Meghan Markle Wishes She'd Watched This Movie Before Joining The Royal Family

It's safe to say that watching all those Disney princess movies in no way prepares someone for what royal life is really like. Just ask the Duchess of Sussex. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's abrupt exit from the U.K. in 2020 was, in part, because the constraints and burdens of being senior working royals simply became too much for them. Although Meghan and Harry moved back to the U.K. in August 2026, the former "Suits" star has spoken extensively about how she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her when she said "I do" to Harry. Speaking to The Cut in 2022, Meghan admitted that watching a certain movie might have helped her be better prepared. 

The interviewer asked if she'd ever seen the 2004 flick, "The Prince & Me." The duchess responded that she hadn't. They noted that it was the perfect illustration of the disparity between American culture and that of royal families, and how it's hard for outsiders to fit in and get it right. Meghan appeared intrigued, acknowledging, "Yeah. That would've been really helpful. That would've been a very key tutorial to have had in advance of all this." 

Being an American marrying into a British family (that also happened to be the royal family) made for a bumpy ride, particularly because their way of doing things was so different to what she was used to, especially when it came to heading up projects. Meghan also quickly realized that asking too many questions was frowned upon. In 2021, she told Oprah Winfrey that she went into the whole thing blind. "I didn't fully understand what the job was," Meghan shared (via KTLA5), adding, "I will say I went into it naively because I didn't grow up knowing much about the royal family."

Meghan Markle's assertion that she didn't know much about the royal family before she met Prince Harry has been widely disputed. Way back in 2014, she mentioned Princess Catherine and Prince William's much-talked-about wedding on her now-defunct blog, The Tig. The former "Suits" star argued that the princess fantasy didn't necessarily disappear just because you're an adult, noting, "Just look at the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal wedding and endless conversation about Princess Kate," per Vanity Fair. That, of course, wasn't Kate Middleton's title at the time, which Meghan arguably would have known if she was a royal enthusiast. 

But outlets like the Daily Mail ran with it regardless, surmising that the blog post indicated she had enough knowledge about the British royal family to air her opinions on the Prince and Princess of Wales' nuptials. However, it's worth noting that Harry recounted in the couple's Netflix documentary, "Harry & Meghan," that his future wife was absolutely clueless about royal customs. "My grandmother was the first senior member of the family that Meghan met. She had no idea what it all consisted of. So it was a bit of a shock to the system for her," he explained (via People). 

In fact, Meghan admitted, "I remember we were in the car and we were driving up and he's like 'You know how to curtsy right?' And I just thought it was a joke." In Harry's tell-all memoir, "Spare," the prince recalled how she confused his uncle, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, for the queen's assistant when she first met the monarch. Andrew was carrying his mother's purse, which led to the assumption. Harry found the whole thing very funny, writing, "She definitely hadn't googled us."