Queen Elizabeth was 'on to' Meghan Markle 'from the start' and viewed her as an 'opportunist': book
Queen Elizabeth II had concerns about grandson Prince Harry's future wife Meghan Markle from the beginning, according to a new book.
In veteran political reporter Susan Page's upcoming book, "The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History," a palace aide claimed the late monarch grew skeptical of the American actress early on, viewing her as calculated and skilled at shaping her public image.
"Her Majesty had become wary of Meghan as an opportunist — was ‘on to her from the start,’ the aide said — and one with public relations skills that left the palace’s outdated press operation in the dust," Page wrote.
PRINCE WILLIAM’S MISTRUST OF MEGHAN MARKLE IS STALLING PEACE WITH PRINCE HARRY: AUTHOR
Fox News Digital has reached out to Harry and Markle's representatives for comment.
According to Harry's 2023 memoir, "Spare," the former "Suits" star first met Elizabeth in October 2016 at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, England. Both Harry and Meghan have previously described the meeting as impromptu, recalling that the future Duchess of Sussex wasn't aware that she would have to curtsy to his grandmother and had to practice ahead of the introduction.
In their 2022 Netflix series "Harry & Meghan," the Duke of Sussex said he believed the royal family had reservations about his wife due to her being an American actress.
"I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed. Some of them didn't quite know what to do with themselves," Harry said. "Because I think they were surprised. They were surprised that a ginger could land such a beautiful woman and such an intelligent woman.
"But the fact that I was dating an American actress was probably what clouded their judgment more than anything else at the beginning: 'Oh she's an American actress; this won't last.'"
"The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough," Megan said. "There is a big idea of what that looks like from the U.K. standpoint — Hollywood — and it's just very easy for them to typecast that."
Harry and Meghan announced their engagement in November 2017 and married in May 2018. In January 2020, they announced that they were stepping down as senior royals and moving overseas.
Elizabeth, who died in September 2022 at age 96, was reportedly deeply hurt and disappointed by the couple's decision but remained publicly supportive of Harry and Meghan.
During a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Markle said the queen "has been wonderful to me."
"She’s always been warm and inviting and really welcoming," Markle added.
In "Spare," Harry provided a personal look at his upbringing as the royal "spare" to his older brother Prince William, family conflicts, the impact of his mother Princess Diana's death and the tensions that led to his departure from royal life.
In "The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History," Page wrote, "A senior royal aide said Harry’s bitterness toward the palace staff and his own family stemmed in part from his resentment over being treated as a ‘lesser royal’ than William — perhaps inevitable, given that his brother was the heir apparent."
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According to the book, the aide said "Harry complained that he was put in a bedroom ‘miles away’ from William’s posher surroundings."
Page's book also revealed that palace staff harbored doubts about Harry's true parentage. Harry has long faced rumors he is not King Charles III’s son — instead linking him to Diana's lover James Hewitt — though the claims have been repeatedly denied and contradicted by the timeline.
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"Some staff openly speculated about whether Harry was in fact Charles’s biological son — the unsubstantiated gossip that the red-haired royal was the product of an affair between Princess Diana and the red-haired Calvary officer James Hewitt," Page wrote.
"In his memoir, Harry said that even Prince Charles joked about his parentage. ‘Who knows if I’m even your real father,’ Charles would say, then ‘laugh and laugh.’ After all, Charles said, a patient at a nearby psychiatric hospital had insisted to him that he was the true Prince of Wales.
"The ‘remarkably unfunny joke’ made him feel more isolated, Harry wrote. He was already emotionally vulnerable: He had been just twelve years old when his mother had been killed in a spectacular car crash, paparazzi in pursuit."
Charles and Diana finalized their divorce in August 1996 after several years of separation. Diana died just over a year later, in August 1997, at age 36, after a car crash in a Paris tunnel.
"The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History" will be released April 14.