Meghan Markle’s ‘messiah complex,’ frequent hugs sparked clash within palace before royal exit: book
Meghan Markle’s life in Kensington Palace seemed doomed from the start.
The Duchess of Sussex was accused of having a "messiah complex" by former palace aides, who nicknamed her "Duchess of Difficult" before she made her royal exit.
The claim was made by royal author Tom Quinn, who has written a new book, "Yes Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants." Quinn spoke to hundreds of former and current palace staff members to learn what it’s like to watch over the House of Windsor.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Archewell, which handles the offices of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and Kensington Palace for the Prince and Princess of Wales for comment. A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace previously told Fox News Digital, "We don’t comment on such books."
"Several of the aides that I spoke to, as well as the more junior staff, said that Meghan had what they called a ‘messiah complex,’" Quinn claimed to Fox News Digital.
"I think what they meant was that, as a working royal, she could save all the people whose lives were difficult. She could help with all sorts of problems, including poverty. She had this sense that came from a very good motivation that she could change the world for the better. But the aides saw her ideas of doing good as completely out of proportion to what she actually could do."
"They felt she had these grand ideas, but there was no way a single person could do what she wanted to do," Quinn shared. "And I think there was also a suspicion that Meghan was trying to be more like William and Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, that she was trying to do the same thing. And I think there was irritation that her sense of importance would reflect badly on the royal family."
One member of Meghan’s former staff claimed that the Duchess of Sussex was "focused on how she could become the best-known and most-loved member of the royal family."
"She once said, ‘What Diana started I want to finish,’ and we took that to mean she wanted to become a sort of globetrotting champion of the poor and the marginalized," the ex-aide claimed.
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One of Queen Elizabeth II’s former courtiers also claimed to Quinn that Buckingham Palace had become "really worried" that Meghan had made her own plans for her life as a working royal. They felt she "wanted to do her own thing," but "it was never going to be acceptable that Meghan should outshine Princess Anne, Prince Charles [as he was then known] and [the queen]."
"Quite rightly, [the queen] always had to be the center and focus of everything the royal family did," the aide claimed, as quoted in Quinn’s book.
"I don’t think Meghan understood why that had to make her do things she didn’t want to do. She didn’t understand that when you join the royal family, you don’t do as you please, you do as you’re told. In a sense, you become a servant of the family."
The aide claimed that Meghan "felt constrained" and started to feel that she and Harry needed to "break out" where they could be working royals but "do their own thing without consulting the big royal machine." For Harry, the idea of freedom sounded enticing, the aide claimed.
Quinn learned that the palace staff begged Harry to intervene. Instead, they began to see his "tendency to defend anything and everything Meghan says or does."
Quinn said he could see how Meghan’s ambitions would become a problem.
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"If you’re married to the spare as Meghan is, you have to… accept that you’re taking a backseat position," Quinn told Fox News Digital. "Meghan didn’t do that. That led to the idea that she had a ‘messiah complex.’ She might have exaggerated her ability to do good, but her desire to do it was very sincere."
Meghan’s hugging also became a problem. The over-familiarity was considered "rude" by staff, who claimed that Kate Middleton, Prince William and King Charles III would "flinch" when Meghan moved in for an embrace.
"Tension developed between William and Harry as a result of Meghan’s warm, friendly, hug-everyone approach," Quinn wrote.
"It made William uncomfortable because she hugged him virtually every time they bumped into each other; the hugging and cheek kissing fueled gossip among the staff that Meghan was flirting with William, which she was obviously not, but the tense atmosphere caused by all the touchy-feeliness (and the resultant gossip) deepened the rift between the brothers."
Quinn told Fox News Digital while all the staff he spoke to agreed that the rumors were untrue, Kensington Palace was also a "hothouse where gossip and rumors develop."
"These rumors could become a life of their own," he said. "The senior royals have to stop them before they start. Meanwhile, Meghan was upset and felt that the royal family was… pushing her away. I think the fact that Meghan felt slightly rejected was one of the reasons why this whole project [being senior royals] didn’t work."
"She was very warm," said Quinn. "Whenever she met other members of the family, she would hug them… the royals just don’t do that… Meghan was astonished, for example, that Charles was so formal with his mother. It was as if she couldn’t understand why the family was so cold. She came from a tradition where if you met someone close to you, you hugged them."
"Yes, Meghan got very bad press in the U.K.," Quinn continued. "She was nicknamed the Duchess of Difficult by people who worked for her when she was a member of the royal family, and also, by other members of the royal family."
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But it wasn’t always this way. Quinn pointed out in his book that at first, William and Kate found Meghan "delightful," as quoted by one staffer.
"I actually rather liked Meghan," one staffer told Quinn. "She was very straightforward and matter-of-fact, but some people didn’t like that because they felt she had got a bit above herself. Even the kitchen maids, I think, were a bit jealous, which made them very critical of Meghan.
"They liked Harry and felt very protective of him and then along comes this American woman who – they felt – made Harry into a less likable character. But as one of Harry’s own friends from the military said, ‘Harry was a man waiting for a woman to mold him, and Meghan was that woman.’"
One former Kensington Palace staffer also claimed to Quinn, "Through absolutely no fault of her own, Meghan wasn’t always great with her staff – she just wasn’t used to it as Harry was. So, one minute she would be really friendly, perhaps over-friendly, with the staff, hugging everyone and trying to make friends with them, and the next she would be irritated by the fact that they wouldn’t respond instantly at all times of the day and night.
"It’s true that her nickname for a while was the Duchess of Difficult, but she had other, friendlier nicknames, including Mystic Meg, which came about because she was so New Agey, so woke, about so many things. She could be difficult because she was finding life difficult…"
A former staff member added, "Meghan quite rightly hated the fact that when she was in Nottingham Cottage, she had to agree well in advance what time she might leave for an appointment or an event, and she had to make sure she didn’t leave at the same time as, or clash in any way with, a more senior royal leaving the palace."
Quinn wrote that while Meghan had her supporters within the royal household, others struggled to work with her. One senior staff member reportedly remarked, "Oh my God, here we go again – Meghan is Mrs. Simpson come back to haunt us!"
The queen’s uncle, Edward VIII, famously gave up the throne in 1936 so he could marry Wallis Simpson, the divorced American socialite.
"In a way, you could argue that Meghan upsetting senior staff and other members of the royal family was actually a good thing," Quinn told Fox News Digital. "It led to what Meghan and Harry saw as their freedom."
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back as senior royals in 2020. They cited lack of support from the palace as one of their reasons. That year, the couple moved to California, where they're raising their two young children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.