Long before Meghan Markle became a Duchess, she was an actress and a businesswoman. While probably most known for her role in Suits (Prince Harry even came to the set once), she also ran a popular blog called The Tig. The Tig shut down when she took on Royal Duties, but a resurfaced blog post has seemingly caught Ms. Markle out in a bit of a fib.
Megan Markle Said In The Past She 'Didn't Know Much' About The Royal Family Before Meeting Prince Harry
When Meghan Markle first married Prince Harry, the two acted as Senior Royals in the family, even taking a few notable trips on royal duties in countries like Botswana and Fiji. They’ve seen stepped down from those roles and moved to America, where Prince Harry took back his narrative and wrote Spare and he and his wife have pursued other projects, like a controversial Netflix docuseries and podcast.
They’ve spoken in the past about leaving their roles following incessant and negative media coverage and issues such as The Firm leaking stories, not to mention tension within the family itself. Markle has repeatedly said she did not know what she was getting into when she married Prince Harry, citing the fact she is an American as a reason she didn't really "know much” about the royal family. in 2017, she told the BBC:
Because I'm from the States, you don't grow up with the same understanding of the royal family. I didn't know much about him, so the only thing that I had asked [our friend] when she said that she wanted to set us up, was, 'Well, is he nice?' Cause if he wasn't kind, it just didn't seem like it would make sense.
Separately, in Spare Prince Harry wrote about how refreshing Meghan Markle’s lack of knowledge about the royal family was. In fact, he noted he was pretty sure his soon-to-be bride hadn’t even “Googled” him before they began dating. He wrote that meant “her head wasn’t filled with disinformation” which helped their relationship to move forward.
I felt pretty sure she hadn’t googled me, because she was always asking questions. She seemed to know almost nothing—so refreshing. It showed that she wasn’t impressed by royalty, which I thought the first step to surviving it.
So this is a narrative the couple has promoted for a while -- but is it accurate?
Meghan Markle Actually Wrote About Kate Middleton’s Wedding Before She Met Harry
In a now-deleted blog post from The Tig obtained by The Daily Mail, Meghan Markle actually shared her feelings about princesses in general and how she thought about them from a young age. In a blog post from 2014, she wrote:
Little girls dream of being princesses, 'I, for one, was all about She-Ra, Princess of Power… We're definitely not talking about Cinderella here.
She went on in the post to name drop Princess Kate and the “endless conversation” surrounding Kate’s wedding to Prince William, which had occurred at Westminster Abbey several years earlier, in 2011.
Grown women seem to retain this childhood fantasy. Just look at the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal wedding and endless conversation about Princess Kate.
Ultimately, Meghan is writing in general terms about the wedding between Prince William and Kate and she may not have necessarily been familiar with the intricacies of royal life. So when she’s said in the past she didn’t have the “same understanding” of the family she has now, that’s perhaps meant her knowledge grew in leaps and bounds after she married Harry. (We do know, for example, that Markle reportedly underwent self-defense training and made other adjustments to her personal life after marrying.)
Regardless, her blog quotes remain interesting, as they do at the very least show that she had some awareness of the royal family across the pond a couple of years before she and Prince Harry quietly started dating in 2016. Whether or not she did some Googling on her own is still a question.
