Apparently, a seemingly innocuous phrase uttered by Meghan Markle in 2018 made the palace unhappy. According to a royal author, four words from the Duchess of Sussex regarding charity work didn’t sit well with those inside “the institution.”
Meghan expressed an interest to ‘hit the ground running’ at the 2018 Royal Foundation Forum
Long before stepping back as working royals and relocating to Montecito, California, Meghan and Prince Harry teamed up with Prince William and Kate Middleton. On Feb. 28, 2018, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined the now-Prince and Princess of Wales at the Royal Foundation Forum.
There the so-called Fab Four participated in a panel discussion about the foundation’s roots and future, per the royal family’s website. At one point, Meghan expressed an interest in “hitting the ground running” in regard to charity work (via Express).
At the time, she wasn’t yet officially a British royal. The event fell somewhere at the halfway mark between Harry and Meghan’s November 2017 engagement and their May 2018 royal wedding. It also marked Meghan’s first big royal appearance as well as her and Harry’s first public event with William and Kate.
Meghan’s ‘hit the ground running’ comment suggested an urge to ‘change it all’ and ‘dread’ for the palace
Not only did one royal author dub the 2018 Royal Foundation Forum a “wake-up call,” but Tina Brown, a royal expert and author, shared how Meghan’s words concerned the palace.
In The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor — the Truth and the Turmoil,” Brown claimed Meghan’s “hit the ground running” remark immediately filled the “institution of cautious consensus, with dread.”
“I think Meghan felt she could get in there and change it all,” the former Vanity Fair editor later told The Telegraph. “Frankly, she could have done a great deal to change things had she stuck around.”
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“The thing that’s most baffling,” Brown continued, “is such impatience.” Meghan, she said, “could have spent a year away and come back with a great game plan.” Whereas, her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana, “gave it 16 years.”
Another comment from Meghan made for an ‘awkward dynamic’ at the Royal Foundation Forum
Elsewhere in her 2022 book, Brown noted how the addition of Meghan made for an “awkward dynamic” in the group when the now-41-year-old discussed the Me Too movement.
“With blithe proprietorship, she deployed an issue that was not even on the foundation’s docket — women’s empowerment, then at its fervid height with the acceleration of the #MeToo movement,” Brown wrote.
“‘Women don’t need to find a voice. They have a voice. They need to feel empowered to use it,’ Meghan quotably exhorted as Harry looked on with awe and his brother and Kate stood by with expressionless irritation,” the author continued.
Meanwhile, Meghan’s now-sister-in-law came across as “strikingly less articulate, as well as brief.” Additionally, Brown argued, “championing a fashionable cause anointed by Hollywood” was “sure to make headlines” and encourage the “awkward dynamic.”
The 2018 Royal Foundation Forum marked William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan’s only onstage appearance. Today, the foundation is headed up by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
As Harry wrote in Spare, any tension between Meghan and Kate became magnified following an “awkward moment” backstage involving lip gloss.
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