How prepared was Meghan Markle? Duchess of Sussex ‘was fascinated by the Royals’, says childhood pal

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Meghan Markle has said she didn’t grow up ‘knowing much about the royal family’ and was unprepared for her role, during her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview – despite a childhood best friend claiming she was ‘fascinated’ with them.

The Duchess of Sussex, 39, used her two-hour tell-all to reveal how she went into the Firm ‘naively’, explaining that Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, had to teach her how to curtsy moments before meeting the Queen at The Royal Lodge in Windsor.

Meghan – who is now based in California and also used the interview to reveal her second baby will be a girl – added that she ‘never looked up her husband online’ when she first started dating Prince Harry, and had to Google the British national anthem. 

However, Meghan admitted she knew her husband’s cousin Princess Eugenie before meeting him on their first date, which is rumoured to have been set up by designer Misha Nonoo, whose ex-husband Alexander Gilkes was friends with both Prince Harry and Prince William at Eton.

Shortly before Meghan and Prince Harry’s wedding in 2018, Ninaki Priddy, the duchess’ childhood best friend and maid of honour at her first wedding to Trevor Engelson, told the Daily Mail: ‘[Meghan] was always fascinated by the royal family. She wants to be Princess Diana 2.0.’ 

A picture of a 15-year-old Meghan posing in front of Buckingham Palace, with friend Ninaki, during a European trip in 1996, previously emerged before the duchess’ big day. 

It comes as royal author Robert Jobson cast doubt over how unprepared Meghan was ahead of joining the Firm. Writing for MailOnilne, he said: ‘Meghan has been disingenuous from the start, when she claimed she had no idea who Prince Harry was. Seriously?’

Prince Harry also suggested he would help prepare any future spouse of his for life in the royal family during a 2012 TV interview. He said: ‘I’m not so much searching for someone to fulfil the role, but obviously, you know, finding someone that would be willing to take it on.’

Speaking in 2018, Ninaki, whose friendship with Meghan ended before the duchess began seeing Prince Harry, said: ‘I know the royal family was something she found fascinating.

‘She had one of Princess Diana’s books [Diana: Her True Story] on her bookshelf, and even when she was with Trevor she told me she wanted to go and stay in London for at least a month.

‘I can’t remember exactly when this was, but she was married to Trevor and starring in Suits. She mentioned about wanting to go to London a couple of times.

‘I wasn’t shocked or even surprised to hear about Prince Harry. I know she used to love The Princess Diaries — films about a commoner who becomes part of a Royal Family. She was very taken with that idea.’

In a 2014 post on her now defunct lifestyle blog The Tig, Meghan even suggested that she’d dreamt about being a princess as a little girl, before explaining how ‘grown women seem to retain this childhood fantasy’.

‘Just look at the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal wedding and endless conversation about Princess Kate,’ the former Suits actress wrote.

Meghan used her highly anticipated Oprah Winfrey tell-all to reveal she ‘didn’t do any research’ into the royal family before she married into it and said she ‘didn’t fully understand what the job was’.

The duchess said: ‘I went into it naively because I didn’t grow up knowing much about the royal family. I didn’t fully understand what the job was.’

Such was her naivety, that when Meghan went to meet the Queen for the first time at The Royal Lodge in Windsor, she ‘didn’t even know how to curtsy’ and was shocked when Harry explained it was expected of her.

The mother-to-be said that was the moment ‘the penny dropped’ that her perception about the Firm was ‘very different’ to the reality, and she had to learn how to perform the royal custom ‘very quickly’. 

‘Right in front of the house we practised and ran in. Fergie ran out and said, “Do you know how to curtsy?”,’ she recalled. ‘Apparently I did a very deep curtsy, I don’t remember it, and then we sat there and we chatted.’ 

‘I grew up in LA, I see celebrities all the time. it’s not the same. This is a completely different ball game,’ she added.

Meghan explained that she had been on her way to the Royal Lodge when Harry said they were to meet his grandmother, the Queen.

She recalled: ‘There wasn’t a huge formality the first time I met Her Majesty, the Queen. We were going to lunch at Royal Lodge which is where some members of the family live, Andrew, Fergie, and Eugenie and Beatrice, we spent a lot of time there.

‘And Eugenie and I had known each other before I’d known Harry, so that was comfortable and we were friends with them as a couple.

‘And then it turned out the Queen was finishing a church service there in Windsor and so she was going to be at the house, and I remember Harry and I were in the car and he says “OK my grandmother’s there, so you’re going to meet her”.’

But Meghan was astonished to realise she’d have to curtsy for the Queen, adding: ‘I thought that was what happens outside, I thought that was part of the fanfare, I didn’t think that’s what happens inside.

‘I said, “but it’s your grandmother”, and he says, “but it’s the Queen”. And that was really the first moment that the penny dropped, that this wasn’t, it was easy for me up until then.’

Meghan – dressed in an elegant black belted dress by Giorgio Armani – added: ‘Thank God I didn’t know about the family, thank God I didn’t research, I would have been so in my head about it.’ 

Fergie – as Meghan referred to the Duchess of York throughout the interview – is renowned for her trademark deep curtsies to Her Majesty.

Elsewhere, Meghan added in her interview: ‘There was no guidance, as well, right? There were certain things that you couldn’t do. But, you know, unlike what you see in the movies, there’s no class on how to speak, how to cross your legs, how to be royal. 

‘There’s none of that training. That might exist for other members of the family. That was not something that was offered to me.

‘… Even down to, like, the national anthem. No one thought to say, “Oh, you’re American. You’re not going to know that.” That’s me late at night, googling how – what’s the national – I’ve got to learn this. I don’t want to embarrass them.’

But royal author Robert Jobson, whose latest biography, ‘Prince Philip’s Century’, is published next month, suggested Meghan knew more about the Firm ahead of her marriage then she claimed in her bombshell interview.

He told MailOnline: ‘Meghan has been disingenuous from the start, when she claimed she had no idea who Prince Harry was. Seriously?

‘She gushed about the royals during her engagement interview and was even given a trial run carrying out royal engagements before the hugely expensive wedding, which come three days after her first private wedding.’ 

In her first interview with Prince Harry in November 2017, following their engagement, Meghan explained she didn’t know much about the Duke of Sussex before meeting him – only asking a friend ‘is he nice?’.

She recalled: ‘Because I’m from the States you don’t grow up with the same understanding of the royal family.

‘And so, while I now understand very clearly there is a global interest there, I didn’t know much about him and so the only thing that I had asked her when she said she wanted to set us up was, “I have one question” which was, “Well, is he nice?” because if he wasn’t kind it just didn’t seem like it would make sense.’

It’s believed Meghan and Harry were set up on their first date by close friend designer Misha Nonoo, whose ex-husband Alexander Gilkes was friends with both Prince Harry and Prince William at Eton.

In Meghan and Prince Harry’s 2019 documentary with ITV, the duchess admitted that her British friends warned her against getting involved with Harry early in the relationship because of press scrutiny. 

During the couple’s highly anticipated two-hour interview, Meghan hailed her ‘happy ending’ with Prince Harry and Archie now the family are in California – calling their escape from the UK ‘better than any fairy tale’.  

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are ‘thriving’ in the US after having ‘been through a lot’ during their time as senior royals. 

Meghan hit nerves across the world in 2019 when she said ‘it is not enough to just survive something’ and instead ‘you’ve got to thrive and feel happy’ when speaking about her struggles with life in the Firm.

And now, the duchess said she, Harry and Archie are ‘on the other side’ and circled back to her earlier comments, triumphantly declaring ‘we’ve actually not just survived but are thriving’. 

But their joy followed hardship, with Meghan revealing she was suicidal when she was pregnant and had warned Harry ‘I don’t want to be alive anymore’.

Harry also revealed that his father Prince Charles stopped taking his calls after they decided to quit while his wife said an unnamed member of Harry’s family was ‘worried’ about how ‘dark’ their son Archie’s skin would be when he was born. 

But Meghan said: ‘Now, because we’re actually on the other side, we’ve actually not just survived but are thriving. 

‘I mean, this is miracles. I think that all of those things that I was hoping for have happened, and this is in some ways just the beginning for us. You know, we’ve been through a lot. It’s felt like a lifetime. A lifetime.’

Oprah asked: ‘So, your story with the prince does have a happy ending.

Meghan replied: ‘It does.’ Oprah added: ‘It has a happy ending because you made it so.’ Meghan replied: ‘Yeah, greater than any fairy tale you’ve ever read.’ 

The Sussexes also used the interview to reveal they were already planning ‘Megxit’ just six months after they married in May 2018. 

Describing how she considered ending her life believing it ‘was better for everyone’, Meghan said: ‘I just didn’t want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. 

‘And I remember – I remember how he just cradled me. I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. 

‘I said that “I’ve never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere.” 

‘And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution’.

She added: ‘I don’t want to put more on my husband’s shoulders. He’s carrying the weight of the world. I don’t want to bring that to him’.

The Duke of Sussex also said his family had ‘cut him off’ financially in early 2020, claiming that they had to sign multi-million dollar deals with Netflix and Spotify because he was relying on spending his inheritance from Princess Diana.

In the biggest royal interview for decades, Meghan claims Harry’s family were worried about how ‘dark’ their son’s skin would be. Harry also accused the family of failing to ‘show support’ for his wife when she suffered racism, and said he was ‘trapped’ in the Royal Family until he met Meghan. 

He said: ‘My father and brother. They’re both trapped. They don’t get to leave’. He added that his mother Diana would be ‘angry and sad’ that he felt he had to leave the royal family, but ‘she saw it coming’. Harry said: ‘All she’d ever want for us is to be happy’.

Asked about his relationship with Prince Charles, Harry said they were now speaking, adding: ‘There’s a lot to work through there, you know? I feel really let down, because he’s been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like, and Archie’s his grandson. I will always love him, but there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened. And I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship’.

Harry also said the couple left because of the media in Britain and because of a ‘lack of support and lack of understanding’ from his family, and revealed that his father refused to speak to him after they left for Vancouver. And in a sign that his relationship with his brother William is strained, claiming he ‘didn’t have anyone to turn to’ and was ‘ashamed’ to admit his wife struggling.

He said: ‘I love William to bits. He’s my brother. We’ve been through hell together. I mean, we have a shared experience. But we’re on different paths’. Harry added: ‘My family literally cut me off financially. Members of my family were suggesting that she [Meghan] carries on acting, because there was not enough money to pay for her. There was some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard’.

Meghan also revealed that Kate Middleton made her cry before she married Harry in a row over flowergirls’ dresses, and claims she called the Queen when she heard Prince Philip was admitted to hospital almost three weeks ago.

In the sensational interview she also accused the Royal Family of having ‘concerns’ about ‘how dark’ Archie’s skin would be before he was born because she is mixed-race and Harry is white.

The Duchess of Sussex also described her ‘pain’ that officials had denied him the title of prince and accused Buckingham Palace of failing to protect their son Archie by denying him 24/7 security.

Meghan refused to say which royal had the conversation with Harry about Archie’s skin colour, claiming it would be ‘damaging’ to the person in her husband’s family who raised it.

When Oprah asked if she was denied the title because he is mixed-race, Oprah asked if the palace had concerns Archie would be ‘too brown’, Meghan said: ‘In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time, we have in tandem, the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title,’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born’.

Oprah then interrupted and said: ‘Hold on. Hold up. Stop right now. There’s a conversation… about how dark your baby is going to be?’ Meghan replied: ‘Potentially, and what that would mean or look like’.

‘And you’re not going to tell me who had the conversation?’, Oprah asked. To which Meghan replied: ‘I think that would be very damaging to them. That was relayed to me from Harry. Those were conversations that family had with him’.

Much of the two-hour show was about the Royal Family, but there was no mention of Meghan’s rift with her father and a brief mention of her mother Doria. 

As Oprah wrapped up the interview the couple insisted that they had had a ‘happy ending’ by moving to LA, with Harry saying he had ‘no regrets’. But his wife added: ‘My regret is believing them [the Royal Family] when they said I’d be protected.’