Meghan Markle is opening up about some of her biggest issues with how the Royal Family controlled her public image in a new interview with The Cut.
Speaking with the publication, the Duchess of Sussex teased a return to Instagram after shutting down her personal account ahead of her marriage to Prince Harry. While the pair joined Will and Kate on the Kensington Royal account at one point, she said she had no control over the page.
“It was a big adjustment — a huge adjustment to go from that kind of autonomy to a different life,” she explained. “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 continued, referring to the press pool in the UK, who would oftentimes get the pictures before Meghan could post them on her own.
“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 added. “You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.”
Had they stayed in the UK, Markle believes she never would have been able to pick up her children from school like she can in the U.S., telling The Cut the trips would turn into a very public royal photo-op for the paparazzi. “Sorry, I have a problem with that,” she said, “that doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child.”
Meghan and Prince Harry left the UK, stepped down as senior members of the royal family and moved to Montecito, California in 2020, before both of them detailed how Markle’s mental health suffered behind closed doors in a tell-all with Oprah Winfrey in 2021. In the process, she’s had public feuds with her family members — namely her father — while Harry had a falling out of sorts with his own, though they did attend the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in London back in June.
When asked about her father leaking a letter she sent begging him to stop speaking with reporters to the press — and winning a subsequent lawsuit against the outlet which posted it — she spoke more generally about family fallout.
“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.
While Meghan, Harry and their two children — Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 1 — have done a pretty good job keeping their private lives private in Montecito, there has been some speculation that the family will soon participate in some kind of reality TV/docuseries venture as part of their partnership with Netflix. It’s something Meghan was asked about during the interview, though she was hesitant to say either way.
“What’s so funny is I’m not trying to be cagey,” she said. “I don’t read any press. So I don’t know what’s confirmed. I will tell you [documentary film director] Liz Garbus is incredible.”
“When the media has shaped the story around you, it’s really nice to be able to tell your own story,” she added, with publicists for Meghan and Netflix refusing to comment further.
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