Meghan Markle’s journey from Suits to Royal starring role
From that very modern wedding to a power summit with Michelle Obama and her British Fashion Awards starring role, it has been quite a year for the Duchess of Sussex, says Sophia Money-Coutts
❝ She supposedly told her husband they were going to change the world
Picture this. In 2004 a broke actress is driving from audition to audition in Los Angeles in a battered Ford, too hard-up to be able to fix the car’s remote locking system. Every time she gets in and out, she scrabbles over the seats via the boot, reportedly telling watching friends that she needs to fetch a script, to avoid explaining the truth.
In 2018 the same actress makes her first solo appearance as a royal and is called “humble” for getting out of a chauffered car at the Royal Academy and shutting her own door. Cue much Twitter mirth.
It’s been quite the journey for Meghan Markle and no year has been bigger than this one. From carefully managed public appearances at the start of it to a pregnant royal duchess shortlisted for Time Person of the Year by the end.
There may be rumours circulating about her relationship with other royals but, given her dazzling appearance in Givenchy at this week’s British Fashion Awards, she’s not letting them grind her down and continues her careful positioning as a most modern duchess.
And anyway, her romance with Prince Harry has been dubbed a fairytale — and all fairytales have their hiccups along the way. A dragon to slay. A wicked stepmother to overcome.
It all looked pretty rosy for the newly engaged couple in January. Fresh from an appearance alongside William and Kate at Sandringham over Christmas, where they were dubbed ‘the Fab Four’, and a quick jaunt to Monaco for New Year’s Eve, it was straight to work. A serious publicity blitz.
There was the visit to a Brixton radio station, where Harry fist-bumped a DJ and Meghan blew a kiss to the crowds. So down to earth! Then to Cardiff for more screaming fans, where Meghan was forced to try a wedding cake made from Welsh cheese. Verdict? “Wow, it’s great!” Next stop, Edinburgh. Meghan stepped out tactfully in a tartan Burberry coat and looked genuinely delighted to meet a pony. At various other events on stage, she appeared demure but articulate, notably alongside a heavily pregnant Kate at a mental health forum in February.
Meanwhile, details about the forthcoming wedding were eked out from Kensington Palace, thrown like crumbs to a ravenous public. It would be held at Windsor Castle. Prince George and Princess Charlotte would be pageboy and bridesmaid, both Meghan’s parents (ahem) would be there. Peak hysteria came when we listened adoringly to what flavour wedding cake they’d be having: lemon and elderflower (not Welsh cheese, alas), made by an East End baker.
True, in the weeks leading up to Harry and Meghan’s wedding there was the drama over her father. Thomas, a former Hollywood lighting director, was papped at home in Mexico being measured for a suit. Shortly afterwards, it was revealed that he’d staged these pictures for the Press. The subsequent attention apparently gave him a heart attack and suddenly he wasn’t coming to the wedding at all. Royal experts scratched their heads — how had this PR fiasco happened, given that every other detail had been so carefully managed?
No matter, on the day itself this seemed to be (almost) forgotten. Prince Charles stepped in to walk Meghan down part of the aisle and we all played celebrity bingo while watching.
Oprah! The Clooneys! The Beckhams! James Corden!
I was based in Windsor that week for CNN and the excitement was extreme. News teams came from all over the world, crowds were camped outside the castle for days and Harry and Meghan tea towels sold out in all the shops.
“What we’re all excited to see is a royal baby of colour,” American CNN anchor Don Lemon said expectantly to me on air.
“Yeah, with ginger hair,” I quipped.
It seemed the perfect modern royal love story — a beguiling combination of old (castle, carriage, soldiers) and new (gospel choir, Bishop Curry, celebrities Instagramming the after-party). The new Duchess of Sussex, reported every journalist on the planet, was a breath of fresh air for the House of Windsor.
And so it proved for the first few months after the wedding, as poor Meghan had to grind her way through a typical British season. Garden parties, racing, polo matches, accompanying her husband to Sloaney weddings. Fashion editors might have rolled their eyes at Meghan’s nude tights and Eliza Doolittle comparisons were made when she wore a white Givenchy shirt-dress to Royal Ascot, but Meghan breezed through it all, taking to her role swimmingly. Remember that picture of her sitting beside the Queen at a public engagement in Cheshire, both giggling as if she’d just told a filthy joke? Exactly.
She was exactly what the royal family needed — someone less stuffy, less staid, someone who wasn’t afraid to be seen holding her husband’s hand in public, a modern woman who talked eloquently about causes that mattered to her, such as female empowerment, gender and race equality. Hardly subjects that have traditionally fallen from royal lips.
The whirlwind continued on Harry and Meghan’s first official tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand. At a university in Fiji she gave a speech about the importance of education from notes which had her handwritten scribbles all over them. This was only picked up by reporters because it’s so unusual for royals to write their own speeches. “This was all her,” said an aide. “She’s been up for days working on it.” Again, Meghan was demonstrating she was going to do things differently.
The tour was a roaring success — fully grown republicans were practically reduced to tears by the smiling pair and the announcement that she was pregnant at the start of it only added to its lustre.
It was when they returned that rumours about tantrums over tiaras and a possible move to Windsor started.
The Queen had reportedly stepped in at one stage pre-wedding, telling Harry that Meghan couldn’t have whichever tiara she wanted. News that Harry and Meghan were moving to the royal residence of Frogmore Cottage in Windsor to make space for their growing family, instead of moving into a bigger Kensington Palace apartment, sparked suggestions that they’d fallen out with William and Kate — although it seems more likely that they simply wanted the privacy on offer outside of London in which to raise their baby.
Then came reports that three members of the Kensington Palace staff had left in the past six months. Some claim it is all establishment smears, designed to show the new duchess her place, some that she’s a Hollywood actress who’s simply used to doing things in a certain way.
Either way, Meghan was an outsider — an independent American with her own career who chose to leave her home, job and country to join arguably the most difficult firm in the world.
One would hope the Windsors had learned from past mistakes with Fergie and, notably, Diana, in easing her transition and protecting her from vicious stories, rather than lambasting her for the very freshness that makes her so appealing to the rest of the world.
Whatever the truth, if any of it is bothering Meghan, you wouldn’t be able to tell from her well-chosen public appearances and polished, professional public manner.
Earlier this month, Meghan watched Michelle Obama give a talk to 2,700 people at the Southbank Centre and then visited her backstage afterwards, where the pair reportedly had a “warm” discussion. Next, she read a poem at a Chelsea carol service, held in honour of Prince Harry’s late childhood friend Henry van Straubenzee.
Then came the BFAs and that sensational speech (and dress), when she spoke again about female empowerment and, perhaps significantly given the torrent of negative smears she’s faced, the importance of kindness.
After her Grenfell cookbook project with the Hubb Community Kitchen was revealed in September, she’s expected to announce further charity patronages soon. There will doubtless be multiple women’s and mental health charities among them.
Meghan might have given up a Hollywood career, but she always said she wanted to use her new role as a force for good. “Haz, we’re going to change the world,” she supposedly told her husband during the early days of their relationship.
So she has set out to prove in this busy first year, during which she’s worked tirelessly to establish herself as the newest, most glamorous member of the royal family. Not that next year, with their baby reportedly due in April, will be much quieter (‘Victoria’ is the front-runner with the bookies if it’s a girl. ‘Barack’, if it’s a boy, is further down the list at 100-1).
But it’s what happens after the fairytale that’s the interesting bit, right?