Months after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's 2018 royal wedding, a story came out amid rumors that Meghan Markle and sister-in-law Kate Middleton didn't exactly see eye to eye.
As the story circulated, it was believed that Meghan lashed out at Kate in some manner over an issue regarding bridesmaid dresses for the wedding, which Princess Charlotte was a part of. Kate was allegedly seen crying that day after the confrontation. No one ever commented on the incident, which allowed the story to continue on with legs of its own.
Fast-forward to 2021 and Meghan's sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, and we learned that the incident was the exact opposite of what we all thought it was. More importantly, Meghan noted that she held no bad feelings toward her sister-in-law and explained why people shouldn't look at them as being opposites.
Meghan Markle cleared the air about a lot of things during her incredibly candid interview with Oprah Winfrey. One of them was a widely circulated story about how Meghan had been cruel to Kate Middleton in the weeks leading up to Harry and Meghan's May 2018 royal wedding. The sisters-in-law-to-be reportedly fought over the matter of Princess Charlotte's bridesmaid dress for the wedding.
According to reports from The Telegraph in November 2018, when the story came out, Meghan and Kate butted heads in a manner that left Kate in tears.
Royal reporters doubled down on the claims. "It's true to say that someone did see Catherine upset after a bridesmaid-dress fitting," journalist Eve Pollard said in the TLC documentary Kate v. Meghan: Princesses at War?
"Kate had just given birth to Prince Louis, so maybe she was a little bit emotional," added broadcast journalist Carole Malone. "But whatever the thing was, the future queen of England was in tears over what Meghan had said to her."
That story was part of a larger narrative that Meghan wasn't fitting into the royal family. She was accused to being too demanding of staffers, not adhering to the rules, and often being lost as to what was happening. Meghan addressed those accusations in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired March 7.
"The reverse happened," Meghan shared.
"And I don't say that to be disparaging to anyone, because it was a really hard week of the wedding. And she was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologized. And she brought me flowers and a note, apologizing. And she did what I would do if I knew that I hurt someone, right, to just take accountability for it."
When pressed for more details, Meghan laid out the situation. "A few days before the wedding, she was upset about something pertaining to … yes, the flower girl dresses. And it made me cry," Meghan explained.
"And it really hurt my feelings, and I thought in the context of everything else that was going on in those days leading to the wedding, it didn't make sense to not be just doing whatever everyone else is doing, which was trying to be supportive knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot."
So while everyone involved knew the truth of the matter, no one from the royal family refuted these claims or made moves to subdue the story. Meghan hadn't shared her side until this interview because she didn't want to seem unkind or unaccepting of the apology.
"I would have never wanted that to come out about her ever, even though it had happened," Meghan explained. "I protected that from ever being out in the world."
Oprah continued to try to ask Meghan for more specifics, but she kept from getting too far into the one example of many in which the press treated her unfairly.
"I don't think it's fair to her to get into the details of that, because she apologized. And I've forgiven her," Meghan noted.
"What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn't do, but that happened to me. And the people who were part of our wedding going to our comms team and saying, 'I know this didn't happen.'"
Meghan also noted that she was resentful of the way the media pitted her and Kate against each other. She insisted that Kate is great but is also limited by the confines of the institution.
"I think it's really important for people to understand the truth. But also I think a lot of it that was fed into by the media — and, look, I would hope that she would have wanted that corrected, and maybe in the same way that the palace wouldn't let anybody else negate it, they wouldn't let her, because she's a good person," she shared.
"I think so much of what I have seen play out is this idea of polarity, where if you love me, you don't have to hate her. If you love her, you don't need to hate me."
Meghan mentioned Kate at another point in the interview, in clips released by Oprah during an appearance on CBS This Morning. Oprah explained that while the interview was edited down to roughly an hour and a half, it was closer to three hours long.
In the clip, Oprah and Meghan are discussing the toxic treatment of the royal family by British tabloids. Meghan explained that the idea everyone had been through it was only comforting for a while, but she couldn't ignore that the nature of the coverage and insults were different.
"This was different," Meghan said of her press coverage as opposed to that of other members of the family.
"Different because of the race?" Oprah asked.
"And because of social media," Meghan added.
"It was like the Wild, Wild West. It spread like wildfire," she noted.
"Plus, my being American — it translated in a different way across the pond. So you had a noise level that was very different. But if they can't see that it's different …"
Oprah then asked if Meghan felt bullied on an international level.
"Look, I think the volume of what was coming in and the interest was greater because of social media, because of the fact that I was not just British," Meghan explained, "and that, unfortunately, if members of his family say, 'Well, this is what has happened to all of us.' If they can compare the experience of what I went through with similar of what has been shared with us …"
She then used an example of how Kate was treated when she awaited William's proposal after years of dating.
"Kate was called 'Waity Katie,' waiting to marry William. While I imagine that was really hard — and I do, I can't picture what that felt like — this is not the same," she continued.
"And if a member of his family will comfortably say, 'We've all had to deal with some things that are rude,' rude and racist are not the same. And equally, you've also had a press team that goes on the record to defend you, especially when they know something's not true. And that didn't happen for us."
