When dating a member of the Royal Family, it’s well known that the most important rule is to not speak to the Press about the relationship.
So when Meghan was given the opportunity to do an interview with Vanity Fair magazine in July 2017, her approach was carefully agreed beforehand.
The Duchess of Sussex was told to steer well clear of such controversial subjects as racial politics, new president Donald Trump but most importantly of all – her increasingly serious relationship with Prince Harry.
However, when the magazine ran with the headline ‘Wild About Harry’ on its cover – focusing on her relationship with the prince rather than her work as an actor, activist and philanthropist – the Palace was stunned.
In what has later been seen as a warning sign that Meghan was prepared to not only ignore royal protocol but throw it out of the window entirely, she had talked extensively about her and the prince’s ‘love story’.
After seeing the cover, the duchess responded by phoning her PR firm and ‘hysterically’ telling them of the Palace’s fury, while also claiming the headline was racist due to its similarities to a song in a 1939 film which used blackface, according to royal authors.
Commentators have suggested the episode showed Meghan ‘would do things her own way,’ and ‘would not be constrained or restricted by protocol or precedent’.
Here MailOnline looks back on the 2017 Vanity Fair interview that broke the tight-lipped silence that had been standard procedure for Windsor girlfriends until that point – and why it was a sign of things to come.
Vanity Fair ran with the headline ‘Wild About Harry’ on its cover in 2017
The Palace was said to be stunned by the interview, which focused on her relationship with the prince, whom she is pictured with in 2017
Meghan and Harry’s first public appearance together at Invictus Games in Toronto in 2017
The couple with Queen Elizabeth II in July 2018. For her interview with Vanity Fair the year before, Meghan was reportedly told by Harry not to disclose their relationship
When Harry and Meghan started dating in July 2016 they were a fiercely private couple.
They had been spotted in public together on a handful of occasions, with Harry allegedly making secret trips to pick her up from the airport on her visits to the UK.
And even once the news broke of their relationship in October, they remained out of the spotlight, preferring to keep a relatively low profile.
But as the relationship developed over the months, the royal couple wanted a way to launch Meghan properly with the public.
A full front page feature on the front of the glossy Vanity Fair felt like the best way to put across who the widely rumoured future wife of Harry was in a confident, proactive active way.
Tom Bower, journalist and author of Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors, wrote she was ‘ecstatic’ when she was asked to appear on the cover of the magazine’s September 2017 issue.
Keleigh Thomas Morgan, a partner at Meghan’s PR firm Sunshine Sachs, organised the interview, which was conducted by Sam Kashner – a long-standing contributing editor at Vanity Fair, who admitted before the interview that he had no idea who Meghan was.
According to Mr Bower, Mr Kashner was told Meghan was under strict orders from both Harry and her PR firm to steer clear of sensitive subjects.
Prince Harry was first snapped with Meghan at an exclusive polo event in Ascot in May 2017
Prince William and Prince Harry at Pippa Middleton’s and James Matthews wedding in Englefield in May 2017
In an extraordinarily candid interview with the BBC following their engagement in November 2017, Harry promised he and Meghan will start a family’ in the near future
The interview was done at Meghan’s home. Mr Bower says Mr Kashner was uneasy knowing that Meghan had been told to be careful with what she told him.
‘Both knew that a lot was riding on the interview, and both understood that the critical issue of Harry had been vetoed,’ he writes in his book.
‘Meghan spoke, he realised, knowing that she had the winning ticket but avoiding giving an impression of triumphalism.’
After first discussing Meghan’s speech at the United Nations and a letter she sent to Procter and Gamble as an 11-year-old requesting that they change a slogan promoting washing-up liquid that was deemed sexist, Mr Kashner asked her about Harry.
To his surprise, Mr Bower wrote, Meghan replied: ‘We’re a couple. We’re in love.’
Meghan said: ‘I’m sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time.
‘This is for us. It’s part of what makes it so special, that it’s just ours. But we’re happy. Personally, I love a great love story.’
When asked how she felt about the media frenzy that erupted after their relationship was revealed the previous year, Meghan replied: ‘It has its challenges, and it comes in waves — some days it can feel more challenging than others.
‘And right out of the gate it was surprising the way things changed. But I still have this support system all around me, and, of course, my boyfriend’s support.’
Meghan won an army of new fans in Nottingham in December 2017 during her first public engagement with Harry
Harry and Meghan were pictured for the first time with Prince William and Kate Middleton at Sandringham for the Christmas Day church service in 2017
Prince Harry and Meghan in New Zealand on a royal tour of a national park in 2018
Tom Bower’s book Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors
Mr Bower is an acclaimed author who has published a series of biographies
She added: ‘I can tell you that at the end of the day I think it’s really simple. We’re two people who are really happy and in love.’
Meghan also divulged that she tries not to read stories about herself in the Press and on social media, saying: ‘The people who are close to me anchor me in knowing who I am. The rest is noise.’
She added: ‘Nothing about me changed. I’m still the same person that I am, and I’ve never defined myself by my relationship.’
Pre-publication copies of Vanity Fair’s September 2017 edition were released to Megan’s PR agency and Buckingham Palace.
It featured a glamorous picture of the actress on the cover, all hair and freckles, with the bold headline proclaiming loudly ‘She’s Just Wild About Harry’.
Mr Bower wrote that her unexpected openness took the Palace by surprise.
‘Like a thunderclap, the interview triggered sensational reactions: Meghan had used her relationship with Harry to promote herself,’ he says.
‘The Hollywoodisation of the Royal Family had sealed Meghan’s fate as Harry’s fiancée.’
According to Mr Bower, within hours of the pre-publication release, Meghan rang Ken Sunshine and Keleigh Thomas Morgan telling them of the Palace’s ‘fury’.
She said the agency should have had her comments about her relationship with Harry removed, raising fears she would fire them over the cover, and questions were asked about why there was not more about her philanthropy and activism in the piece.
Mr Bower reported that the piece omitted comments on this because Vanity Fair researchers were unable to prove her claims were accurate.
The Duchess of Sussex at the Queen’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey in 2022
Harry and Meghan (pictured at the Queen’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey) made the decision to leave The Firm in early 2020
The Princess and Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex walk step out together to greet members of the public at Windsor Castle in Berkshire following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022
Meghan, Harry, King Charles and Queen Camilla attend Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022
Specifically, the magazine couldn’t establish for sure that she had played a role in persuading Procter and Gamble to change their slogan, nor could they independently prove she received a reply after writing to then-first lady Hillary Clinton.
According to Mr Bower, Mr Kashner later recalled: ‘She complained because she wasn’t presented in the way she wanted. She demanded the media do what she expected. I felt manipulated.’
Mr Sunshine reportedly told Vanity Fair’s editor that he would have to ‘deal with the Queen on this’.
He was told that Meghan only got the cover ‘because of who she was likely to marry,’ Bower wrote, and not on her own merit.
Meghan was also enraged because she believed the headline to be racist, according to royal author Valentine Low.
In his book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown, he wrote: ‘Meghan hated it. And she was furious with Keleigh Thomas Morgan.
‘And she was looking to throw blame in every possible direction, despite it having been a positive piece.
‘She did not like the photographs. She thought the story was negative. She was upset that it was about Harry, not about her.’
‘And the clincher? It was racist. What upset her was the headline. She and Harry pointed out that the song, “I’m Just Wild About Harry”, had been performed by Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney as a blackface number in the 1939 film Babes In Arms.
The pair accused the magazine cover of racism because of a 1939 blackface song by Micky Rooney and Judy Garland called ‘I’m Just Wild About Harry’
Harry and Meghan at St Paul’s Cathedral for the Queen’s Thanksgiving mass in June 2022
Meghan would go on to break more royal rules when she sat down in March 2021 for a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey
The bombshell claims made by Meghan in the interview are still reverberating three years on
‘They [Harry and Meghan] tried to get it changed online, because [they thought] it had been racially motivated,’ said a source.
The Vanity Fair cover was seen as evidence by many royal watchers at the time that Meghan and Harry were soon to be walking down the aisle.
But it also raised eyebrows that Meghan would not be willing to play by the strict and well-established rules of the Royal Family.
She would go on to break them in a high-profile Oprah interview, a tell-all Netflix series and in numerous interviews.
Writing for Au News, royal commentator Daniela Elser said that in the interview, Meghan broke the mould of ‘tight-lipped silence’ that had been the standard procedure for Windsor wives and girlfriends.
She said: ‘Rather, with her Vanity Fair appearance, she didn’t so much break that mould as chicly smash it to smithereens, trouncing the unspoken omerta that royal girlfriends had thus far diligently adhered to.’
Ms Elser wrote that royal courtiers should have ‘paid much, much more attention to that magazine moment in 2017,’ asking: ‘Were the warning signs there, even then, that the introduction of Meghan into the royal world was never, ever going to be smooth sailing?’
She claimed that the magazine cover story was the ‘first major signal that things were serious and altar-bound.’
The Vanity Fair article suggested Meghan ‘would do things her own way,’ and ‘would not be constrained or restricted by protocol or precedent’, she claimed.
She concluded: ‘Meghan walked into the Palace as not so much an open book but an open, glossy magazine feature story. It’s just such a shame that no one spent more time reading it.’
