After Meghan Markle and Prince Harry insisted that she was the sister-in-law who was left in tears after a clash with Kate Middleton over the fit of Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress before Meghan’s 2018 wedding, a new book reports that both women cried “their eyes out” over the dispute.
The question of who made who cry in the days before Harry and Meghan’s Windsor Castle wedding has intrigued royal watchers for years, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been eager to claim that the former American actress was the injured party in yet another instance of her being mistreated by the royal establishment.
But a new royal book, “Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants,” is trying to offer a more balanced view of the skirmish, by featuring a royal staffer’s account of what happened between the two women.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Princess Charlotte leave St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle after the wedding of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, on May 19, 2018 in Windsor, England. (Andrew Matthews/Getty Images archives)
“I can tell you that all the papers and commentators got this wrong, the truth is that as with many of these spats between sisters, brothers or even sisters-in-law, both sides were really upset,” the staffer told author Tom Quinn, according to Newsweek.
“The truth is that during the discussions about the bridesmaid’s dress, Meghan said a few things she regretted and Kate said a few things she later regretted, but it was all in the heat of the moment,” the staff member continued. “Both women were crying their eyes out!”
Of course, it’s become well known that Kate and Meghan never saw eye-to-eye, not from their first meeting, when the more outspoken, touchy-feely Californian was surprised by the formality of Prince William’s wife, the future queen. When it comes to the dress dispute, the different parties seem to agree that it centers on the fit for Princess Charlotte’s white dress for the wedding, where she was to serve as a bridesmaid.
The first version of the clash emerged six months after Harry and Meghan’s wedding, when an insider told The Telegraph that Kate, who had just given birth to Prince Louis, was “left in tears” after the fitting for Charlotte’s dress, though the insider didn’t specify what exactly triggered her distress.
A picture released by Kensington Palace on behalf of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on May 21, 2018 shows Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, (CL) and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, (CR) posing for an official wedding photograph with (L-R back row) Britain’s Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Britain’s Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Doria Ragland, the Duchess of Sussex’s mother, Britain’s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, (middle row L-R): Master Jasper Dyer, Britain’s Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge, Miss Rylan Litt, Master John Mulroney and (front row) Miss Ivy Mulroney, Master Brian Mulroney, Miss Florence van Cutsem, Miss Zalie Warren and Miss Remi Litt in the Green Drawing Room, Windsor Castle, in Windsor on May 19, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / KENSINGTON PALACE / Alexi Lubomirski)
Multiple insiders told People magazine that there was significant “stress” leading up to the big day, while The Telegraph reported that Charlotte’s dress fitting happened around the time of “tiara-gate.” This is when, according to one report, Meghan “upset” the late Queen Elizabeth II by asking to wear an emerald tiara instead of the one offered by the monarch. Veteran royal journalist Robert Jobson also reported that Harry was “petulant and short-tempered” as the wedding day approached.
But in her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan insisted that “the reverse happened,” implying that she was the one left in tears over the incident. Meghan acknowledged that the week of the wedding “was really hard.” She also said that Kate was “upset about something,” but later “owned it.”
Kate “apologized, and she brought me flowers and a note apologizing,” Meghan told Winfrey. “I actually think it’s — 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 also told Winfrey she found it “shocking” that the incident eventually made it into the U.K. newspapers. “I would have never wanted that to come out about her ever, even though it happened,” she said.
Harry actually went into more detail about the dress dispute in his memoir “Spare,” again portraying Meghan as the wronged party. He wrote that Kate texted Meghan four days before the wedding, saying, “Charlotte’s dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on at home.”
According to Harry, Meghan directed Kate to see the tailor “standing by” at Kensington Palace that morning, but Kate insisted “all the dresses need to be remade.”
There was a “back and forth” between the sisters-in-law over text, including over Kate’s apparent concern over how Meghan was planning her wedding, as well as the crisis involving Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, who had been caught working with a paparazzo in Mexico to sell photos of himself to the tabloids.
“A short time later, I arrived home and found Meg on the floor. Sobbing,” Harry wrote.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (second left) and Jessica Mulroney (left) hold bridesmaids hands as they arrive for the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and US actress Meghan Markle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Ben Stansall – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
“I was horrified to see her so upset but didn’t think it was a catastrophe,” Harry continued. “Emotions were running high, of course, after the stress of the last week, the last month, the last day. It was intolerable — but temporary.”
Harry told Meghan that his brother’s wife had not meant any harm. He also wrote that “Kate came by the next day with flowers and a card to apologize.”
Later in the book, Harry described him and Meghan meeting William and Kate to discuss the reports that alleged that Meghan made Kate cry. He said, “Kate got things rolling straightaway by acknowledging that these stories in the papers about Meg making her cry were totally false.” He said Kate said, “I know, Meghan, that I was the one who made you cry.”
Harry said that Meghan appreciated Kate’s apology but he became angry when his brother and sister-in-law showed no interest in trying to correct the reports because it would invite the correspondents to ask, “What’s the real story?”
“And that door must never be opened, because it would embarrass (Kate) the future queen,” Harry wrote. “The monarchy, always, at all costs, had to be protected.”
The staff member quoted in Quinn’s book agreed that the whole saga had been blown out of proportion in the media, according to Newsweek. But the staffer surmised that it became “a big issue” because it pointed to more serious, emerging conflicts between the two brothers and their wives.
“Whenever this sort of thing happens in the royal family, traditionally no one says anything publicly about it so it rarely reaches the media, but on this occasion all sorts of other grievances meant that what was really nothing but a storm in a teacup reached the media and became a big issue,” the staffer said.
“But even the royals tend to believe what they read in the newspapers if it suits them, so the incident with the bridesmaid’s dress became a kind of marker for all the other problems that Meghan had with Kate and with William and other members of the family,” the staffer said.