Whether you’re a fan or not, there’s no denying that Meghan Markle hasn’t exactly lived the princess dream she expected when she married Prince Harry. But, after a hellish few years and a popularity rating that continues to dive bomb, insiders say the Duchess of Sussex is ready to fight back – with help from a No1 podcast, yet more tell-all interviews, and a reinstated Instagram profile. And, as the Duchess of Sussex returned to the UK this week after warning royals that she could “say anything”, friends say she’s ready for some serious payback.
“Meghan is relishing this – she’s been plotting her revenge for months,” says an insider close to the 41-year-old, who fell out with the royals after marrying Harry, 37, in 2018, with the pair publicly quitting their senior roles in the family and moving to California two years later. “She and Harry have been biding their time and resisting the temptation to hit back at a lot of people who have caused them anguish, but the gloves are off now. It would be impossible to get back at every single institution or individual who’s caused them pain, so this is a selective mission.”
Meghan’s payback began last week, in the form of an interview with writer Allison P Davis at US publication The Cut, in which she claimed her children would have been papped on the school run (something that has never happened to any royals, including the Cambridges) and that she’d “violated social norms” in the royal family by asking questions, “I can talk about my whole experience [with the royals] and make a choice not to,” Meghan warned, revealing she’d never had to sign an NDA.
“It takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything.” She added that, for now, she wouldn’t speak out because she is “still healing”, but then went on to say Harry had “lost” his dad, Prince Charles, and described the terrible time she’d endured as a working royal.
Opening up about their escape from the UK, she revealed how filmmaker Tyler Perry had offered them a safe house in Beverly Hills – despite never having met them. She said, “Sometimes, you can tell your life story to a stranger on a plane, as opposed to some of the people that are closest to you.” When she and Harry later found the $15million Montecito home they now live in with their two kids, Archie and Lilibet, the former actress revealed, “One of the first things my husband saw was those two palm trees. See how they’re connected at the bottom? He goes, ‘My love, it’s us.’ And now when Archie goes by us, he says, ‘Hi, Momma. Hi, Papa.’”
Oddly, for someone so protective of her privacy, Meghan then revealed her plan for returning to social media, asking Allison, “Do you want to know a secret? I’m getting back on Instagram.” Meghan deleted her profile after getting engaged to Harry, losing her 3million followers and shutting down her blog The Tig.
After the interview came out, headlines screamed about, “The narcissism of Meghan Markle”, and “How Meghan lost America”. An Australian morning show host even labelled her a “tosser”. There was a lot of focus on the strangeness of her’ behaviour in the interview, with Allison revealing that Meghan “sometimes converses like she has a tiny Bachelor producer in her brain, directing what she says”.
In the feature, Meghan also told a cringey anecdote comparing herself to the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. She described going to the premiere of The Lion King and a South African actor telling her, “When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison” – a claim that’s since been challenged. Questions were also raised about the truthfulness of Meghan’s claim that if she’d stayed in the UK, she couldn’t have taken her kids to school without a “press pen of 40 people snapping pictures”. The Cambridges are known to take their three children to school each day without this happening – the media are invited to photograph each child’s first day only.
However, many royal fans praised Meghan’s candour, with one calling her a, “Queen!” Another said, “Go Meghan! You are an American hero, and I think you rock.”
The interview came in the wake of the launch of Meghan’s eagerly awaited podcast Archetypes, with A-listers Serena Williams and Mariah Carey as the first guests. The former Suits star promised she would be “unfiltered”
on the show – for which Spotify are paying her a reported $25m– adding, “People should expect the real me.”
The first episode saw her make more digs about her time as a royal, saying she was forced to continue duties even after a fire broke out in her son’s nursery, and also claimed that she had been criticised for being ambitious. As heat told you last week, reviews pointed out that the podcast was very much “The Meghan Show”, with one writer comparing it to being “locked in the relaxation room of a spa with an unusually self- involved yoga instructor”. Despite that, Archetypes shot straight to the top of the global podcast charts, hitting No1 in the UK, the US, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia – and looks set to stay there for its entire 12-week run.
And there will be more Meghan to come, thanks to her and Harry’s $100m deal with Netflix. Cameras are currently following the couple around, with Meghan hinting the show will be about her and Harry’s “love story”.
Our insider continues, “Meghan is acutely aware that the vast majority of critics won’t change their opinions about her, and that’s just something she and Harry have to learn to live with. But she doesn’t care, because she finally has a platform with this podcast and TV show. She and Harry can now control their narrative, and pick off their enemies one by one, totally on their own terms and without censorship. Anyone who stands in their way risks their wrath, it’s as simple as that.”
The couple are in the UK for several charity events this week, but are not expected to meet with Harry’s family– who are said to be deeply unhappy at Meghan speaking out again – and sources say Meghan had, for once, been looking forward to the trip.
We’re told, “They’ll be working hard and recording footage for Netflix. If people want to tear them down for that, then so be it. In the past, they’d have been nervous about a trip like this, worrying about how they’d be portrayed in the press, but it’s different now. Meghan knows if anything needs to be addressed she can do it herself on camera or on her podcast. She’s found that staying silent doesn’t work – she was still criticised – so now she’s taking back control. She’s not going to back down or silence herself – she already has plenty more things ready to say that are going to raise eyebrows.”