Behind the scenes of Meghan Markle’s ‘blow-up’ with the Queen’s aide ahead of her wedding, according to royal author

As a former Hollywood actress, Meghan Markle was used to having a team of people dedicated to making sure she got what she wanted when she wanted.

In her 2022 book, Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor – The Truth and the Turmoil, biographer Tina Brown wrote about the friction between Meghan and the Firm in the lead up to her wedding to Prince Harry.

The former Vanity Fair editor explained tensions particularly built between the Queen’s personal assistant and senior dresser Angela Kelly.

The Queen and Ms Kelly developed a close relationship which began in 1994 and extended beyond professional duties. In March 2023, the royal dresser was made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in recognition of her service to the Queen.

Ms Kelly was the first person to hold the title of personal adviser, curator, wardrobe and in-house designer to the Queen. This position allowed her a uniquely close working relationship with the monarch. 

While preparing for the big day, it is customary for royal brides to pick out a tiara from the Palace’s extensive collection to wear as they walk down the aisle, with the monarch having the final say on the choice of headwear. 

Ms Kelly, the Queen and Meghan eventually settled on the Queen Mary’s Diamond Bandeau, a diadem composed of ten brilliant diamonds.

Brown wrote: ‘A blow-up occurred when Ms Kelly wilfully – as Meghan and therefore Harry saw it – denied the bride-to-be access [before the wedding day] to the Queen Mary bandeau tiara, on loan from the Queen.’

Brown continued: ‘Meghan wanted to try on the tiara for some styling sessions with her hairdresser, and her fiance fired off like a missile to mangerake it happen.’

Due to the high-profile tiara, estimated to be worth £2million, this request was denied, much to the fury of the Sussexes.

And this wasn’t the only disagreement Meghan had with Ms Kelly.

It is understood Meghan originally wanted the Greville Emerald Kokoshnik tiara, a £13million diadem which would be worn by Princess Eugenie five months later. 

Royal author Tom Bower wrote: ‘Meghan alighted on a tiara sparkling with emeralds. Her choice was approved by Harry. 

But ‘Ms Kelly suggested that its Russian origin made it unsuitable,’ Bowers wrote in his biography Revenge, which documents Harry and Meghan’s fall out with the Royal Family. 

Harry reportedly became angry with Ms Kelly, leading to the prince receiving a dressing down from his grandmother.

During the meeting, Harry was put ‘firmly in his place’ and warned by the Queen that ‘Meghan cannot have whatever she wants. 

‘She gets what tiara she’s given by me,’ The Times reported.

During wedding rehearsals, Meghan asked that the tiara be taken out of storage so her hairdresser, who had flown from New York, could work around the headwear.

But Brown wrote: ‘The removal of any of the historic pieces from the vault in Buckingham Palace involves a rigmarole of permissions and procedures, including the personal sign-off of the monarch and the presence of the Crown jeweller, who handles the bling in white gloves.

‘Whether the Queen herself told Kelly to refuse Meghan’s request was one of the perennial questions of palace Kabuki, as was the process of lending her jewels in the first place.

‘The Queen was said to enjoy offering a statement piece or two to female members of the family for big occasions, but part of the ritual was the recipient understanding that an invitation to pick something out was not really a choice. 

‘Kelly was deputed in the presence of the Queen to present to Meghan the five tiaras the Queen has preselected. 

‘It was suggested by the monarch which tiara Meghan might find most pleasing, i.e., the refined, slim crescent of the diamond Queen Mary bandeau (estimated value £2million) made for the Queen’s grandmother. Perfect, don’t you agree, Meghan? (It was.)’

In Finding Freedom, widely accepted as the sanctioned biography of Meghan and Harry, authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand lay out a scenario in which Harry, after repeated calls for access to the tiara for his fiancee’s hairdressing rehearsal, was rudely stonewalled by Kelly.

‘What’s missing from this account is how fed up, by this time, many Palace aides were with Meghan’s demands and those of her husband,’ wrote Brown. 

‘Meghan would say, “‘l’ll just do whatever you want me to do,” a source told me, vehemently, while meanwhile, she eventually got the chapel she wanted, the preacher she wanted, the choir she wanted, the dress she wanted… 

‘No one said no to anything. It’s not unusual for a bride to get everything she wants or become overwrought before her wedding, less usual for the man to turn into groomzilla. 

‘Harry was determined his wife should get everything he considered her due. There was a lot of raging, a Palace source told me. 

‘In-person shouting in front of other members of staff, basically in front of too many people, which is why it all started to come out and become the first-ever negative piece of coverage about the behaviour of the couple’

But the tiara-related conflict was far from over. 

Just six months after Meghan and Harry’s wedding, the Duke’s cousin, Princess Eugenie, wore the £13million Greville tiara on her big day.

The Art Deco piece, which was a Greville family heirloom and boasts a 93.70 carat emerald and six further faceted emeralds set on either side, had been promised to Eugenie.

It was created in 1919 by Boucheron for Margaret Greville, a British philanthropist, and later inherited by the Queen Mother.

The emerald and diamond design was stashed in a black tin trunk and delivered to Buckingham Palace in 1943, along with a number of jewels that Margaret had bequeathed to her friend.

The piece remained in the Queen Mother’s jewellery collection until her death in 2002.    

When Queen Elizabeth inherited the tiara, she revised the top edge so that it no longer resembled a traditional kokoshnik.

Princess Eugenie is the only royal to publicly wear the piece, and it has since been returned to the vault.  

Further details of the conflict between the Sussexes and the Firm were recently shared by royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith in her Substack newsletter, Royals Extra.

Based on her conversations with the late Queen’s cousin and confidant, Lady Elizabeth Anson, Bedell Smith claimed that the late Queen had her reservations about Meghan and was upset about how Harry spoke to her in the run-up to the royal wedding in 2018.

Born in Windsor Castle, Lady Elizabeth, a great-niece of the Queen Mother and a goddaughter of King George VI, was a high-society party planner known as Liza to friends and family. 

Meghan was apparently ‘full of charm’ and appeared ‘natural, intelligent, and thoughtful’ after she became engaged to Harry in 2017. 

But as the wedding approached, Meghan allegedly became increasingly ‘bossy’ and Liza said the Queen was privately ‘very worried’.

According to Anson, Harry was rude to his grandmother during a meeting before the wedding, and the ‘jury was out’ as to whether Queen Elizabeth liked Harry’s fiancée. 

Bedell Smith also shared that Harry ‘blew’ his relationship with his grandmother.

Most recently, Bedell Smith shared in a podcast that the monarch was ‘upset’ at not being fully involved in Harry and Meghan’s wedding plans in the months and weeks beforehand.

Lady Elizabeth tried to console her by telling her she could ‘look forward’ to Royal Ascot and Princess Eugenie’s wedding. 

However, the Queen replied about the Sussex wedding: ‘But it’s my house. And I’m paying for it.’

The Royal Family paid for the wedding, including the service, music, flowers and reception. 

All 600 guests were invited to a lunchtime reception at St George’s Hall, hosted by the Queen, followed by an evening bash for 200 VIPs at Frogmore House, hosted by Harry’s father.

But Harry and Meghan had invited people who ‘barely knew’ the Royal Family, it was claimed.

Bedell Smith claimed on American royal commentator Kinsey Schofield’s Unfiltered YouTube show: ‘Harry and Meghan just disinvited or didn’t invite a whole group of family and cousins. The children of the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and of the Gloucesters.

‘Meghan and Harry just “exed” them out of the guest list, and they added all these other random people who barely even knew the Royal Family. That was just yet another irritation for the Queen.’   

Bedell Smith added that the Queen was ‘predisposed to be very fond of Harry, to love him, and I think it was a real shock for her when he began treating her discourteously after he and Meghan got together’. 

Angela Kelly was fiercely loyal to the Queen, serving her for more than 25 years and stayed at Balmoral the week she died in 2022.

When the Queen sadly passed away, Kelly posted on Instagram: ‘A very sad day for me today. I said goodbye to my best friend.’