Meghan Markle has had an amazing life. After all, she's gone from television star
to royalty in a matter of months. But some details aren't quite as magical as
they may seem. Here's a look at the shady side of Meghan
Markle. In December 2017, news broke that Meghan Markle's
estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle, was gearing up to release a tell-all book focused
on spilling some family secrets. In an interview with The Sun, Samantha revealed, "[Meghan's] a social climber...Hollywood has
changed her. I think her ambition is to become a princess...The
royal family would be appalled by what she’s done to her own family." Samantha also complained that Meghan all but
forgot about her after gaining high society status. However, according to E! News, a person close
to the family says Samantha can't be trusted. The source revealed, "Samantha [Markle] doesn't have a relationship
with Meghan Markle and she never has...Meghan has never done anything to her and continues
to take the high road." It's also worth noting that it isn't just
Samantha who thinks Meghan's completely different these days. One of the duchess' former friends told the
Daily Mail, "The person I knew is not there anymore...There's
Meghan Before Fame and Meghan After Fame." Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's engagement
was untraditional for a number of reasons, especially as the former actress was already
a divorced woman. Before meeting Prince Harry, Meghan was married
to producer Trevor Engelson for two years before they split. A source allegedly close to the couple told
Woman's Day that the stress of a long-distance relationship likely played a part, as Markle
lived in Canada when Suits was being filmed while her husband lived in Los Angeles. As the magazine's source pointed out, "It was a very difficult way to start married
life." In their BBC engagement interview, Meghan
Markle and Prince Harry revealed that they'd met on a blind date. Meghan explained, "Because I'm from the States, you don't grow
up with the same understanding of the royal family." She continued, "And so while I now understand very clearly
there's a global interest there, I didn't know much about him." However, one of Meghan's former friends told
a very different story, and revealed to the Daily Mail, "I know the Royal Family was something she
found fascinating. She had one of Princess Diana's books 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 wasn't shocked or even surprised to hear about Prince Harry. I know she used to love The Princess Diaries." Meghan Markle's relationship with her family
was a hot topic in the run-up to her wedding. Her husband-to-be inadvertently caused a stink
by making a comment about Meghan's newfound connection with the royal family. He told BBC Radio 4, "[It's] the family that I suppose she's never
had." Prince Harry's comment hurt the Markles, who
hit back, with Meghan's half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., telling the Daily Mail, "She's had a really good family...We were
as close as we could be." However, it's difficult to know what the truth
really is. It's also worth noting that Meghan's dad,
Thomas Markle, admitted to telling lies about his daughter in the press. In a Channel 5 documentary, Thomas revealed, "I said they called me back and they were
really concerned about me and I said, 'Go on your honeymoon, don't worry about me, I'll
be fine.' And that was all a lie." Meghan Markle starred on the hit show Suits
for years, but she didn't become a household name until her relationship with Prince Harry,
and it seems that her reps may have tried to take advantage of that new-found fame. In December 2017, gossip emerged that Markle
was on the short list for a role in the next James Bond movie. At the time, a source told The Sun, "Meghan fits the role of a Bond girl perfectly." However, Blind Gossip refuted this claim,
with a source suggesting that Meghan was never in the running, and the rumors were simply
stirred up for publicity. When Meghan Markle's relationship with Prince
Harry was finally revealed, one of her childhood friends decided to give an interview to the
Daily Mail. Calling out the duchess for her supposedly
opportunistic ways, the former friend revealed, "All I can say now is that I think Meghan
was calculated, very calculated, in the way she handled people and relationships. She is very strategic in the way she cultivates
circles of friends. Once she decides you're not part of her life,
she can be very cold." Meanwhile, biographer Penny Junor, the author
of Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son, Husband, claimed that Meghan's love of fame would likely
help her relationship with the royal family, even if it destroyed some friendships. Junor told the Express, "One of the advantages of Meghan is because
she is in the public eye, she likes that. The real problem with Harry's girlfriends
in the past is that they absolutely hated the media attention and that's scared them
off. Because Meghan's an actress, she's out there
selling herself anyway, that's part and parcel of her business and her career." Meghan Markle is said to have spent a lot
of time in London following her split from Trevor Engelson. The actress reportedly struck up a friendship
with local TV personality Lizzie Cundy after they attended a charity dinner. According to Cundy, Markle was keen to find
a new man, but she allegedly had two conditions. Firstly, Meghan apparently wanted her new
man to be English, and he also had to be famous. In her 2019 tell-all, Tales From the Red Carpet,
Cundy wrote, "We were having a girly chat and then she
said, 'Do you know any famous guys? I'm single and I really love English men.' So I said, 'We'll go out and find you someone.'" "She loved London. She said, 'I love the way you say darling
and babe.'" Sources close to X-Factor winner Matt Cardle
claim Markle quietly slid into his DMs in 2015, but the singer reportedly stopped replying
after meeting somebody else. Her Instagram interaction with Cardle allegedly
took place just months before she started dating Harry, according to The Sun. Unfortunately, once Meghan started seeing
Harry, she apparently had no use for Cundy anymore, as the author revealed, "I texted saying, 'Oh my god, I heard about
Harry,' and she was like, 'Yeah I know, we'll try and hook up.' She was probably told by the Palace to end
contact with people she befriended in the media. I was literally ghosted by her." To the millions watching around the world,
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's wedding appeared to be a flawless fairy tale, but reports suggest
that it wasn't exactly smooth sailing behind the scenes. According to the Daily Mail, the American
got a lot of British backs up when she requested that air fresheners be deployed at her wedding
because the smell inside St. George's Chapel displeased her. According to one royal insider, "Apparently Meghan didn't like the smell of
the chapel, which, as you would expect, is a little musty. It's not unpleasant at all, though. It just smells how you would expect an old
building to smell." St. George's Chapel is a very old building,
having been an important place of worship for the British monarchy since 1475. Understandably, it might not always smell
that fresh. As an insider told the Daily Mail, "Meghan wanted staff to go around with these
atomizers, like spritzer guns, and spray the chapel with scent before anyone arrived. Royal Household staff stepped in and told
her office politely, but firmly, that this was the Queen's Chapel and it simply wasn't
appropriate...I don't believe a request of that nature had been made before." Most brides would be ecstatic at the thought
of walking down the aisle wearing a diamond and platinum bandeau tiara handpicked by the
queen herself, but according to insiders, Meghan Markle wanted to choose her own. Household insiders reported that Prince Harry's
bride-to-be made it clear which headpiece she wanted to wear on her big day, and things
apparently got a little tense when her idea was shot down. As a royal source told The Sun, "Meghan had her heart set on this tiara with
emeralds and Prince Harry hit the roof when they were told it was impossible for her to
wear it...The provenance of the tiara could not be established, there were concerns it
could have come from Russia originally." When news of Markle's alleged behavior reached
the Queen, Her Majesty reportedly decided to give her grandson a good talking to. The insider told The Sun, "There was a very heated exchange that prompted
the Queen to speak to Harry. She said, 'Meghan cannot have whatever she
wants. She gets what tiara she's given by me.'...The
message from the Queen was very much Meghan needed to think about how she speaks to staff
members and be careful to follow family protocols." According to the source, the Queen also struck
a low-blow during the discussion, and questioned why Meghan needed to wear a traditional wedding
veil given it was her second marriage. Rumors of an ongoing feud between Meghan Markle
and her sister-in-law began to swirl after it emerged that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
would be moving out of Kensington Palace. Tabloids claimed Kate Middleton had snapped
at Meghan after she caught the former actress speaking rudely to someone on her staff. The Palace denied this in a statement, which
raised a few eyebrows among royal commentators. Royal expert Angela Mollard told New Idea's
podcast, "It's fairly unprecedented for them to speak
out in this way, and I think what Kensington Palace is wanting to do is to detract from
this rift that's happening. Obviously, the Queen is in the golden era
of her reign. She wants a cohesive royal family." The press has continued to dig into the allegedly
splintered relationship between the two duchesses. There were rumors that the rift began in the
run-up to Meghan and Harry's wedding. Princess Charlotte was one of the stars of
the wedding, but it was claimed that her mother, Kate Middleton, was left in tears after an
argument broke out during a fitting for her daughter's bridesmaid dress. Of the alleged incident, an insider told The
Telegraph, "Kate had only just given birth to Prince
Louis and was feeling quite emotional." It seems that Meghan's road to the altar was
anything but smooth. It's not often that people with top positions
in the royal household give up their posts, so when three walk out in quick succession,
rumors are inevitable. In May 2019, it was revealed that Meghan Markle's
right-hand woman, Amy Pickerill, was leaving, making her the third member of the duchess'
staff to quit within a matter of months. A royal insider confirmed to the Daily Mail, "Amy is leaving...It's very sad for her colleagues,
as she is a really popular member of staff." Pickerill was expected to stay on and succeed
Markle's private secretary, Samantha Cohen, who, after 17 years with the royal family,
also left her post. Markle's personal assistant also quit her
job, and caused a stir when she bolted less than six months after Meghan and Harry's wedding. Apparently Meghan's personal assistant couldn't
handle the stress of the job, as a source told The Mirror, "She put up with quite a lot...Meghan put
a lot of demands on her and it ended up with her in tears." "It's, um, hard." Meghan Markle's relationship with Prince Harry
seemed to have all the hallmarks of a real-life fairy tale when it first started blossoming,
but it might actually have been more of a love triangle. Before she hooked up with her redheaded prince,
Meghan was dating renowned Canadian chef Cory Vitiello, and reports have suggested that
there may have been an overlap between the two relationships. Rumors started to fly when an eagle-eyed royal
fan noticed that Vanity Fair had edited its cover story at Meghan's request, with the
editor writing, "The sentence regarding the first time Markle
met Prince Harry has been amended. Markle told Vanity Fair that the couple met
in July 2016." The original article stated that the Sussexes
had met in May 2016. According to The Telegraph, "Meghan Markle was still dating a Canadian
chef when she reportedly met the Prince for the first time, it has emerged...[Meghan]
had been in a relationship with Cory Vitiello for two years when they broke up in May, the
month the Prince is understood to have asked for her phone number after meeting her at
a function." When the Daily Mail asked Vitiello if he was
still dating Meghan when she met Harry, he replied, "I've got a lot of respect for Meghan and,
from my end, to make it seem like I'm part of the story would seem self-serving and opportunistic...I'm
pleased for Meghan. She's a great girl. There is no bitterness. I respect people's private and personal lives." Right or wrong, Meghan Markle was widely blamed
when the Sussexes announced they were going to step back from royal life and branch out
on their own in January 2020. Express columnist Virginia Blackburn wrote, "Meghan didn't understand that being a Windsor
is not like being a celebrity." And it wasn't just the Brits who were unhappy
about Megxit either. Canadian millionaire Kevin O'Leary told Tatler, "When they are ex-royals they become much
less interesting...I think Meghan got him into a bad place, and maybe she should do
a little soul-searching. She knew what she was getting into when she
married him." Many people even seem to think that Megxit
was Meghan's plan all along. According to Page Six, Markle put some of
her clothes in a Toronto storage facility prior to her wedding, but she never shipped
them to England. An insider claimed that Meghan had the items
delivered to her and Prince Harry's rented property on Vancouver Island when they arrived
in Canada following their announcement that they planned to step down from their royal
roles. As for why the duchess kept all of those clothes
in storage for two years, it might be that Meghan knew she'd be returning to Canada,
and that her move to England was never permanent. We might never know if Meghan Markle had some
form of Megxit in mind when she married Prince Harry, but according to someone who knows
her personally, shedding her skin and starting over is a habit of hers. An old acquaintance of Meghan's wrote for
Tatler, "Something that has stayed with me, especially
post-Megxit, is that Meghan is no stranger to picking up and reinventing herself. Both a go-getter as well as a shape-shifter,
she returns now with more social mojo than she could have ever imagined then." By March 2020, Markle was already unleashing
that social mojo on Los Angeles, where she and Harry moved after leaving England and
Canada behind. As the duchess grew up in California, she
likely already feels at home following the transatlantic move. However, Prince Harry has spent most of his
life in the United Kingdom, and is probably taking more time to adjust to the United States. Dr. Jane Goodall, a good friend of Harry's,
told the Radio Times in April 2020, "I don't know how his career is going to map
out, but yes, I've been in touch, though I think he's finding life a bit challenging
just now." Meanwhile, another source told E! News, "Things have been stressful for Prince Harry
since his move...It hasn't been easy." Prince Harry and Meghan Markle shocked everyone
when they revealed they were stepping back as senior royals in a bombshell statement. And according to senior palace sources, even
Queen Elizabeth was surprised by the news. Her Majesty reportedly had no idea her grandson
was about to ditch royalty in favor of a quieter life in North America, but after a period
of negotiation, she accepted the decision. However, she did lay down some rules for the
Sussexes moving forward, including banning them from using the word "royal" in their
private endeavors. This was a bit of a slap in the face for the
couple, considering that they'd already named their brand Sussex Royal. While the couple agreed to the Queen's terms,
they seemed to throw some shade at the royal family over some of the new rules. A few months after their initial announcement,
a new statement on the couple's website seemed to want to make it clear that the Queen doesn't
own the word "royal." It read, "While there is not any jurisdiction by The
Monarchy...over the use of the word 'Royal' overseas, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex do
not intend to use 'Sussex Royal' or any iteration of the word 'Royal' in any territory." "His family's been so welcoming." Meghan and Harry also appeared to take aim
at Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, and said, "While there is precedent for other titled
members of the royal family to seek employment outside of the institution, for The Duke
and Duchess of Sussex, a 12-month review period has been put in place." The York sisters have both been allowed to
work while keeping their titles, and this seemingly snarky remark seems to prove that
Harry and Meghan expected a similar arrangement. Now that Meghan Markle is stateside, she's
apparently been dishing about Prince Harry's side of the family. And according to the duchess, life was a little
frosty in the royal family. In March 2020, a source spoke to the Daily
Mail about Meghan and Harry's final trip to England as senior royals, and said, "[Meghan] said [the trip] has been a confirmation
that they made the right choice in parting ways. There's no warmth between the family members
and she wants to raise Archie in a household that is filled with laughter and joy and lots
of hugs." And Meghan's sister-in-law, Kate Middleton,
is reportedly the biggest culprit, with the source revealing, "It's still weird to [Meghan] that no one
hugs and that everyone is so uptight, especially Kate. She said it's obvious that Kate and William
do not approve of their choices and that you could cut the tension with a knife. Kate barely even looked at her and their interaction
was kept to a bare minimum." Rumors of a rift between the two duchesses
have been persisting for some time now. However, this damaging narrative really started
to take root in 2019, when Markle guest-edited the September issue of British Vogue, and
suggested that it would have been tacky to appear on the cover herself. Perhaps Meghan should've done some research
prior to making her comment, as Kate appeared on the cover of Vogue in 2016. Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos about your
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