Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby spoke with royal biographer Andrew Morton on ITV’s This Morning earlier today ahead of his new book about Meghan.
Talking live from his Californian home, Andrew revealed details of the book, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess and admitted he’s never met her.
“I’ve not met her. I’ve met her family and friends and those people that have worked with her, people that went to school with her, where she was homecoming queen, and an awful lot of people around her see her as a local girl made good.”
“So much has happened [since his last book on her in 2018] – two babies, the wedding, a funeral, and a new life and a new world so most paperbacks have got very little to say, this has got an extra 30,000 words to say an awful lot.”
When asked if her friends – or Meghan herself – has given him permission to write this, Andrew replied,
“This is an independent project looking at her life, her life with Prince Harry, her life inside the royal family and trying to take it step by step when they left, why they left and to try and understand her as a human being. I was a fan of hers when she was in Suits, way before Harry, and I always thought she’d make a great comedy actress – I never thought she’d end up as a member of the royal family!”
“I’ve been speaking to people who knew Meghan before she joined the royal family and have watched her to see how she’s made progress… her former teachers and school friends and so on.”
On the gold bracelet that Meghan gave to all the people that had helped her during the wedding, Andrew said,
“One of whom was Kate, so that was kind of a peace offering. I think both women are mature and sensible enough to realise that to have duelling Duchesses headlines was of no benefit to either of them and were both professional and kissed and made up.”
On Harry, he said,
“It seems to me that he did feel that ‘the men in grey’ as what they were dubbed, were quite hostile and he took umbrage for example when the hairdresser arrived from New York for a fitting for the tiara and the tiara wasn’t available and he threw a bit of a fit… and it was Meghan who got it in the neck as the ‘Duchess difficult’.
“When you look down through the years, the Royal Duchess is the one that takes the flack. Fergie got the flack early on in her marriage, Diana was called a fiend and a monster after she’d been in the family for about eighteen months or so… it is the case that the woman gets the blame.”
On whether Meghan was aware of what the Royal family was about before marrying Harry, Andrew said:
“She didn’t read the tabloids, she didn’t watch TMZ, she learnt what she learnt from Harry. Harry was quite jaded with the Royal family, even before this. She’s had a very rambunctious education into the Royal world. She’s had members of the household give her advice and she’s a quick study, but it takes many years for someone to accommodate themselves into the Royal family.”
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV and ITV Hub
