A royal biographer is shedding light on a moment of discord that Prince Harry allegedly had with his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, ahead of his May 19, 2018 wedding to Meghan Markle.
In her Substack “Royals Extra” (and via Page Six), veteran royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith wrote that Queen Elizabeth felt “left out” of Harry’s wedding plans, and that in February of 2018—three months before the wedding—the Duke of Sussex was reportedly “rude” for “10 minutes,” leaving the Queen “very worried” about him.
Prince Harry on April 8, 2025.
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The issue, Bedell Smith wrote, was that the Queen couldn’t understand why Harry had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform his and Meghan’s wedding service at St. George’s Chapel without first requesting permission from the Dean of Windsor. The Queen also couldn’t understand why Meghan allegedly wouldn’t share her wedding dress details with her prior to the big day.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their wedding day in 2018.
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Bedell Smith added that the Queen was also bothered that Meghan and Prince William and Kate Middleton were “not working well together” in the leadup to the nuptials.
Bedell Smith found out this information from her friend—and the Queen’s cousin—Lady Elizabeth Anson, who died in 2020, two years before Queen Elizabeth’s death at age 96 on September 8, 2022. The phone call took place in February 2019, one year after the alleged incident took place.
The good news? The Queen and Harry “patched things up” after their February tiff in April 2018, ahead of the wedding the next month.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Harry.
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For his part, Harry fiercely defended his wife of seven years over the weekend, speaking at the 2025 Nexus Global Summit in New York City on June 27 and pointing out that Meghan was the “most trolled person in the world” in 2018—the same year they married.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on August 15, 2024.
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“One of the reasons why the digital world was so important to us is because my wife, in 2018, was the most trolled person in the world,” he said while speaking about how to combat social isolation online for “a better future for 2025 and beyond.”
He added that “There was a lived experience,” per The Daily Mail.