How Kate Middleton & Meghan Markle Showed The Downside Of Life As A Royal

The adage that the grass isn't always greener on the other side certainly rings true for the Royal Family — specifically for the women in its ranks. Princess Catherine and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are prime examples of this reality. The press invades their privacy, scrutinizes their every move, and ridicules them.

If Catherine and Meghan want someone to blame for their lack of privacy, they should start with Queen Victoria. She was the first monarch to make the royals more accessible to the public, transforming the institution's cold, statutory front to one that appealed to the masses. Consequently, she turned the monarchy into an organization that depends on press coverage and favorable public opinion to survive. This intense exposure has been an unfortunate side effect ever since, even more so in the age of digital media. 

Few will forget the public upheaval when Catherine took a break from public-facing duties at the beginning of 2024 after undergoing abdominal surgery. The hashtag "WhereIsCatherine" went viral, with media outlets like Euronews blaming the palace's PR team for the public furor. Catherine was eventually forced to make a statement, and the whole saga will go down in history as one of the Royal Family's biggest PR disasters. Sure, royal life has its perks, but one only needs to glance at the tabloid headlines about Catherine and Meghan to realize that all that glitters is indeed not gold.

You can go from an ordinary citizen to a global sensation in a matter of days when you start dating a royal, and that's exactly what happened to Princess Catherine and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Pre-royal life, Catherine was a private citizen, and Meghan was somewhat in the public eye. Yet the moment their relationships became official with their respective husbands, their public profiles exploded.

Catherine's relationship with the British media might seem more amicable than Meghan's, but that hardly means she's had an easy go of it. She was hounded by the paparazzi almost just as much as Meghan, even living through an experience eerily similar to the one that led to Princess Diana's tragic death. "A friend tells me Kate was even chased late at night by several men in a car," royal editor Roya Nikkhah penned about the incident in a column, per Express. The friend added that Catherine was completely horrified by paparazzi attention. Even at work, Catherine wasn't free from prying camera lenses, so much so that she eventually left her job as an accessories buyer for Jigsaw.

While she's always appeared perfectly poised in these situations, Russell Myers claimed in his book, "William & Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story," that the princess once lost her cool after an encounter with the paparazzi in front of her house on her 25th birthday. When Catherine opened her front door that morning, she found herself face to face with "a scrum of more than 20 press photographers and five television crews," Myers penned (via Hello!). Catherine reportedly called William after the incident "in floods of tears." "She said, 'I can't do this any more,'" a source disclosed to Myers. In the end, the media attention did not deter Catherine from marrying William.

It's widely known that Prince Harry has a pretty hateful relationship with the media, and it is, in part, because of how the press treated his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, when she started dating him. Meghan had a rough time when she stepped out as Harry's new girlfriend, something she revealed in the couple's Netflix docuseries, "Harry & Meghan."

The paparazzi, desperate to get pictures of Meghan when she still worked in Toronto, Canada, filming "Suits," offered her neighbors financial compensation in exchange for putting up cameras on their property overlooking hers. "Suddenly, it was like everything about my life got so much more insular. All the curtains were pulled, all the blinds were pulled," Meghan shared, per People. "It was scary." That was just the tip of the iceberg, however. Reporters relentlessly dug for dirt on the new royal girlfriend, with Harry admitting he had to ask Meghan about some of the stories at times as he tried to figure out what was real and what was tabloid fodder. "That was the hardest piece," the prince admitted.

Additionally, photographers would follow Meghan to the "Suits" set in an attempt to photograph her. Some even tried to gain access to the grounds. "I would say to the police that if any other woman in Toronto said to you right now, 'I have six grown men sleeping in their cars around my house and following me everywhere that I go and I feel scared,' wouldn't you say that it was stalking? And they would say, 'But there is nothing we can do because look who you are dating,'" she recalled in the docuseries, per the Hindustan Times.

A real downside of royal life many don't consider? The never-ending stream of derogatory press stories that are published about the institution's members. Princess Catherine and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, know this firsthand.

William and Catherine dated for almost a decade before the prince finally got down on one knee. The press, however, was convinced that all Catherine did during that time was wait around for William to propose. As a result, she was nicknamed "Waity Katie" (via Daily Mail). William eventually proposed, and the couple is happily married, but that doesn't mean Catherine has stopped being the subject of derogatory press stories. In his book, "Endgame," Omid Scobie reports that, per a source, Catherine is secretly referred to as "Katie Keen" because the royal press office covers for her lighter workload by framing it as her being "keen to learn" (via The Mirror). Scobie paints her as lazy, even calling her "cold."

Meghan, meanwhile, endured intense press scrutiny of her own. Not only were many of the articles written about her racist, but The Sun also ran a now-retracted article about some of her "Suits" scenes that were published on an adult website, titling it, "Harry's Girl on P***hub." The media's treatment of Meghan became so unbearable that Prince Harry eventually released a statement in which he pleaded with the press to stand down. It fell on deaf ears. A 2020 analysis by The Guardian found that most of the articles published about Meghan were overwhelmingly negative.

While some royals work regular jobs, senior members of the Royal Family do not get to choose a career path. Instead, their sole purpose is to serve the monarchy. This meant that, when Princess Catherine and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, married into the Royal Family, they had to give up their careers for good.

Catherine notably worked for Jigsaw in 2006 as an accessories buyer. She quit in 2007 to join her family's business, Party Pieces, where she worked as a project manager. Ahead of her and William's nuptials, a royal aide disclosed to the Daily Mail that Catherine had left her job at Party Pieces so she could "concentrate full-time on preparing to become a member of the royal family." They added, "She has handed over her work to colleagues and is now preparing for her future life."

Meghan's career went the same way as Catherine's when she became engaged to Prince Harry. In the couple's engagement interview in November 2017, she revealed that she'd be leaving her acting career to serve as a full-time member of the Royal Family. "I don't see it as giving anything up. I just see it as a change. It's a new chapter," she assured the interviewer, per CBS News.

Royal life might sound appealing, but its reality often isn't glamorous. In fact, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, proved that marrying a prince and living in a castle doesn't guarantee happiness. Pundits learned some stunning things from Harry and Meghan's 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey after they left the Royal Family, including that Meghan battled depression and suicidal thoughts. "I just didn't want to be alive anymore," Meghan admitted during the interview, per People.

Meghan also alleged that she told the palace that she wanted to receive treatment for her depression, but that her request was denied for fear of bad publicity. Harry told CBS News in 2024 that his family knew Meghan was struggling but was of the opinion that she should "just deal with it," per the Independent.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

As a member of the Royal Family, your every move is analyzed and dissected, and in the case of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the media did this excessively. After Prince Harry and Meghan's abrupt exit from the U.K. in 2020, the media was looking for someone to blame, and they picked Meghan. The couple's untimely exit was subsequently dubbed Megxit.

An article published by the Daily Mail six years after the couple's exit cited sources who claimed Meghan was the problem all along and practically stole Harry away from his family. "I don't think he's ever wanted to be estranged from his family," the source asserted. "I think when he was madly in love with Meghan he could be blind enough to choose her."

Royal author Catherine Mayer told Fox News that Meghan's decision to depart royal life did great harm to the monarchy as a whole. "I believe that the rupture in the family that saw Meghan and Harry go to the United States has done very serious damage to the monarchy," Mayer asserted, clarifying that she wasn't necessarily blaming the couple, but that their departure has undoubtedly left the monarchy worse off as skeptics increasingly call for it to be abolished.

When you're a member of the Royal Family, your health issues don't get to be so private. Just ask Princess Catherine. When she underwent planned abdominal surgery in January 2024, the public was told she'd take a three-month leave of absence. When she failed to make any public appearances at all, conspiracy theories swirled, and her so-called disappearance dominated headlines for weeks. 

As speculation about her condition reached a fever pitch, the vultures began circling. A staff member of the hospital where Catherine was receiving treatment attempted to access her medical records, likely to sell them to the highest bidder. A criminal investigation was launched against this individual.

Eventually, Catherine made a video address to the public, informing them that she'd been diagnosed with cancer, though she did not specify which type. "My medical team, therefore, advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy, and I am now in the early stages of that treatment," she said (via Fox News).

Don't for a second think that stepping down as a working royal will finally lead to a cessation of sensationalist tabloid stories. It won't. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is a testimony to that. Five years after leaving the Royal Family, she released her Netflix lifestyle show, "With Love, Meghan," and the reviews were absolutely brutal. Many outlets were determined to continue focusing on her past and looking at the show through a negative lens instead of trying to see it in the light of the present. "With Love, Meghan' Is a Montecito Ego Trip Not Worth Taking," Variety's headline read.

For Meghan, who once admitted in an interview that the media tempest she had to weather in 2019 was "almost unsurvivable," per Newsweek, receiving this kind of reaction to her show six years later must have been incredibly disheartening. Even folks on Reddit have questioned why people seem to love hating the Duchess of Sussex so much, with some in the comments suggesting that the British media has created an image of her that is easy to criticize. Others noted that people have built entire careers on doing just that, hence the continued barrage of negative stories.

Per rumor mills, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's marriage might be on the rocks. The scuttlebutt has persisted for as long as they've been married, but in 2026, a new bout of gossip erupted after their much-anticipated trip to the U.K. Sources told gossip columnist Rob Shuter's Substack that the Sussexes' marriage is in shambles. "They're living very separate lives now," one insider alleged. "It's gone beyond work schedules. They have different priorities, different routines, and they're spending much less time together than people realize." Another source claimed Harry is much happier when he's apart from Meghan. None of these claims have been substantiated.

A source told Heat World that Harry and Meghan are making plans behind the scenes to divorce and that it's even become a topic of conversation at Buckingham Palace. An apparent insider said Harry wants to split his time between the U.K. and the U.S., but Meghan is "very resistant to that idea" and that the discord is tearing the couple apart. Given that they have announced they're moving back to the U.K. as a family for an extended stay, we'd say those sources were mistaken.

Princess Catherine has had to deal with unsavory gossip that Prince William had been unfaithful. During Catherine's leave of absence from royal duties in 2024 after her abdominal surgery, rumors started to swirl that the reason for her disappearance wasn't health-related at all; rather, she and William were going through a rough patch because he's been having an affair with their mutual friend, Rose Hanbury, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. Hanbury released a statement via her attorneys to refute the gossip, saying, "the rumours are completely false," per Business Insider.

The gossip had been around since 2019, when In Touch claimed Catherine had confronted William about the scuttlebutt and that he "laughed it off saying there was nothing to it," per Harper's Bazaar. In a since-deleted article, The Sun noted that Catherine and Hanbury's friendship appeared to have fizzled out since rumors about the affair went public, claiming that she told William that Hanbury had to be "phased out" of their lives, stat, per Harper's Bazaar. But lo and behold, Hanbury was at Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and King Charles III's coronation. The rumors, it would appear, are just that.

The Royal Family is no longer as popular as it used to be, and it's been increasingly showing at public events. Princess Catherine has had to deal with the fallout firsthand, and the pressure is on, given that she's the future queen. In December 2022, barely three months after Queen Elizabeth II's death, Prince William and Catherine traveled to the U.S. for the Earthshot Prize, which is headed by the Prince of Wales. They attended an NBA game, and unfortunately, it did not go seamlessly.

Some fans were less than pleased to have royalty in their midst, and the couple was received with loud boos and chants of "USA, USA," per Time. Their visit came on the heels of some racism scandals that rocked the Royal Family, including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle claiming in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey that unnamed members of the family were worried about what their son's skin color would be.

At the 2026 Trooping the Colour, Catherine and her three kids, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, were also met with loud boos from anti-monarchy protestors as they drove in a carriage for the procession. The young royals could be seen looking uncomfortable with the negative feedback, while Catherine directed some stink eye at the protestors. It couldn't have been easy for her to have her kids exposed to that, but such is the life of a royal.

As much as she might want to, Princess Catherine can't keep her three kids out of the glaring spotlight. Her oldest son, Prince George, is second in line to the throne, which means she'll watch him take on royal duties — and the public scrutiny that comes with it.

The young prince made headlines when he undertook his first-ever royal engagement alongside Catherine and Prince William in May 2025. The future king attended a tea party that honored World War II veterans, shaking hands, asking questions, and making casual conversation like a pro, despite being only 11 at the time. The media, of course, went wild with excitement, and we imagine that it was probably hard for both Catherine and William to put their son out there like that at such a young age. Of course, George also served as Page of Honor at King Charles III's coronation in 2023, which marked his first important role at a royal event.

Catherine's other two kids, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, will likely eventually take on royal duties, and because of the institution, there isn't much she can do about that, nor will she be able to fully protect them from future press scrutiny.