Meghan Markle faces backlash for hyped interview

Royal insiders have labelled Meghan Markle as insincere in connection with a notable 2017 TV interview, where the then-future Duchess of Sussex joined Mishal Husain and Prince Harry for a televised discussion marking her engagement.

In the Sussexes’ Netflix series, she criticized the interview as resembling an “orchestrated reality show.”

Meghan had said: “It was, you know, rehearsed… So we did the thing out with the press and then we went right inside, took the coat off, sat down and did the interview. So it was all in that same moment.”

According to one royal source, she felt Husain “wasn’t empathetic enough [and] wasn’t warm enough to conduct the interview”.

Her comments prompted Husain, usually regarded as a calm personality in the industry, to express her astonishment in a column in Saga magazine – a “notable intervention”, as one source put it.

The presenter wrote: “‘When the Duchess of Sussex said that my engagement interview with her and Harry was an ‘orchestrated reality show’ I didn’t know what to make of it.

“They seemed to have thought through what their new lives would be like and what marriage would mean for her life in particular.

“There was nothing that pointed to what would happen… It was two people who were full of joy in each other and life.”

A BBC insider said they were surprised by the column, telling the Mail: “Mishal is not easily riled, to put it mildly, so this is a notable intervention… She clearly felt strongly about it.”

And sources who worked in the Royal Household at the time of the interview have now said that Meghan’s TV “performance” should have raised more concerns than it did at the time.

One told the Mail: “At the time, there was so much excitement about the engagement that no one really questioned some of Meghan’s comments.

“But, if you watch it again now, some of her responses seem insincere and her body language is telling.”

The claims about Meghan’s apparent insincerity square with recent polling by YouGov which places the Duchess of Sussex at a meagre 31 per cent approval rating among the British public – higher only than Prince Harry and Prince Andrew, at 23 and 12 per cent respectively.

And enmity about the Sussexes looks to run deep; one source revealed to the Daily Beast last month that Prince William has instigated an “absolute ban on Harry returning in any way, shape or form to the family fold”.

Apparently, the Prince of Wales refuses to speak to his brother, with the source claiming his ban – against the wishes of King Charles – “tells you everything you need to know about who is really in charge”.

Meanwhile, GB News’ Royal Correspondent Cameron Walker, speaking on The Royal Record, said just weeks ago: “I don’t think Meghan wants to be a working member of the Royal Family again, because clearly she disliked it so much last time… I don’t see that happening.”