'There Were Tensions Even Early On': Kate Middleton & Meghan Markle Had No 'Natural Connection' When They First Met
Though Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle's first major spat occurred privately prior to the Sussexes' 2018 wedding, it's now being claimed that the women failed to form any sort of friendship even when they first met.
In the new British documentary Kate: Our Queen in Waiting, narrator David Riley stated, "Whatever the truth of the wedding incident, Kate was the beneficiary in the press. Royal watchers soon discovered that behind the scenes, the women may not have bonded."
Expert Katie Nicholl chimed in to dissect the pair's relationship.
"I'm not sure there was a natural connection between Meghan and Kate," noted the Vanity Fair editor. "But I think clearly there were tensions even early on."
According to editor Emily Andrews, "the key difference" between the leading ladies lied in how they handled public scrutiny and tabloid articles.
"Catherine, as far as I'm told, just ignores what's written about her," Andrews said. "Meghan, on the other hand, got very very exercised with what was written."
However, as Meghan pointed out during her interview with Oprah Winfrey, she was the subject of demeaning and racist rumors while Kate barely faced any negative press.
Meanwhile, royal experts Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand claimed in their book Finding Freedom that the mom-of-three "did reach out to Meghan" during the early months.
"Their relationship hadn’t progressed much since she was Harry’s girlfriend," they noted. "Although Meghan might have understood Kate’s wariness to strike up a meaningful friendship, they were still no closer by the time she was a fellow senior working member of the royal family and the wife of William’s brother."
"Flowers for her birthday were nice, but Meghan would far rather have had Kate check in on her during the most difficult times with the press..." the authors added. "Meghan was disappointed that she and Kate hadn’t bonded over the position they shared, but she wasn’t losing sleep over it."
