When a new member joins the Royal Family, they usually need a lengthy period of time to learn the ropes of royal life.
Along with being taught the hundreds of etiquette rules, they are expected to pick up how to run an army of staff and navigate dozens of high-profile events each month.
This can take many months, even years, to get right. So when Meghan Markle declared her intention to ‘hit the ground running’ before she even married Prince Harry, the Palace was filled with dread.
Perhaps because it is mostly staffed by upper-class toffs, or maybe simply due to the fact it is a public institution with long-running rules and conventions, the Palace operates cautiously and by consensus.
It was therefore understandable that the transition from Hollywood showbiz to the almost 18th-century life of the Royal Family was difficult for Meghan to manage.
Before her marriage to Harry she was a minor actress, whose career had failed to develop beyond her role on the legal drama Suits.
But after she joined The Firm, she was launched into a totally unfamiliar world.
Staff have now revealed what it was like to work with Meghan Markle when she first joined the Royal Family
Staff have allegedly revealed Meghan had a tendency to take control of meetings early on in her royal life, despite being new to the role. Pictured playing Rachel Zane in Suits
Meghan declared her intention to ‘hit the ground running’ at her first joint event with Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate Middleton for the Royal Foundation Forum in February 2018
However, her lack of knowledge did not stop her from confidently taking charge, according to a new book.
Some of Meghan’s former staff told royal author Tom Quinn of the awkwardness and hilarity of those early meetings at Kensington Palace.
One said: ‘It was extraordinary because she was so confident that you could see she wanted to run the meeting rather than learn about the Royal Family through the meeting.
‘She was a great believer in grabbing the bull by the horns – except the Royal Family is not really a bull.’
Another added: ‘Meghan thought she knew better than an institution that has been in business for 1,000 years and more.’
The suggestion that Meghan had a tendency to be overconfident when it came to her newfound royal status is not a new one.
Princess Diana’s acquaintance, Tina Brown, wrote in her 2022 book The Palace Papers: ‘Harry, who had always chafed at the hierarchy himself, was the last person to want to tell her to slow down.
‘They were both now drunk on a shared fantasy of being instruments of global transformation who, once married, would operate in the celebrity stratosphere once inhabited by Princess Diana.
One member of staff said Meghan thought she knew better than an institution that has been in business for 1,000 years and more
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle pose during a photocall after announcing their engagement in the Sunken Garden in Kensington Palace on November 27, 2017
At the couple’s engagement interview in November 2017, viewers watched closely as Meghan showed how confident she was
One image from the engagement interview shows Meghan boldly leaning into Harry’s space
Meghan was seen to be very dominant in their first TV interview, with her arm stretched across Harry’s body
Tina Brown (pictured) wrote extensively about Meghan’s journey to becoming a member of the Royal Family in her book The Palace Papers: Inside The House Of Windsor
‘Meghan couldn’t and wouldn’t bide her time to get there. She was 36. This was her big break.’
And it seemed Meghan viewed getting the most out of her staff as the key to her benefiting from her newfound stardom.
Now that she was a member of the Royal Family, not the minor actress she was in her past life, Meghan’s demands apparently grew with her station.
She was a moderniser by nature, after all, and someone who wanted to get things done and change the status quo.
Another of the couple’s former staffers told Mr Quinn ‘she really did have a messiah complex’, according to his new book Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life Of Royal Servants.
They pointed out that Meghan was focused on how she could become the best known and most loved member of the Royal Family.
According to one of Elizabeth II’s former courtiers, the Palace began to worry when they became aware that Meghan had plans for her life as a working royal that were not compatible with the approved programme.
However, her desire to do her own thing would never allow her to outshine Princess Anne, Charles or the late Queen, according to the ex-aide.
They added that they didn’t think Meghan understood that, when joining the Royal Family, ‘you don’t do as you please, you do as you’re told’.
The latest revelations about Meghan’s journey to joining the Royal Family have come from Tom Quinn’s new book, Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life Of Royal Servants (published by Biteback, £20)
The claims of Meghan’s behaviour have been made by former Palace staff in the book Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life Of Royal Servants. Picture: Stock photo of staff member not related to the book
The Royal Family employs an army of staff who often pick up on secrets while they are working. (Stock photo)
A courtier claimed that Meghan said ‘What Diana started, I want to finish’, but they added that although she wanted to follow in her charitable footsteps to some extent, it was on a part-time basis.
But then no one said marrying into, and finding your place in, the Royal Family was easy.
Diana was too young; Sarah Ferguson too headstrong and even Princess Kate found the transition from middle-class girl to princess tricky.
However, Kate did have more success, with Palace staff noting to Mr Quinn that she took a far more careful approach.
Staff described her as ‘someone who slowly and carefully absorbs the atmosphere of a place, the relationship between people and the rules’.
She was definitely not someone who ‘jumps in straight away and tries to change everything to suit her way of thinking’.
Instead, she decided to bide her time and watch how others behaved first.
But perhaps the most important difference between the two women’s approach to royal life was that Kate was prepared to be coached – not just by William, who wanted Kate to avoid the problems his mother had encountered, but also by the staff.
Meghan at the US Open women’s singles tennis final between Serena Williams and Bianca Andreescu on September 7, 2019
Princess Kate found the transition from middle-class girl to princess tricky, but listened to advice from William and the staff. Pictured: Prince William and Kate Middleton at the announcement of their engagement on November 16, 2010
ITV footage of Prince William and Kate Middleton during an interview on the day they announced their engagement in 2010
Although the learning curve was hard, Kate has now become a master member of the Royal Family. Pictured: Kate and William meet service personnel at a military base in Cyprus in December 2018
In the early days, the worldly Camilla took her under her wing and Kate, of course, had the sensible and practical support of her family, especially her mother, Carole.
Kate’s introduction to full-time royal life was gradual, cautious even, and to start with she was mostly a support act for Prince William.
And despite the late Queen handing Meghan some of her trusted hands, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, and Lady Susan Hussey to help Meghan learn the ropes, she reportedly turned them away.
However, the attitude of Meghan-knows-best seemed to upset the current staff at Kensington Palace.
A former member of staff said the old guard really didn’t like it when someone from the United States tries to change things as they are ‘terrific snobs’.
Elsewhere in Mr Quinn’s book, he explained that although Meghan was indeed branded ‘the Duchess of Difficult’ by some staff, she did have her supporters.
Other ordinary staff liked her feisty and change-hungry nature. Some suggested it was more a case of ‘Duchess Different’.
Former Buckingham Palace staff have spoken to Tom Quinn about life behind the gates on the condition of anonymity
She is also articulate and sophisticated – a woman who, before meeting Harry, was a human rights activist, clean water campaigner, a women’s advocate to the United Nations and a champion for gender equality.
Before her marriage to Prince Harry, she laid out her feminist credentials by backing the #MeToo campaign, urging women to ‘use their voice’.
The way she went about it, though, raised eyebrows.
Mr Quinn describes how Kensington Palace staff split into ‘for Meghan’ and ‘against Meghan’ and the atmosphere became one of ‘swirling rumour, gossip and backbiting’.
According to his sources, Meghan became especially friendly and close to one particular junior member of staff, but this was seen as inappropriate by the senior royals.
Meghan also reportedly felt upset because William, as the heir to the throne, was given better treatment by staff than her husband.
But perhaps the biggest problem Meghan faced when she became a member of the Royal Family was knowing how to treat servants properly.
Meghan Markle at Wimbledon on July 4, 2016. She went on her first date with Prince Harry that week
Blood royals had grown up ordering staff around, and knew how to do it properly, but for Meghan, who wasn’t used to it, there were problems.
One former staffer told Mr Quinn that Meghan would alternate between being overfriendly and hugging staff, to irritated when they didn’t instantly respond.
Meghan reportedly felt that Harry was too deferential to both his family and to the staff.
Mr Quinn believes she didn’t like the fact that Harry tended to ask staff if they would mind tidying up or bringing something to him.
In Buckingham Palace, waspish below-stairs staff jokingly referred to Meghan and Harry as ‘Monica and Chandler’ after two of the characters in the long-running American sitcom Friends. In the series, control freak Monica is played by Courteney Cox and amiable but weak Chandler by Matthew Perry.
Over time, the rumours about Meghan’s behaviour towards staff began to appear in the Press more and more.
Buckingham Palace launched its own investigation in 2021 after bullying allegations were made public, but it refused to reveal the findings.
The Mail revealed that former staff had dubbed themselves the ‘Sussex Survivors Club’ and some were suffering from the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Meghan played paralegal Rachel Zane in Suits (pictured alongside co-star Patrick J. Adams), which premiered in 2011 and came to an end in 2019. However, she left in 2017 after her romance with Prince Harry took off
While details of the report were never revealed, the allegations have always been strongly denied by the Duchess, whose lawyers described them at the time as a ‘calculated smear campaign’.
In Harry’s bombshell memoir Spare in 2023, he directly addressed them, writing: ‘Meg was apparently a bully – that was the latest vicious campaign they’d [his father and brother’s office] helped orchestrate.
‘It was so shocking, so egregious, that even after Meg and I demolished their lie with a twenty-five-page, evidence-filled report to Human Resources, I was going to have trouble simply shrugging that one off.’
But even after leaving royal life, the accusations followed Meghan to her and Harry’s new life in California.
A brutal report in September 2024 by US publication The Hollywood Reporter claimed that Meghan ‘belittles’ people and ‘marches around like a dictator in high heels, fuming and barking orders’.
The publication has also reported allegations that Meghan is ‘absolutely relentless’ towards her employees, with one source saying: ‘I’ve watched her reduce grown men to tears’.
The couple’s alleged poor treatment of staff also appeared to cause them personnel difficulties, as they have been facing a well-documented revolving door of employees.
The most recent salvo against their treatment of staff came in a blockbuster cover story in the previously pro-Sussex magazine Vanity Fair in January.
The most recent salvo against Harry and Meghan’s treatment of staff came in a blockbuster cover story in the previously pro-Sussex magazine Vanity Fair in January
According to two unnamed sources, one colleague took a leave of absence following a three-episode stint on Meghan’s podcast Archetypes
According to two unnamed sources, one colleague took a leave of absence following a three-episode stint on Meghan’s podcast Archetypes.
It’s claimed others described ‘taking extended breaks from work to escape scrutiny, exiting their job or undergoing long-term therapy after working with Meghan’.
The source told the writer she felt that if Meghan chose to ‘acknowledge her own shortcomings or personal contributions to situations rather than staying trapped in a victim narrative, her perception might be better’.
Meghan and Harry refused to comment on th e Vanity Fair story.
Perhaps if Meghan was to go back in time and join the Royal Family all over again, she would take a leaf out of Kate’s book and take things slower.
But then again, maybe Meghan is very happy with how her short stint as a working royal turned out. Nevertheless, it doesn’t look like she will get another chance.
