{"id":11939,"date":"2025-04-11T21:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T21:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/11939\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T21:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T21:59:12","slug":"meghan-markle-duchess-of-difficult-new-book-reveals-meghan-markles-rocky-royal-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/11939\/","title":{"rendered":"Meghan Markle: \u2018Duchess of Difficult\u2019: New book reveals Meghan Markle\u2019s rocky royal start"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u2018Duchess\u2018Duchess of Difficult\u2019: New book reveals Meghan Markle\u2019s rocky royal start Meghan Markle<\/a>\u2019s entry into the Royal Family was meant to be a breath of fresh air. But according to new claims in \u2018Yes, Ma\u2019am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants\u2019 by royal author Tom Quinn, her transition from Hollywood to Kensington Palace was far from smooth, leaving palace aides divided and in some cases, deeply unsettled.
Meghan, who once declared she wanted to \u201chit the ground running\u201d even before marrying Prince Harry, reportedly stunned Palace staff with her bold confidence.
\u201cShe was a great believer in grabbing the bull by the horns, except the Royal Family is not really a bull,\u201d one former aide told Quinn, according to Daily Mail.
Another added bluntly, \u201cMeghan thought she knew better than an institution that has been in business for 1,000 years and more.\u201d Her early meetings, according to insiders, were described as awkward, with Meghan seen trying to lead rather than listen.
The book also claims Meghan\u2019s high expectations of staff and desire to modernise led some within Kensington Palace to label her the \u201cDuchess of Difficult,\u201d while others more fondly referred to her as the \u201cDuchess of Different\u201d for her change-driven approach.
Meghan\u2019s behaviour was seen by some insiders as indicative of a \u201cmessiah complex,\u201d citing her ambition to become \u201cthe best known and most loved member of the Royal Family\u201d, reported The Sun.
Quinn\u2019s sources claim Meghan believed she could \u201cfinish what Diana started,\u201d echoing her and Harry\u2019s desire to become transformative figures, a sentiment backed by author Tina Brown, who wrote in \u2018The Palace Papers\u2019 that the couple were \u201cdrunk on a shared fantasy of being instruments of global transformation.\u201d
However, palace tradition stood in stark contrast to Meghan\u2019s assertive style.
According to one ex-aide quoted by the Daily Mail, \u201cyou don\u2019t do as you please, you do as you\u2019re told.\u201d The late Queen had reportedly assigned trusted allies like Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh and Lady Susan Hussey to help Meghan, but they were said to have been rebuffed.
Palace staff, accustomed to a slower, more deferential approach, like that taken by Princess Kate, were reportedly rattled by Meghan\u2019s rapid attempts to shake things up. \u201cKate slowly and carefully absorbed the atmosphere\u2026 Meghan jumped in straight away,\u201d one courtier noted.
Though her critics were vocal, Meghan had supporters too.
She was seen by some junior staff as articulate, passionate and an advocate for causes like gender equality, clean water and human rights. But friction over her leadership style reportedly led to a \u201cswirling rumour, gossip and backbiting\u201d culture, with some staff forming the \u201cSussex Survivors Club\u201d, according to Daily Mail.
Despite Meghan and Harry\u2019s legal team denying bullying allegations, calling them a \u201ccalculated smear campaign\u201d, a 2021 Palace investigation was launched but never publicly disclosed.
Meghan later addressed the issue in Harry\u2019s memoir Spare, insisting they had submitted a 25-page rebuttal to HR. \u201cMeg was apparently a bully, that was the latest vicious campaign they\u2019d helped orchestrate,\u201d Harry wrote.
The scrutiny followed Meghan across the Atlantic. In 2024, The Hollywood Reporter published damning claims that she \u201cbelittles\u201d staff and \u201cmarches around like a dictator in high heels,\u201d while Vanity Fair revealed claims of emotional burnout among her podcast staff.
Still, for all the drama, some believe Meghan achieved what she set out to do, forge her own path. But, perhaps her royal chapter might have unfolded differently if she had \u201ctaken a leaf out of Kate\u2019s book and taken things slower\u201d, according to the Sun.
Either way, as Quinn concludes, \u201cit doesn\u2019t look like she will get another chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Duchess of Difficult\u2019: New book reveals Meghan Markle\u2019s rocky royal start Meghan Markle\u2019s entry into the Royal Family…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[8169,7721,8168,533,8167,8164,1281,5105,7710,519,448,8166,8165,8163],"class_list":{"0":"post-11939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-bullying-allegations","9":"tag-duchess-of-sussex","10":"tag-harrys-memoir-spare","11":"tag-kate-middleton","12":"tag-kensington-palace","13":"tag-maam-the-secret-life-of-royal-servants","14":"tag-meghan-markle","15":"tag-royal","16":"tag-royal-families","17":"tag-royal-family","18":"tag-royals","19":"tag-sussex-survivors-club","20":"tag-tom-quinn","21":"tag-yes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114321580708976421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}