The Queen and Prince Charles urged Meghan Markle to fly to the US to mend an increasingly messy dispute with her father, says a new book that also details the lead-up to Megxit.
“Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors,” by British journalist Tom Bower, tells how weeks after Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May 2018, Charles and the Queen held a conference call to try and resolve the embarrassing dispute with Thomas. Markle to recover – although Meghan refused to comply.
Thomas Markle, now 77, had said, according to Bower, that he did not attend the wedding because he was ashamed of taking paparazzi photos. The retired Hollywood lighting director has also criticized the royal family in several interviews, claiming he had no way of contacting his daughter and fearing he would die without talking to her again.
Her father’s claims contradict Meghan’s explanation that he was too sick to fly to the wedding, Bower writes. In July 2018, Charles became increasingly annoyed with Meghan. “He never really understood her or what she wanted,” Bower writes.
“‘Can’t she just go up to him and stop this?'” Charles said to Harry, according to Bower.
During the conference call with Meghan, Harry, Charles and the Queen, Meghan said it was “completely unrealistic” to think that she could fly to Mexico, where her father lived, “and somehow hoped to be private with my father without a frenzy of media attention and interference that could further embarrass the royal family.”
Within two weeks of the call, Meghan and Harry announced on Instagram that they would be relinquishing their duties as senior royals.
Meghan also felt increasingly sidelined by her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge, Bower wrote.
“Meghan was angry that Palace officials refused to protect her image,” he wrote. “She refused to accept that staff were not being used to promote her as an individual, but instead put her on the roster of the entire royal family. Meghan was especially furious at the refusal to officially criticize Thomas Markle. From her perspective, Meghan was isolated, vulnerable and stifled by convention.”
The plan to abandon their royal role entirely was hatched after the release of the September issue of British Vogue, which was guest edited by Meghan. The cover, featuring 15 women who “reform society,” did not include the queen and fell like a bomb on the royal family, Bower writes.
“Meghan’s ‘virtue-signaling Vogue’ has been called ‘an epic error of judgment’,” he writes.
In November of that year, Meghan was visited by Hillary Clinton at Frogmore Cottage and “relieved her fear” of the former Secretary of State. Two weeks later, Markle and Harry announced they would not be spending Christmas with the Queen in Sandringham, and traveled to a Vancouver mansion with their baby, Archie, who was born in May.
According to Bower, Meghan was in constant contact with her lawyer and PR managers and negotiated multimillion-dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify. She had also filed for trademarks for a large number of items, including pens and “emotional support services,” Bower writes.
“Meghan has consulted her team in Los Angeles about the best terms for their departure from Britain,” Bower wrote. “The encouragement from her advisers in Los Angeles was intoxicating. The Sussex brand, Meghan was assured, offered the same global opportunities as the Obamas.”
In January 2020, the couple started Megxit and decided to leave the royal family for good, Bower writes.