Meghan Markle on Not Playing the ‘Game’ of Royal Life in New Interview and More Revelations: ‘It Didn’t Have to Be This Way’

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Meghan Markle on Not Playing the 'Game' of Royal Life in New Interview and More Revelations: 'It Didn't Have to Be This Way'

Speaking up. Meghan Markle further detailed the reasons she and Prince Harry left the royal family in a new interview about the couple's life in California. The Duchess of Sussex, 41, pointed to the strict rules about releasing family photos as one example of what made life in "The Firm" so challenging. “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 told New York magazine's The Cut in an interview published on Monday, August 29. The Royal Rota is the press pool in the United Kingdom that covers the royal family, but the Suits alum has been open about the adversarial relationship she and the Duke of Sussex, 37, had with British tabloids. “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?" the Bench author asked. “You tell me how that makes sense and then I’ll play that game.” Before meeting her future husband in 2016, Meghan ran a successful blog called The Tig, which she shut down after their romance got serious. She'd been used to sharing details about her life whenever she wanted, but once Harry entered the picture, she could no longer do that. "It was a big adjustment — a huge adjustment to go from that kind of autonomy to a different life,” she explained. [jwplayer YniJSBFA-zhNYySv2] The California native has been speaking out about the royal family more often in recent days because of the launch of her "Archetypes" podcast on Spotify. In the show's inaugural episode on Tuesday, August 23, Meghan claimed that she had to continue a royal engagement after a fire broke out in son Archie's nursery during her and Harry's 2019 Africa tour. “As a mother, you go, ‘Oh, my God, what?’ Everyone’s in tears, everyone’s shaken,” the former blogger recalled. “And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement? I said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense.'” Archie, now 3, wasn't in the room during the fire because his nanny happened to have taken him with her to a different part of the residence, but the incident left Meghan upset. “I was like, ‘Can you just tell people what happened?'” the Northwestern University alum said. “The focus ends up being on how it looks instead of how it feels. … And even though we were being moved into another place afterwards, we still had to leave him and go do another official engagement.” Meghan and Harry — who also share daughter Lili, 14 months — first announced their plans to step down as senior working royals in January 2020. They made their final official appearance in March 2020, and one year later, the duo sat down for their bombshell interview with CBS. During the TV special, Meghan accused the royals of racism, claiming that an unnamed family member asked questions about Archie's skin tone before he was born in May 2019. Asked to confirm his wife's account, Harry said: "That conversation I'm never going to share. It was awkward. I was a bit shocked." After the interview aired, Prince William denied his brother's accusations of racism. "We’re very much not a racist family," the Duke of Cambridge, 40, said in March 2021. Keep scrolling for more revelations from Meghan's interview with The Cut. [podcast_block]

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Her Social Media Return

The Archewell cofounder revealed that she's planning to return to Instagram sometime soon. She and Harry shut down their @sussexroyal handle in March 2020, as they were no longer allowed to use the word "royal" in any of their personal branding.

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The Lack of Preparation

Meghan reiterated that she knew very little about royal life when she entered into a relationship with Harry — and hadn't even seen the Julia Stiles movie The Prince & Me, which documented a similar situation. "That would’ve been really helpful. That would’ve been a very key tutorial to have had in advance of all this,” she said, noting that she's good at taking direction. “I​​ was an actress. 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.’ And I’ll show up early, and I’ll probably bake something for the crew.”

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They Wanted to Avoid 'Megxit'

The "Archetypes" host claimed that she and Harry didn't initially want to leave the royal family, but instead wanted to continue their work as royals without using taxpayer funding. They also asked to leave the U.K. and relocate to another Commonwealth country like Canada or South Africa. "Anything to just … because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, ‘OK, fine, let’s get out of here. Happy to,’” Meghan explained. “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.”

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The Return to Frogmore Cottage

Meghan and Harry visited their former home Frogmore Cottage, which is technically still theirs, when they returned to the U.K. in July for Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. “It was bittersweet, you know?" she said of the visit. "Knowing none of it had to be this way."

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How Harry's Doing Now

In a discussion about where she stands with her own father, Thomas Markle, Meghan implied that Harry still hasn't repaired his relationship with Prince Charles. "Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process,'" the former actress said. "It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision.”

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Protecting Archie

Meghan slammed the structure of royal life when discussing how she's now able to pick up Archie from school without interference — or a photo call. “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."

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Ready to Forgive

“I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive,” Meghan explained. “But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything. I have a lot to say until I don’t. Do you like that? Sometimes, as they say, the silent part is still part of the song.”