It’s no secret that Meghan failed to bond with her sister-in-law Princess Kate – and the distance between them widened ahead of the Sussexes’ wedding in May 2018

Meghan Markle made ‘cruel’ remarks about Princess Charlotte that made Princess Kate cry and further deepened the growing rift between the two women, according to one royal expert.

Despite the fact that Meghan found herself in a similar position to Kate, with both marrying into the Royal Family, they struggled to bond. And things came to a head in the build-up to Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May 2018. It’s well known that the women clashed over bridesmaid dresses, with Meghan later stating that Kate had made her cry. But in his book ‘Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors’, author Tom Bower claims that tears were also shed when Meghan allegedly compared Charlotte to her former best friend Jessica Mulroney’s daughter Ivy.

According to the author’s sources, Meghan “compared Princess Charlotte unfavourably to her best friend Jessica Mulroney’s daughter”. Kate’s daughter was one of the flower girls on the day, alongside Meghan’s goddaughters Rylan and Remi Litt, Jessica Mulroney’s daughter Ivy and Harry’s goddaughters Zalie Warren and Florence van Cutsem.

In November 2018, insiders opened up about the fallout and claimed a “stressful” dress fitting took place – with the pressure of Meghan’s “demands” proving to be too much for Kate. An insider told the Daily Telegraph: “What actually happened was that the dress itself did not fit Kate’s then nearly three-year-old daughter… Kate had only just given birth to her third child, Prince Louis, and was feeling quite ­emotional.”

But three years later Meghan gave her side of the story in her and Harry’s now-infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey. Meghan said: “She [Kate] was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. And she bought me flowers. A few days before the wedding, she was upset about something pertaining – yes, the issue was correct – about flower girl dresses, and it made me cry, and it really hurt my feelings.

“And I thought, in the context of everything else that was going on in those days leading to the wedding, that it didn’t make sense to not be just doing whatever everyone else was doing, which was trying to be supportive, knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot. It wasn’t a confrontation, and I actually think it’s… I don’t think it’s fair to her to get into the details of that, because she apologised.”

Prince Harry further fuelled the fire when he wrote about the incident in his tell-all memoir Spare. He recalled how Meghan received a text from Kate about the dresses needing to be altered and claimed that when Meghan responded, she told Kate that their tailor, Ajay, would be making his way to Kensington Palace.

However, he asserted that this response “wasn’t sufficient,” before sharing the alleged text conversation between the two women, “Charlotte’s dress is too big, too long, too baggy,” Kate’s text said, according to Harry. “She cried when she tried it on at home.” Harry then claimed that Meghan responded with: “Right, and I told you the tailor has been standing by since eight a.m. Here. At KP. Can you take Charlotte to have it altered, as the other moms are doing?”

The conversation allegedly ended when Meghan texted: “I’m not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn’t fit then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He’s been waiting all day,” to which Kate responded: “Fine.” The Duke wrote that shortly after the women’s conversation, he came home to see Meghan “on the floor” and “sobbing”.