Royal Author Says Meghan Had a ‘Careful Plan’ to Launch Her Relationship With Harry: ‘She Wanted...’
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry first met on a blind date in 2016 and quickly fell head over heels for each other. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had already been corresponding on Instagram, bonding over their shared love of nature, before finally meeting for their first romantic evening at Soho House. While news of their courtship surfaced soon after, royal author Tom Bower claimed this was part of Markle’s 'careful plan' to soft launch her relationship with Harry. He suggested that she deliberately outed the romance for media attention.
Bower made the allegations against Markle in his book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors. As reported by the Daily Express, he penned, "Beyond the empathetic smile was a woman who disrupted spontaneity and liked to control every aspect of her life. In late September 2016, nothing was more important than her relationship with Harry." Bower alleged that she 'outed' her budding romance with the Duke by sharing an Instagram photo of her 'secret Halloween date' at a Halloween party they attended in Toronto. He continued, "For her own good reasons, she wanted the relationship to be publicised. In media hype, some would call it the 'Greatest Story since the Abdication'."
The Halloween party that Bower was referring to was a local party in October 2016, where the couple joined Princess Eugenie and her now-husband, Jack Brooksbank. Markle spoke fondly about the party in her Netflix series, Harry & Meghan. As per US Weekly, she said, "We went to this Halloween party where we could be completely dressed up and no one would know...It was so great, just silly fun and then [snap]." She also spoke about their budding romance at the party at the Ellen DeGeneres show, saying, "The four of us snuck out in Halloween costumes to just have one fun night on the town before it was out in the world that we were a couple. It was a post-apocalypse theme...and we were able to just have one fun final night out."
In the same book, Bower revealed that Harry was disappointed when his late mother, Princess Diana's siblings, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes, and Charles Spencer allegedly did not like Markle. The author claimed their meeting with Markle took place in late 2017, months before the Sussexes’ royal wedding. According to The Daily Mail, he wrote, "Harry assumed that Diana's family and friends would see a similarity between Diana and his fiancée....He was so disappointed." He added, "No one agreed that his vulnerable mother had anything in common with his girlfriend."
In a sit-down interview following their engagement, Harry opened up about being love-struck the moment he first saw Markle. He told the BBC, "I was beautifully surprised when I walked into a room and there she was sitting there." He recalled that soon after their first meeting, he persuaded her to join him on a trip to Botswana. After two years of dating, the couple tied the knot in 2018 and have since been blessed with two children.