Tabloids pitted the two against each other from the moment Meghan began dating Prince Harry, spinning a narrative that the two women were feuding that has endured for years. Yesterday, in her tell-all interview with Oprah, Meghan moved to put those rumours to bed, speaking candidly about what her relationship with the Duchess of Cambridge is like and somewhat exposing where it all went wrong. Both Meghan and Harry said that the royal family embraced Meghan at the beginning of their relationship – in Harry’s words, “far better than I expected”. RELATED: Royals surface after Meghan’s claimsTWO WOMEN ‘NEVER BECAME CLOSE’Before the big Oprah interview, royal reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand wrote in their 2020 Sussex biography Finding Freedom that while Meghan and Kate were not feuding, they never became close. “Meghan would agree with the assessment that the duchesses were not the best of friends,” they wrote.“Their relationship hadn’t progressed much since she was Harry’s girlfriend.” The biography also claimed that Kate didn’t put much effort into becoming close with her new sister-in-law, with a source telling the two reporters the Duchess of Cambridge felt they didn’t have much in common “other than the fact that they lived at Kensington Palace”. Kate also supposedly didn’t give Meghan the level of emotional support she wanted or needed, sending her flowers for her birthday one year when “Meghan would far rather have had Kate check in on her during the most difficult time with the press”. Asked by Oprah yesterday if the photos of Meghan and Kate at Wimbledon in 2018 was “what it looked like” (Kate “helping you, embracing you into the family, helping you adjust”), Meghan sidestepped the question.“I think everyone welcomed me,” she responded vaguely. “And yeah I know you say, ‘Was it what it looked like?’ My understanding and my experience over the past four years is that it’s nothing like what it looks like.” RELATED: ‘Horror, dismay’: Queen holds crisis talksTRUTH ABOUT BRIDESMAID DRESS ‘CONFRONTATION’A “turning point” came in Meghan’s relationship with the royal family in the days before her wedding – when rumours went around that “hurricane Meghan” and her difficult behaviour had made Kate cry. Dropping the first of many bombshells in the interview, Meghan told Oprah that actually, “the reverse happened”. “The narrative with Kate – which didn’t happen – was really, really difficult and something that I think, that’s when everything changed, really,” Meghan said. “And I don’t say that to be disparaging to anyone, because it was a really hard week of the wedding, and she was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised, and she brought me flowers and a note apologising and she did what I would do if I knew that I hurt someone. To just take accountability for it.” Meghan said she was then shocked that six or seven months after her wedding, “the reverse of that would be out in the world”. “I would’ve never wanted that to come out about her ever, even though it had happened. I protected that from ever being out in the world,” she told Oprah. “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 what everyone else was doing, which was try to be supportive, knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot.” The “issue” with the flower girl dresses, a source told Tatler last year, stemmed from “whether the bridesmaids should wear tights or not” and, “Kate, following protocol, felt that they should. Meghan didn’t want them to.” Were Meghan and Harry right to give a tell-all interview to Oprah?Meghan told Oprah that reports of there being a “confrontation” over the matter between the two women were incorrect. “I don’t think it’s fair to her to get into the details of that because she apologised and I’ve forgiven her,” she added. “What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do but that happened to me and the people that were a part of my wedding going to my comms team saying, ‘I know this didn’t happen. I don’t have to tell them what actually happened, but I can at least go on the record saying, She didn’t make her cry.’ Everyone in the institution knew it wasn’t true. “I’m not sharing that piece about Kate in any way to be disparaging to her. I think it’s really important for people to understand the truth, but I also think a lot of that was fed into by the media. Look, I would hope that she would’ve wanted that corrected.” COMPARISONS IN THE MEDIAMeghan also noted the incessant comparisons between the two women in the British tabloids, saying: “So much of what I have seen play out was this idea of polarity.“Where if you love me, you don’t have to hate her and if you love her, you don’t need to hate me,” she said. She told Oprah she didn’t know why there was, in the host’s words, “a standard for Kate” and a different one for her. “I can see now what layers were at play there, and again, they really seem to want a narrative of a hero and a villain,” Meghan said, before saying in an unseen clip that her treatment in the press was “very different” to her sister-in-law’s. RELATED: Charles’ cold move against Harry“If they can compare the experience of what I went through with similar of what has been shared with us … Kate was called ‘Waity Katie’, waiting to marry William. While I imagine that was really hard – and I do, I can’t picture what that felt like – this is not the same.“And if a member of his family will comfortably say, ‘We’ve all had to deal with some things that are rude’, rude and racist are not the same.” ‘JEALOUSY’ OVER AUSTRALIA TOURDuring the explosive interview, Harry implied that his family’s attitude towards Meghan changed significantly after their hugely successful tour of Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji in October 2018, with them envious of Meghan’s popularity. Oprah told the couple the 16-day tour reminded her of The Crown – particularly the episode that portrayed Princess Diana and Prince Charles on tour, and the future monarch seething at his wife’s positive reception. RELATED: Oprah’s insight into ‘jaw-dropping’ claimHarry told Oprah the visit highlighted that Meghan was “one of the greatest assets” the royals could have wished for – but suggested it led to issues for other members of the family. “It was the first time the family got to see how incredible she was at the job. And that brought back memories,” he said. How to find news on news.com.au
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