Meghan Markle was warned the UK tabloids would ‘destroy’ her life
- Royal speaks of struggling to cope with her new life in interview for ITV documentary
The Duchess of Sussex has revealed she was warned before her marriage to Prince Harry that the British tabloids would “destroy” her life, as she spoke of struggling to cope with the reality of being part of the royal family.
In an interview for the ITV documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, she said the last year had been “hard” and that she had “no idea” of what she would face.
“When I first met my now husband, my friends were really happy because I was so happy. But my British friends said to me: ‘I’m sure he’s great. But you shouldn’t do it because the British tabloids will destroy your life’,” she told the interviewer, Tom Bradby, in the film, broadcast on Sunday.
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She said she had “very naively” told her friends: “What are you talking about. That doesn’t make any sense. I’m not in the tabloids.”
She added: “I didn’t get it. So, it’s been complicated.”
He told Bradby he would not be bullied by sections of the media “into playing a game that killed my mum”.
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Since becoming a royal, Meghan’s personal family relationships have been thrust into the global spotlight.
A BBC radio host compared her baby son to a chimpanzee shortly after his birth. The Sun claimed she “was on Pornhub” and The Daily Mail said she was “(almost) straight outta Compton”.
Her guest-edit of British Vogue was picked apart. And she was smeared in the tabloids for allegedly driving a rift between brothers Prince William and Harry.
In the interview Harry also addressed the reported rift between him and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, claims of which emerged when he and Meghan broke away from the Cambridges to set up their own private office away from Kensington Palace, in Buckingham Palace.
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Asked if such reports were true, Harry said: “Part of this role, and part of this job, and this family being under the pressure that it’s under, [is that] inevitably stuff happens. But look, we’re brothers. We will always be brothers. We are certainly on different paths at the moment … we don’t see each other as much as we used to because we’re so busy.
“But I love him dearly, and the majority of the stuff is created out of nothing. But, as brothers, you have good days, you have bad days.”
Additional reporting by The Washington Post
