Meghan Markle’s royal exit had warning signs years earlier, veteran correspondent reveals

Meghan Markle’s rocky tenure as a working royal may have stemmed from a "culture clash" with palace aides, according to a veteran royal correspondent who covered her time as a working royal.

Simon Vigar, one of Britain's longest-serving royal correspondents, examines those tensions in his new book, "The Four Wives of Windsor."

Kensington Palace told Fox News Digital it does not comment on books. A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told Fox News Digital, "This is not something we would comment on."

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"There was a culture clash there," Vigar told Fox News Digital. "I think it's a crying shame. It was avoidable, and egos got in the way on both sides. I think she thought that there would be more control over events, public events, than there was. ... The narrative now is that the British media was always against Harry and Meghan. That is not how I remember it, and many of my colleagues remember it."

"Harry and Meghan were great," Vigar said. "I saw her on her first engagement in Nottingham. She was brilliant with the crowds. She was an absolute natural, which is why it's so sad that they're not part of [the working royals] now. The tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga [in 2018] went really well.

"The crowds were massive. But ... the palace press officers were trying to spin three different stories after that. One person was in tears from the Kensington Palace team because of how it had all gone pear-shaped, as we say in the U.K."

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Meghan, a former American actress who starred in the legal drama "Suits," became the Duchess of Sussex when she married Prince Harry in 2018. The palace announced Meghan's pregnancy shortly after the couple arrived in Sydney for their royal tour that October.

Vigar covered the royal tour and wrote that it exposed some of the first significant cracks in Meghan's role as a working royal. According to Vigar, Meghan was accustomed to a public life where "everything was micromanaged in a far more controlled environment."

"Those levels of Hollywood control-freakery, as courtiers say, are incompatible with the public service role of the monarchy," he wrote. Vigar also quoted an anonymous senior staffer as saying, "My overall sense is Meghan realized it was hard work and not that glamorous. It's not about you."

Vigar wrote that during the royal tour, Meghan was scheduled to visit Suva Market in Fiji for an engagement highlighting women's economic empowerment. She planned to meet with vendors connected to the cause, but the visit ended earlier than planned.

"There were all these people queuing up to meet her," Vigar recalled. "... In the first few minutes, it all ended very quickly. Team Sussex said it was a security issue. That is denied by other people."

Reports at the time attributed the shortened visit to security concerns as crowds gathered to see Meghan.

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"... If it was a security issue, the Scotland Yard bodyguards would never have allowed her to arrive. They have an advanced team there. They have a team with her. They wouldn't have let her get out of the car if they thought it was a big security issue."

"Was it because it was too chaotic or too hot? Well, it wasn't chaotic really," Vigar said. "It was a very well-planned route through the market. It may have been illness, although that's not what Team Sussex said. In which case, why come down in the first place? And she looked OK. [But] there was a moment in the market where she looked at one of her assistants and the whole mood changed. It all went fast-forward. And my cameraman was being pushed out of the way."

"The women I was with had been waiting for ages to see her," Vigar continued. "One of them had handmade raffia fans with Harry and Meghan in them. She didn't get to meet her. She just zoomed past her, and that was that. Meghan was off. It was very strange. ... And I suppose that was an early sign in retrospect. That was an early sign that there was a mismatch in expectations."

Vigar noted that the Duchess of Sussex was working on "an intense schedule" while pregnant during the overseas tour.

"Meghan understood ‘the show’ bit but not the cultural side of the royal family," one senior aide told Vigar.

Valentine Low, then royal correspondent for The Times of London, reported in 2021 that Jason Knauf, who had served as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s communications secretary, had submitted a bullying complaint concerning Meghan in 2018. The Sussexes’ lawyers rebutted the allegations, while a spokesperson for the couple said the duchess was "saddened by this latest attack on her character."

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Vigar argued that Meghan didn't just marry a prince. She also entered an institution with its own rules, rhythms and intense press scrutiny — a sharp contrast with Hollywood, where, he said, publicists can exert far more control over appearances, interviews and publicity.

"The press team at Kensington Palace is pretty small, let's say, compared to a movie premiere in Hollywood or a movie premiere in London," he explained. "It's a tiny press team, and they're involved in this institution, this royal family, which is on the front pages almost every single day. They have to roll with it. They have to roll with events, and they have to try and shape them in the best way they can."

"Harry understood it," Vigar argued. "Meghan, by her own admission, didn't know much about the British royal family or who some of them were. It was just a different level of expectation. Whereas Catherine, Camilla, Lady Diana Spencer, who was an aristocrat and the most aristocratic of all four of them, they just understood the British family even more. I think the problem was it was a culture clash. It's an American lady marrying into the most upper-class British family possible."

A royal aide told Vigar that working royals are expected to fulfill public engagements even when they do not feel their best: "Even if they are feeling grotty, they turn up and they do the job."

In the book, Vigar wrote that there is nothing "showbiz" about "cold palaces and a life of smiling, waving and turning up."

According to reports, several palace employees left their positions while working for Harry and Meghan. Former aides later made allegations about Meghan's treatment of staff, including claims that her behavior contributed to some employees leaving. Meghan has strongly denied allegations that she bullied palace staff.

"The idea that the Kensington Palace press team was briefing against Meghan from day one, I just don't agree with," Vigar told Fox News Digital. "That's obviously what Harry and Meghan believe, but I know, and my colleagues know that actually, the reverse is true. People were working very hard to support her. And unfortunately, it didn't work out, and it went downhill … By the end of 2019, they both wanted out."

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Harry and Meghan stepped back as senior working royals in 2020 and later moved to California, where they live with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. The couple have repeatedly criticized the British tabloid press and said they did not receive adequate support from the royal institution.

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