fiasco that left Meghan furious at Kate, which happened days before the future California residents married.

During the interview, the Duchess of Sussex reportedly got frustrated when the microphone was passed from William to Harry and then to Kate — seemingly avoiding her "at all costs."

While Kate talked about their shared passions, Meghan used the platform as an opportunity to discuss her feminism. "Harry with knife crime, William with homelessness, and for me with sort of addiction and things, I think just sort of coming together to try to find some sort of common ground and to be able to draw ideas together and find a way forward," Kate shared after being asked about their familial and professional dynamic.

Daily Mirror reported on Meghan's frustration.