Things Meghan Markle Said About The Royal Family Before She Started Dating Harry
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's love story is one that has enthralled the world. Harry first saw Meghan on Instagram when a mutual friend posted a picture of her and Meghan with the Snapchat dog filter. Meghan immediately caught Harry's eye so he reached out to this friend who subsequently set them up.
Their first date didn't exactly go as planned. In the couple's Netflix docuseries, "Harry and Meghan," Meghan revealed that Harry was half an hour late because he got held up in traffic. While this could've been a dealbreaker, Harry's charm immediately won her over. "He was just so fun, just so refreshingly fun. And that was the thing. We were childlike together," Meghan revealed (via Town & Country). The couple went on another date shortly after, and then Meghan joined Harry on a trip to Botswana, where they really bonded. "It just felt so right, and it felt so normal," Harry said of the trip. After the couple got engaged, Harry revealed that it was basically love at first sight. When asked upon their engagement when he knew Meghan was his soulmate, he simply replied: "The very first time we met." We just love love.
Meghan knew less than most about the royals before she met Harry, and she only spoke publicly about the family a handful of times before the prince swept her off her feet. Read on to discover some of the things Meghan said about the royals before she became one of them.
Meghan addressed the hype around Prince William and Princess Catherine's wedding on her blog
The whole world was talking about Prince William and Princess Catherine's wedding in 2011, and so was Meghan Markle. Before she knew she'd be part of the royal family seven years later, Meghan wrote an entry on her former blog, "The Tig," which discussed all the hype surrounding Catherine and William's wedding at the time.
Meghan noted that it appeared many women's childhood dreams of becoming a princess follow them into adulthood (Disney made us do it!) and she implied that dream was likely why people were so interested in Catherine's wedding. From the public's point of view, she was living a real-life fairytale. "Just look at the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal wedding and endless conversation about Princess Kate," the blog post read (via the Daily Mail).
Many see this as proof that Meghan knew enough about the royal family back then to have an opinion of them. We're not very bothered with whether or not she actually knew anything about them before she met Prince Harry, but one thing that's clear is that Meghan didn't know how royal titles worked since Catherine was set to be a duchess when she married William, not a princess. And let's be real; as much as we know about the royal family, we don't really know what it's like on the inside, and neither could Meghan before she took the leap and married Harry.
Meghan said she'd love to be a royal rebel
Meghan Markle has been compared to the late Princess Diana on more than one occasion, and as it turns out, she may or may not have fantasized about being a royal rebel when she was younger.
In an old post that has resurfaced from Meghan's former blog, "The Tig," she explains that she was never into being a Cinderella kind of princess, but rather fantasized about being a "royal rebel" (via the Daily Mail). "Little girls dream of being princesses," Meghan wrote. "I, for one, was all about She-Ra, Princess of Power." If you have no idea who She-Ra is, she's a badass, sword-wielding princess from an 80s cartoon. Sounds about right.
An old friend of Meghan's, Ninaki Priddy, told the Daily Mail that, apparently, "[Meghan] was always fascinated by the royal family. She wants to be Princess Diana 2.0." Priddy added that Meghan was apparently a fan of Princess Diana when she was younger and owned one of her books. If anything, Meghan's admiration for Princess Diana has encouraged her to be part of various humanitarian projects and speak up for herself when needed. We can all get behind that.
Meghan posed with a magazine featuring Princess Catherine on the cover in 2014, suggesting she was a fan
There has been a lot of speculation about just how much Meghan Markle really knew about the royal family before she met Prince Harry, and when an old photograph of her posing with a magazine showing Princess Catherine on the cover resurfaced, it set tongues wagging.
According to Yahoo!, the picture was taken in 2014 when Meghan granted an interview to U Magazine, which used to be an Irish women's publication. Meghan was set to appear in the next issue, discussing her favorite sunglasses. Denise Cash, who used to be the magazine's deputy editor, Tweeted the image of her and Meghan holding the magazine with Catherine on the cover, acknowledging Meghan for the time she took to chat with her for the next issue.
With the image resurfacing, many speculated that Meghan was a fan of the royals (or at least a fan of Princess Catherine) before she met Harry. This might very well be the case, but it still doesn't mean she knew everything. And who didn't know about Catherine back then? She was the latest addition to the royal family and she was pregnant. It was nothing short of a global event. What we do know is that Meghan had no idea she was holding a magazine with her future sister-in-law on the cover.
Meghan said she'd choose Harry over William in a 2015 interview
Meghan Markle chose Prince Harry long before she actually dated him — for real. The couple's Netflix docuseries unearthed an old 2015 interview Meghan had with Hello! Canada. It all started off innocently enough, with Meghan being asked about her favorite song and the people she loves to work with. Then the interviewer asked her who she would choose between Prince William and Prince Harry. Meghan paused for a second, likely trying to conjure up an image of the two royals in order to make a decision. Then she replied: "I don't know." The interviewer whispered "Harry" beneath her flashcards, and Meghan complied, "Harry? Sure!" Oh, little did she know!
The couple now looks back on that interview with fondness. In the documentary, Harry notes that the interview took place about a year before they met. The universe is funny that way, isn't it? He made fun of Meghan's response, to which she replied: "Honey, I'm sorry. I of course choose you." Harry noted that Meghan's response during the interview showed just how little she knew about the royals back then. "And look at how far we've come," he added fondly. Damn, you guys, don't make us cry!
Meghan said she barely knew anything about the royal family before she started dating Harry
It might be safe to say that Meghan Markle had no idea what she was in for when she began dating Prince Harry. Royalty might sound fun in theory, but from what we've seen, it's not exactly a walk in the park. During an interview with the BBC, she revealed that she knew very little about the royal family before she started dating Harry (which was evident from the Hello! Canada interview).
Fans of Meghan would know that she never really publicly spoke about the royals before she met the prince, which indicates that she wasn't exactly following their lives online. "Because I'm from the States, you don't grow up with the same understanding of the royal family," Meghan explained to the BBC. "I didn't know much about him, and so the only thing that I had asked [our friend] when she said that she wanted to set us up, was ... 'Was he nice?' Cause if he wasn't kind, it just didn't seem like it would make sense." Well, it turned out that Harry was very nice indeed because she fell head over heels.
Later, during an interview with Oprah Winfrey (via Vanity Fair), Meghan revealed that she never consulted the web to figure out what joining the royal family would mean. "I didn't feel any need to, because everything I needed to know [Harry] was sharing with me," she said at the time.
Meghan referred to Princess Eugenie as a friend before she dated Harry
Meghan Markle called Princess Eugenie a friend long before Prince Harry entered her life. This was not exactly a well-known fact to the public and came as a surprise to many. The Daily Mail reports that Meghan and Eugenie met the same way she and Harry did — through a mutual friend, who, according to some reports, is fashion designer Misha Nonoo.
During an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021 (via Express), Meghan casually revealed that she and Eugenie were friends before she became a member of the royal family. "Eugenie and I had known each other before I had known Harry, so that was comfortable," Megan said when explaining what it was like to meet all the royals. She added that she and Harry are friends with Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank. In fact, Eugenie and Jack once joined Harry on a trip to visit Meghan in Toronto during their early dating days while she was still working on the legal drama "Suits."
Meghan told Ellen DeGeneres during an interview that they all went on a double date shortly before she and Harry announced their relationship to the world. They wore Halloween costumes, which helped them to stay incognito. "It was a post-apocalypse theme, so we had all this very bizarre costuming on, and we were able to just have one fun final night out," Meghan revealed.