Meghan Markle’s mock re-enactment of her first curtsy to went newly viral on with comparisons being made to Princess Kate.

Perhaps the most famous moment of the Sussexes’ first show, Harry & Meghan, came when she was describing meeting the late queen for the first time at Royal Lodge.

Meghan painted herself as an American fish out of water who botched her curtsy by performing it in the manner of “medieval times dinner and tournament.”

Why It Matters

A clip on TiKTok was liked 190k times and viewed 2 million times after being posted with the message: “Meghan mocking the curtsy while Princess Kate prefects it.”

The fact the moment of self-inflicted bad PR still garners so much attention online demonstrates how misguided Meghan’s account was.

What makes the saga particularly bizarre is that gave a very different description of the curtsy in his book Spare.

What to Know

The video begins with footage of Meghan’s joke curtsy taken from the couple’s Netflix series in which she said: “I mean, Americans will understand this, we have ‘medieval times, dinner and tournament.’ It was like that… ‘pleasure to meet you your majesty, was that OK?’ So intense.”

The clip then goes on to show a number of Princess Kate’s curtsies, first to and Queen Camilla at Westminster Abbey on December 15, 2022.

That particular moment is significant because Kate’s Together at Christmas carol concert took place the same day that part II of the Harry & Meghan documentary dropped on Netflix.

The event gave the royals the opportunity to put on a united front in the face of Harry and Meghan’s criticisms made during the show.

The TikTok post then pivots to Kate’s curtsy to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip during her wedding to in April 2011, again at the abbey followed by Kate and Meghan curtsying to the queen at Sandringham on Christmas Day in 2018.

What People Are Saying

Prince Harry described the original Meghan curtsy in Spare: “We entered the large front sitting room and there she was. Granny. The monarch. Queen Elizabeth II.

“Standing in the middle of the room. She turned slightly. Meg went straight to her and dropped a deep, flawless curtsy. ‘Your Majesty. Pleasure to meet you.'”

Meghan told her Netflix show: “I mean, Americans will understand this, we have ‘medieval times, dinner and tournament.'”

Edward Coram James, U.K.-based PR expert and chief executive of Go Up, explained the backlash at the time, telling Regalrumination.com: “I think the biggest blunder of the entire thing didn’t come from the royal family, it came from the Sussexes, which is the infamous fake bow.

“It’s one thing to not understand another culture but if you respect the culture nonetheless then that is excusable. It’s another thing to not understand the culture and make fun of it and kind of patronize it.

“I’m very much on the fence with all this stuff but whether you are a royal sympathizer or not, bowing to the queen is a deeply ingrained royal tradition in the U.K. from working people through to countless celebrities who have done the same and done so with quite a lot of pride.”

What Happens Next

Meghan is preparing to release her new Netflix show With Love, Meghan next week, in which she will join her A-list friends to cook delicious food.

Williams Brown is chief royal correspondent for Regalrumination.com, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly , at and read his stories on Regalrumination.com’s .

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