Six months on from her fairytale wedding to Prince Harry at Windsor Castle, Meghan Markle is faced with a daily barrage of tabloid headlines criticising her courtly manner and warning her against becoming “Duchess Difficult”.
Pregnant Meghan was credited with breathing fresh air into the royal institution, but a series of reported palace fallouts and resignations have raised questions about her methods.
Senior courtiers have quit amid suggestions that Meghan is a demanding boss, firing off e-mails to staff in the early hours of the morning. British tabloids have reported she made sister-in-law Kate cry during preparations for the wedding.
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The family insists that Harry and Meghan’s plan to shift to his brother Prince William and Kate is driven by the imminent arrival of their first child, but many believe it is a sign of a deteriorating relationship.
Queen Elizabeth II was also believed to have been angered by Meghan asking to be loaned her emerald wedding tiara, according to newspaper reports.
Highly-respected courtier Samantha Cohen would be leaving after Meghan’s baby is born next spring following 17 years of royal service.
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Another of Meghan’s assistants also resigned six months after the wedding, tabloids reported.
To her supporters, the duchess is suffering blowback for her modernising ways. “It is interesting how Meghan... has become such a lightning rod for so many controversies, from the royal family’s — shall we say — race issues to the media’s obsession with pitting women against one another, with claims that she and Kate... are at one another’s throats,” wrote The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman.