7 Signs Meghan Markle Regrets Leaving The Royal Family

It feels like it's been a long time since Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, stepped down as senior members of the royal family, and there are a lot of tell-tale signs that Meghan regrets that decision. The two officially parted ways with the Buckingham Palace firm in January 2020, packing their bags and setting up a new life in Montecito, California, Meghan's home state. They left for a few different reasons. For one, they were concerned about the invasiveness of British tabloids. Secondly, they were upset that Buckingham Palace was stopping them from developing a "Sussex Royal" brand. 

Since moving to California, Harry and Meghan have struggled to find their footing. There was a hitch with Meghan's first lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard. Then there was the Spotify deal for her podcast, Archetypes, which folded after 12 episodes. She wrote a children's book, "The Bench," in 2021 to minimal response, and Season 1 of her Netflix series, "With Love, Meghan," got a 39% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. But it's not just a lack of direction that Meghan and Harry are missing. Meghan has become estranged from her father and his side of the family, while most of Harry's family no longer speaks to him. His tell-all memoir, "Spare," certainly didn't help that situation. So, Harry and Meghan are largely alone, save for Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, who remains close to her daughter and son-in-law. With so much struggle and loneliness, it only makes sense that Meghan must regret, at least at times, her decision to step away from the royal family. 

Meghan Markle changed her last name, and it's all very confusing. For anyone who watched "With Love, Meghan," the moment easily comes to mind when Meghan corrected guest Mindy Kaling after the latter called her by her maiden name. "It's so funny that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I'm Sussex now," said Meghan on an episode of her show. It was an incredibly awkward moment. The whole ordeal surrounding Meghan's name has created a lot of drama for her, and royal insiders have a shady reason why Meghan is so adamant about her name change. Namely, that Meghan is quickly assuming the royal title before King Charles III can strip her of it. 

While Meghan still goes by the title Duchess of Sussex, multiple sources told Page Six that she also goes by HRH, even though the late Queen Elizabeth II had Meghan and Prince Harry relinquish that royal title when they stepped down as senior members of the royal family. Even her personal stationary reads: "With the Compliments of HRH the Duchess of Sussex." It seems a little puzzling that for someone who allegedly had such a bad time as a member of the royal family, Meghan insists on using royal titles. Those monikers symbolically tie her to the royal family and, clearly, she doesn't want to shed that identity. If she had hated it so much, she'd want to leave that title in the past, making it clear that she misses certain elements (or perks) of being a royal. 

After a failed podcast and challenges with her lifestyle brand, Meghan Markle picked herself up and relaunched both. She started the podcast "Confessions of a Female Founder" in April 2025, and she launched As Ever, her food brand, in March 2025. The company supplies edible items like flower petals, honey, tea, and jam, and everything sold out within an hour of the launch. However, there has been a serious struggle to replenish items due to high demand. Instead, she has stepped back to reassess before the brand returns with an expanded product line in 2026, she told Fast Company.

With this stress looming, it's no wonder that while speaking with Spanx founder Sara Blakely on "Confessions of a Female Founder," Meghan admitted to finding the experience of launching a business very lonely. "When you only have yourself to answer to I think it's twofold," Meghan began on the episode called "Business Is Not a Battlefield." Meghan went on to say, "It can be incredibly liberating or it can be incredibly lonely." It must be lonely when facing struggles that any new business would have to deal with, and Meghan has had her fair share. In the end, Meghan's As Ever rollout faced some hiccups, and the reviews weren't great. In terms of career differences, being a senior member of the royal family means that those people work and support the crown full-time, with their expenses covered by the Sovereign Grant. Had Meghan stayed in the royal family, she might not have faced the same hurdles, hiccups, and stressors of launching her own business (and re-stocking her shelves). 

Meghan Markle herself admitted that she has struggled with finding an identity after leaving the royal family. On her podcast, "Confessions of a Female Founder," Meghan admitted to feeling lost. "If I had to write a résumé, I don't know what I would call myself," Meghan said honestly. "I think it speaks to this chapter many of us find ourselves in, where none of us are one note. But I believe all the notes I am playing are part of the same song." While she played it off as positive, it's clear that Meghan hasn't found her footing. 

A cursory Google search of Meghan still shows her to be a member of the British royal family, not a founder or creator or podcaster. All of her career changes haven't stuck, and so it makes sense that she's feeling adrift about who she is now. That's not to say something won't stick one day, but it is surprising that it's taken so long. Perhaps even more devastatingly, depending on who you ask, is a paparazzi's brutal take on how far Meghan and Prince Harry have fallen. Photographers used to do anything to get photos of them, but now, public interest has significantly diminished, in part because of these failed endeavours. If she hadn't separated from the royal family, Meghan would have faced very different challenges, but they certainly wouldn't have included a lack of public interest or personal identity.

Since leaving the royal family, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have taken some trips that had all the trappings of a royal tour. The couple went to Nigeria in May 2024 for the purposes of Harry's Invictus Games Foundation. Nigeria was the first African country to join the Invictus "Community of Nations" in 2022, and so Meghan and Harry arranged a visit. Unfortunately, while there, Meghan's wardrobe choices had tongues wagging, no doubt making some folks wish that she had the guidance of stricter dress codes that reign in members of the royal family. 

What's more, in August 2024, Harry and Meghan visited Columbia to promote their charity work, particularly internet safety for kids. That sounds a lot like a royal tour, if you ask us! Many outlets noted the telling comparison, with the Daily Mail calling the trip a "faux royal tour" and abc.net calling it a "quasi-royal tour." The similarity was not lost on anyone. Again, Meghan's confusing outfit sparked unfavourable comparisons to Kate Middleton's style. Even more awkwardly, Harry and Meghan's honeymoon behavior in Columbia was very distracting, making the trip a tad too PDA-heavy for some folks. With so many trips that echo the bygone era of royal tours, it seems to indicate that Meghan misses that aspect of royal life. If she and Harry are replicating those trips in their post-royal lifestyle, they clearly miss some elements of it. At this point, however, it's no longer a royal duty but a chosen trip.

Meghan Markle complained about having to wear neutrals when she was adapting to royal life. In her and Prince Harry's Netflix special, "Harry & Meghan," she said, "Most of the time that I was in the U.K., I rarely wore color. There was thought in that." She said her understanding was that she wasn't supposed to wear the same color as another member of the royal family, especially the late Queen Elizabeth II. "So, I was like, 'Well, what's a color that they'll probably never wear?' Camel, beige, white." Meghan claimed that she wore these "muted tones" to fit in and stay out of the spotlight. 

While she made it sound like it was a real suffering and cramped her style, Meghan has gone on to wear neutrals constantly since stepping away from the royal family. In fact, she wears so much neutral that in 2023, multiple publications couldn't resist making cheeky jabs whilst acknowledging her style prowess. For instance, Vogue described her muted summer wardrobe as "50 Shades of Beige," while Glamour commented on her beige trend being "anything but boring." Indeed, Meghan frequently goes for white, beige, brown, and black since leaving the firm. Despite apparently living her liberated life, free from the sartorial strictures of Buckingham Palace, Meghan has stuck to this neutral palette, making us wonder if she wasn't so constricted after all.

As a royal, Meghan Markle had a fleet of staff at her disposal to help her as a senior member of the family. After stepping away, she and Prince Harry were called out for their hypocrisy after they hired a whole team of staff to support them in Montecito, California, indicating a clear desire to replicate their lives when they were in the royal family. "Undoubtedly, the Sussexes would like to rule over a 'royal court' from their Montecito mansion," royal expert Tom Bower told the Daily Mail of the couple's strange decision. "Nothing would give them greater pleasure than courtiers pulling their forelocks as they bow and scrape to please the Duke and Duchess." 

Bower took a particular dig at Meghan. "Competing with Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace would delight Meghan," he added. However, Bower stressed that Harry and Meghan have not created a royal court so much as an extremely expensive staff tasked with the job of saving their brand. Unfortunately for the couple, a number of their media company Archewell Productions staff have quit. For instance, in 2024, they hired PR executive Josh Kettler as their chief of staff, but he quit after just three months. They lost their production manager, Bennett Levine, after three years of employment, and Fara Taylor, hired as their head of marketing, left after one year. In fact, since stepping away from the royal family, Harry and Meghan have lost 18 employees.

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time and can say the wrong thing. When you're as famous as Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, however, these slip-ups can have major repercussions. In fact, on numerous occasions, their efforts to appeal to the public have backfired, and Meghan and Harry have gotten in trouble. "Meghan does regret certain statements that she made," American-based royal reporter Kinsey Schofield said to Fox News, referring to Meghan's comments after leaving the royal family. "They weren't received in the way that she had expected and several of her comments have backfired." On her podcast "Confessions of a Female Founder," Meghan made another blunder when she spoke about financial guilt. "I think so many women, especially, we're taught to not even talk about money, and there's lots of guilt mentality surrounding having a lot," Meghan said. "And at the same time, there's a scarcity mindset that it's easy to attach to, of like, 'I'll never have enough.'" People instantly got the ick from how out-of-touch her money comments seemed. 

The royal family has its own PR team called the Royal Communications, which is run by media professionals who jump in and manage an awkward situation. It's to be expected that public figures will occasionally make mistakes, so Meghan and Harry aren't alone in needing this kind of support. However, since stepping down as senior members, they gave up that backing of expertise and must navigate a tricky world all on their own. Without a doubt, they miss that assistance.