Royal Author Says Prince Harry ‘Didn’t Want to Help’ With Meghan’s Transition Into Palace Life
Adapting to life inside the Royal Family is no easy feat. Some newcomers, like Queen Camilla, endured years of hostility before eventually winning over the public. But according to one royal biographer, Meghan Markle’s transition into this family might have been far smoother if Prince Harry had chosen to guide her through palace culture.
Tina Brown, author of the biography The Palace Papers, claims Harry deliberately stepped back from helping Meghan adjust to the realities of royal life. “So why didn’t Harry help navigate Palace culture for his future wife? He didn’t want to,” Brown wrote, as reported by The Daily Mail. Instead, she argues, Harry positioned Meghan as a partner in resistance. “Their new complicity required Meghan to fight all the norms he had kicked against for so long. She was now his comrade in arms.”
That stance, Brown suggests, became a hallmark of the couple’s early years together, what one aide even described as an “addiction to drama.” It also led, in her words, to “partially self-inflicted” wounds that began to take shape before their 2018 wedding. Even as Meghan prepared to marry into the monarchy, tensions with her estranged half-siblings spilled into the headlines. Brown noted that “the speed with which Meghan seemed to dispense with people was becoming a meme. Bad karma rained down from her spurned half-siblings.” Both Samantha and Tom Markle were quick to criticise her publicly.
Samantha had labelled Meghan “narcissistic and selfish” as early as 2016, while later taking offense at Harry’s remark on BBC Radio 4 that the royals were “the family, I suppose, that [Meghan’s] never had.” Brown pointed out the irony and said, “This seems rich, given what Harry has since told the world about his miseries as a misfit in the royal cage... But in a contest of dysfunctional families, the Markles versus the Windsors is probably a toss-up.”
Despite the rift, royal insiders believed pragmatism should have prevailed. Lady Anne Glenconner told Brown, “We all have black sheep in our families, don’t we? But you know you have to somehow round them up and get them onside and bring them all in and stick them somewhere.” Brown argued that “wiser heads would have recommended that Meghan grit her teeth and invite Samantha and Tom, with PR clamps firmly in place.”
Brown’s claims of Harry refusing to guide Meghan through the complexities of royal life find an echo in later accounts of the couple’s turbulent time as working royals. Their struggles, according to biographer Tom Bower, often spilled behind palace doors despite a polished public image. In his bestseller Revenge, Bower writes that while “glowing photos” of Harry and Meghan’s tours projected harmony, “the mood in Sussex headquarters was miserable.” The tension, he suggests, was fueled by the couple’s obsession with how they were being perceived.
In one dramatic episode, Meghan “allegedly threw a cup of tea into the air,” a reflection of the mounting pressure within their household. Bower claims her anger was “partly fuelled by Harry. Every night, he trawled social media, searching for snide comments on the internet. Every morning he and Meghan turned on their phones to surf the internet. Thin-skinned, they were inflamed by the slightest criticism.”