Duchess Meghan had an unrealistic expectation of how Kate could help her

Publish date: 2024-06-08

British Royals are seen at the Wimbledon Championships Day 12

We’re more than a week past the publication of Finding Freedom. I think most of the royal stans or Sussex stans have already finished reading it or finished listening to the audiobook. Most of the royal commentators have finished it as well, which makes everything kind of awkward because the book really wasn’t this massively bridge-burning tell-all that they promised it would be, and that they feared it would be. Sure, FF spilled some interesting tea, but as I keep saying… what’s also interesting is the tea which went unspilt. The Duchess of Cambridge barely appears in the book, and when she does appear, she’s cold, rigid and distant. It’s clear that Meghan never even got a handle on who Kate really IS. We also learned that Kate never reached out to Meghan at all or helped her in any way, but the big show was always between William and Harry.

Anyway, I was going somewhere with the royal commentator thing – I think that the royal commentators are still trying to find some way to make the narrative about Kate and Meghan, even though the book makes it 100% clear that the conflict was between the brothers. Let’s see how Emily Andrews and Katie Nicholl spin it:

Meghan Markle had an “unrealistic expectation” of her relationship with sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge, a royal editor has claimed. While many royal watchers assumed Meghan and Kate would become close friends, especially when they lived just a few doors apart at Kensington Palace, it ended up being quite the opposite. A new book about the couple, Finding Freedom, claims that the two women didn’t have a fallout as such but admits there was tension and “awkward moments” between them.

But Emily Andrews, the Mail’s royal editor, claims that Meghan expected too much from her very busy sister-in-law. Speaking on Channel 5 documentary Meghan & Harry: The New Revelations, she explains: “I think it seems that Meghan had a very unrealistic expectation of her relationship with Kate. If you look at it from the Cambridges’ point of view, they don’t know this woman at all. From their point of view they absolutely did welcome her into the family. William and Kate invited Meghan and Harry to Apartment 1A. Kate met Meghan pretty early on in the relationship. I think from William and Kate’s point they did try and help as much as possible, but they were at a very different stage of life.”

And she’s not the only royal expert to have these thoughts, with Vanity Fair’s Katie Nicholl adding: “While there might have been an expectation from Meghan that Kate was going to sit down and show her the ropes, perhaps that was an unrealistic expectation. The Duchess of Cambridge is a busy woman, but Meghan clearly took that personally.”

Finding Freedom makes multiple claims about Kate and Meghan’s friendship, including saying that the Duchess of Sussex “didn’t lose sleep” over their difficult relationship.

[From The Daily Mirror]

This is a pretty forced narrative, and it goes alongside the other forced narrative I’ve seen in the past week, which is that “Meghan and Harry were too naive for the Firm.” As if Harry and Meghan, two 30-somethings with a lot of life experience, were just babes in the wood and they just kept fumbling so badly out of ignorance. The narrative about poor Meghan wanting and needing help from Top CEO Kate is just as stupid, although it “fits” with the Naive H&M thing. As for the idea that Kate was suddenly just too busy to be nice or helpful to Meghan… lol. Kate was literally too lazy to be nice. That’s what it amounts to.

Do you want my opinion, in general, on the dynamic between Meg and Kate? I think Meghan probably would have loved it if Kate did seek to mentor or befriend her, especially in the first year of dating/engagement. But I think Meghan is nobody’s fool and she realized VERY quickly that Kate saw her as competition and a rival to be vanquished. And so Meghan just shrugged and went on about her business.

The Wimbledon Championships 2019

Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and Pippa Middleton in the stands at the Wimbledon Women's Final to support Serena Williams!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, WENN, Avalon Red.

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