Prince Harry and Meghan Markle surprised fans all over when they announced they were stepping down as working royals in 2020. A year after leaving their roles and moving across the pond, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shocked the world again when they sat down for a primetime tell-all interview with former talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
During their conversation, Meghan claimed that she didn’t receive any help or guidance when she became a member of the family.“Unlike that you see in the movies, there’s no class on how to …how to speak. How to cross your legs. How to be royal,” the duchess told Oprah. “There’s not of that training. That might exist for other members of the family. That was not something that was offered to me. Even down to, like, the National Anthem, no one thought to say, ‘Oh, you’re American. You’re not going to know that.’ That’s me, late at night, googling, ‘How … what’s the National … I’ve got to learn this … I need to learn these 30 hymns for church.’”
What Meghan said has been challenged a few times in the past. Now royal insiders are specifically naming who was ready and willing to help with whatever she needed, but Harry’s wife turned them away.
Insiders refute what Meghan told Oprah about others unwilling to help her
Palace sources have insisted that the only reason Meghan did not receive guidance as a royal is because Meghan didn’t want it.
According to the Daily Mail, insiders say the former Suits star “threw their offer back in their faces.” The sources are adament that the royal family did everything they could to help Meghan adjust to royal life.
The Sun reported that one staffer who worked at the Palace at the time said: “It was Clive [now Sir Clive Alderton, private secretary to the king] who said that if we could get this right for Harry, we’d be creating a blueprint for future younger sons for generations. We seconded people from Clarence House, very expert people, to help them, but the duchess wouldn’t trust them.”
The sources added, “Those two [Sussexes] were offered considerable resources, and then later said that they had been offered no help. And that was completely wrong.”
Another royal reportedly tried to help Meghan as well
It wasn’t just Palace staffers who offered to help show the Duchess of Sussex the “royal ropes.” Prince Edward’s wife, Sophie (formerly the Countess of Wessex), was reportedly willing to make herself available for just that but Meghan didn’t want it.