Why Meghan's Claim She Had No Help With Royal Transition Is Raising Eyebrows
Four days after the Oprah interview where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle dished the dirt on the royal family – and the aftershocks just keep coming. The palace themselves issued a dignified statement addressing the accusations, including allegations of racism, but the strongest words used were a restrained "some recollections may vary."
According to palace insiders, however, some of those differing recollections that were publicly aired on Sunday night appear to them to be more akin to fabrications. As one such source revealed, there was no truth whatsoever to Meghan's claim that she was forced to figure out the whole duchessing thing on her own. "It is very disingenuous to make such a sweeping generalisation," they told the Daily Mail, and went on to provide the supposed real deal about what went down in the palace in the days before her wedding to Prince Harry.
As various palace sources have confirmed with the Daily Mail, Meghan Markle was provided with her own team of senior staff members to mentor her as soon as the palace was informed of Harry's engagement. Meghan was allowed to select her own staffers, but the Queen personally persuaded her own "most trusted ... safest set of hands" — the about-to-retire deputy private secretary Samantha Cohen — to stay on a little longer to help Meghan get ready for life among the royals. Cohen sat down with Meghan to tutor her extensively on palace etiquette and diplomatic protocols.
How the royals tried to help Meghan Markle prepare for her marriage
That recollection does, indeed, differ from Meghan's claim that "there's no class on how to ... be royal. There was none of that training that might exist for other members of the family. That was not something that was offered to me." Au contraire, say the Daily Mail's sources, countering that "Buckingham Palace ... were determined to help them in any way they could. They wanted to make Harry and Meghan a success. Unfortunately they didn't want to listen ... Meghan just really didn't want to know."
In addition, in response to Meghan's claim that the royal family wouldn't get her the mental health help she needed, royal commentators like historian Jonathan Dimbleby expressed doubts that the family would have refused, per Insider. "I would be very surprised ... that a senior figure in the household said 'it would not look good' if Meghan were to seek help for her obvious distress," he said. "I find that to be beyond belief, to be quite honest."
Will we ever learn the real truth? Probably not, since the ways of royals and Hollywood A-listers alike are equally inscrutable. As to whether Megxit/Oprahgate will be the scandal that takes down the monarchy — don't hold your breath. As the Chicago Sun-Times points out, they've survived worse scandals involving just about everybody, so chances are Hurricane Meghan won't knock them out, either.