Meghan Markle has launched her latest attack on the royal family, saying she was “happy” to leave in part because she lost control of her beloved social media accounts — claiming her images were instead given to people who were “calling my children the N-word.”
The 41-year-old rookie podcaster insisted in a scathing interview with New York Magazine’s The Cut that she and husband Prince Harry never stood a chance in the UK because “just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy.”
She also admitted that their decision to flee royal life — as well as launch legal action against her own estranged father — has torn apart both their families.
“Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process.’ It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision,” she said in the profile published Monday.
Despite this cost, Markle told interviewer Allison Davis ahead of her latest royal-bashing, “I’m, like, so excited to talk.”
During the sitdown at her $14.65 million mansion in California’s celeb-packed Montecito, Markle’s eyes became “alight and devilish” when she asked, “Do you want to know a secret?”
“I’m getting back … on Instagram,” she said, launching into her biggest gripe about her short-lived time as a senior royal — how she had to sacrifice her online life.
Her only Instagram account for a time became @KensingtonRoyal, one shared with Harry’s brother, Prince William, and William’s wife, Kate Middleton — and one Markle had no control over.
“It was a big adjustment — a huge adjustment to go from that kind of autonomy to a different life,” she complained of losing the 3 million followers she had spent years growing.
Now, instead of posting her own snaps, the historic images were shared with royal watchers around the world via the press.
“There’s literally a structure by which if you want to release photos of your child, as a member of the family, you first have to give them to the Royal Rota,” she griped of the UK media royal pool, sharing the historic images with royal watchers worldwide.
“Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?” she asked.
Her comments did not specify whether she was accusing the press, the public or her new royal handlers of making such racist slurs. However, The Cut stressed that she was notably “still ruffled” over it.
“You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game,” she said.
She also blamed the intense scrutiny for the seeds of Megxit, saying it stemmed from a plan to remove the press pack’s “guise of public interest” in reporting on them because their lives were taxpayer funded.
If they left the country and made their own money, “then maybe all the noise would stop,” Meghan said, saying they hoped at first to serve in other parts of the British Commonwealth, such as Canada.
“Anything to just … because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, ‘Okay, fine, let’s get out of here. Happy to,’” she said.
“That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing,” she complained, without citing specific examples.
Finally going back to the UK this summer to help celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee was “surreal” and “bittersweet,” she said, “knowing none of it had to be this way.”
The former “Suits” star admitted that she had initially assumed her TV career would help make royal life a breeze.
“I was an actress,” she said. “My entire job was, ‘Tell me where to stand. Tell me what to say. Tell me how to say it. Tell me what to wear, and I’ll do it.’”
Now, she wishes she had seen movies that forewarned of the likely pressures, such as 2004’s “The Prince & Me,” in which Julia Stiles plays a student who falls for a Danish prince, just to clash with his family.
“Yeah. That would’ve been really helpful. That would’ve been a very key tutorial to have had in advance of all this,” she told the interviewer, who noted she said it “not quite sarcastically” but “with a steel rod in it.”
Despite her “N-word” claim, Markle believes her clash came not from racism but just from her being American.
However, she insisted that being half black had made her brief time in the royal family all the more pivotal, recalling the high praise of a South African cast member of the live-action version of “The Lion King” at the London premiere in 2019, before she fled.
“He looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison,’” she claimed.
Markle — who has taken digs at the royal family on her new Spotify podcast — hinted that there is likely far more to come.
“It’s interesting, I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking,” she said.
“I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to,” she said, saying she has only held back because she is “still healing.”
“I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive … But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything,” she said.
However, she would not reveal just how intimate that will get with their upcoming docu-series for Netflix.
While Markle again insisted it is not a reality TV show, she would not elaborate on just how far it will differ from one.
“The piece of my life I haven’t been able to share, that people haven’t been able to see, is our love story,” she said of Harry, with whom she is “like salt and pepper” because “we always move together.”
“I hope that is the sentiment that people feel when they see any of the content or the projects that we are working on,” she said, vaguely.
“What’s so funny is I’m not trying to be cagey,” she said.
“When the media has shaped the story around you, it’s really nice to be able to tell your own story.”