‘Tell the truth!’: Meghan Markle’s new Palace swipe
During one of the biggest weeks of the royal year, the Duchess of Sussex appeared on a new podcast and proved she’s not done with royal revelations.
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Let’s have us a list of royal bad habits then. Prince Philip couldn’t pass up a spot of racially-tinged foot-in-mouth-itis. The late Queen had an untold pile of $900 scarves. Both King Charles and Prince William are known to not be averse to some yelling.
This week came a reminder of Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex’s own unfortunate compulsion: Taking what look like swipes at her in-laws or, as we call them, the British royal family, five years after packing in Palace life.
Still.
The Duchess, you see, is in the midst of a PR rebooting which has seen her recently spend hours in front of other hosts’ podcast mics and her heaving personal photos and videos of Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and their kids onto Instagram by the dozen, not least that burned-onto-the-back-of-our-retinas twerking clip.
This week Meghan turned up on a new podcast from Skims co-founding partner Emma Grede, who asked her what she would do if she “could rewrite your public narrative”.
The Duchess replied: “I would ask people to tell the truth”.
“My dear friend Serena [Williams], she told me years ago: ‘A lie can’t live forever,’ and she later added, ‘Eight years is a long time, but not forever’.”
Eight years ago you say? Why, that just happens to take us back to peak-ripped jeans, cool-royal-girlfriend-2017 Meghan, when she was dating Harry and getting to know her in-laws and being introduced to royal life. Whatever might she mean?
During the conversation with Grede, Meghan also referenced a time “when I didn’t feel as though I had as much of an opportunity to speak” and when she “wasn’t as empowered with my voice”. On returning to Instagram this year she said, “It was a great way to get my voice back.”
To be fair, it was all indirect and she was answering a question, but here we are in 2025 and the Duchess is still busting out lines eerily reminiscent of her 2021 Oprah interview when she compared herself to the Little Mermaid who “falls in love with the prince and because of that, she has to lose her voice” but then “gets her voice back.”
Still, the “tell the truth” line deftly managed to make headlines and cause a few waves right during what is arguably the biggest, showiest, week in the royal year. In quick succession we have had Trooping the Colour, the King’s official birthday celebration, Garter Day in Windsor, the most exclusive gathering on Earth that requires a velvet cap, and the start of Royal Ascot, a five-day festival of horseflesh, hattery and Queen Camilla getting her bets on in between belts of champers.
Not exactly great timing for the King that during what is usually a nice stretch of cheery publicity for Crown Inc his daughter-in-law is out there reminding the world of how deuced unpleasant she found her Palace stint.
The end result is this week we have been presented with two competing images of royal life:
Meghan’s repeated claims over the years about the claustrophobia, rigidity and trauma of royalty and the sun-dappled, cheek-kissing, bust-out-the-pearls big family scene playing out at Trooping, Garter Day and Ascot.
The weather might have been playing ball for the royal family through all this – less so the Sussexes.
Meghan’s comments come after months that have seen Montecito and London milestone moments colliding. Two things have been playing out in parallel. This year there has seen her boldly go where no duchess has gone before, trying to break into the closed shop flower sprinkle market and to fashion herself into the millennial Martha.
Meanwhile, Charles too has been stepping things up, including his overseas schedule and doing his bit to maintain the special relationship between Downing Street and that reality star left in charge of the nuclear codes in Washington.
These two agendas have been bumping up against one another.
The Duchess’ new podcast series Confessions of a Female Founder launched on April 8, right during Charles and Camilla’s Italian State visit and a day before their 20th wedding anniversary.
Meghan appeared on friend Jamie Kern Lima’s podcast on April 28, her first solo guest appearance on another person’s show, the day before William and Kate took themselves off to Scotland for their first multi-day official trip since her cancer diagnosis last year. (It was also their 14th wedding anniversary.)
Harry has been getting in on the act.
On May 2nd Buckingham Palace officially confirmed that the King and Queen were off to Canada for a major tour – the same day that Harry gave a “scorched earth” interview to the BBC after losing the final round of a years-long court fight over the removal of his taxpayer funded security in 2020. The Palace, by all accounts, was thoroughly unimpressed.
A senior courtier, according to the Telegraph, called Harry “deluded” for thinking a TV interview might help relations with the royal family. An insider told the paper, “Harry has simply lost touch with reality.”
What does a King have to do to get a nice clear run of good publicity and no one deciding to sit in front of a blinking red light to unpack their emotional baggage?
And you have to wonder, what are the chances that Harry and Meghan are anywhere near done? Speaking to Kern Lima, she left the door open to doing a tell-all of her own say,
“people are often curious if I’m going to write a memoir, but I’ve got a lot more life to live before I’m there.”
So, not a no.
And Harry, during his BBC sit-down, “I’ve discovered that some people do want history to repeat itself, which is pretty dark” seeming to reference his mother Diana, Princess of Wales.
Asked who this was, he replied: “I’m not going to share that at this point.”
It was impossible to miss those last three words – “at this point”. It would seem we are still a long way off the Sussexes being done talking.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
Originally published as ‘Tell the truth!’: Meghan Markle’s new Palace swipe
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