Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors, a “bombshell biography” of Meghan by Tom Bower, explores the relationship between the former Meghan Markle and Prince Harry as far back as 2016 when they first began dating. The claims that Bower makes could cause new shockwaves rippling through the royal and Sussex families just over two years since Sussexit, when Meghan and Harry made the decision to step away from their roles as full-time royals and begin a new life in Montecito, California. (Bear in mind that the verified status of these stories relayed in Bower’s book is as yet unclear.)
Here are the top five most explosive claims published in Revenge
Meghan challenged Harry’s friends on their sexist, racist and transphobic jokes
Bower writes that Harry was eager to introduce Meghan to his social circle and to that end hosted a weekend shoot at Sandringham so that she could get to know his old school friends from Eton and their partners. However, there was an immediate clash between his girlfriend and his guests. According to Bower, Meghan wouldn’t stand for their sexist, racist and transphobic jokes and challenged every one of Harry’s friends “whose conversation contravened her values.” “Nobody was exempt,” he writes, and relates how in Harry’s friends’ opinions Meghan had no sense of humor, with one guest writing in a text that Harry “must be f***ing nuts.”
Duchess Kate was the one who cried at the bridesmaids’ dress fitting for Meghan’s wedding
Somehow we’re back to this story, which Meghan corrected in her interview with Oprah Winfrey two years after the rumor that she made Duchess Kate cry days before her wedding to Harry. In fact, it was Kate who made Meghan cry, the Duchess of Sussex said, declining to go into the reasons why but relating how Kate later gave her flowers and wrote a note of apology. But now Bower claims it was Meghan who made the Duchess of Cambridge cry during a disagreement over the dress hemline of Princess Charlotte, who was a bridesmaid in Meghan and Harry’s wedding, and whether or not the bridesmaids should wear tights. He says that Meghan “compared Princess Charlotte unfavourably to her best friend Jessica Mulroney’s daughter” (Ivy was also a bridesmaid) causing Kate to “burst into tears.” As for the tights issue, apparently Duchess Kate—having given birth to Prince Louis a short time before—was “too fatigued to cope” with Meghan’s unwillingness to compromise.
The Queen and Prince Charles were “exasperated” by Meghan’s refusal to reconcile with her father after the wedding
Our hearts were broken for Meghan Markle in the days before her wedding to Harry—first of all it was revealed that her father Thomas Markle had staged paparazzi shots in the run-up to the nuptials, and then he revealed to TMZ that he had had a heart attack and wouldn’t be able to walk his daughter down the aisle. It was in this way that Meghan found out about her father’s hospitalization, and up until the night before the wedding both Meghan and Harry were trying to get in touch with Thomas begging him not to speak to the press. Bower says that Queen Elizabeth II and Meghan’s new father-in-law Prince Charles were “exasperated” after Meghan refused to fly out to Mexico and reconcile her father, with her resistance to their demands starting to “anger” them. In a conference call concerning Thomas’ continued TV appearances and his criticism of the “outdated” royal family, the queen and Charles urged Meghan to go to her father and put to a stop to all of it. In a text later sent to her former aide Jason Knauf, Meghan said, “It was completely unrealistic to think I could fly discreetly to Mexico, arrive unannounced at his doorstep (as I had no means of secure communication with my father), to a location and residence I had never visited or known, in a small border town … and somehow hope to speak privately to my father without causing a frenzy of media attention and intrusion that could bring more embarrassment to the Royal Family.” She said that she was especially “sensitive” to the queen and Charles’ frustration as she was a newlywed royal and was “eager to please them.”
The Queen said, “Thank goodness Meghan is not coming” to Prince Philip’s funeral
In April 2021, the queen’s husband Prince Philip died at the age of 99. His grandson Harry flew to the U.K. for the funeral. Meghan, who was seven months pregnant with Lili, remained in California. Bower writes that the queen was “relieved” to hear that Harry would not be accompanied by his wife. “Thank goodness Meghan is not coming,” she reportedly told her aides. Bower also claims that Meghan and Harry wanted to appear alongside the queen on the balcony of Buckingham Palace when they visited for her jubilee celebrations last month and writes that they were “festering” with fury when this demand was refused.
Meghan was ‘hysterical’ about her Vanity Fair cover in 2017
In 2017, Meghan was interviewed by Vanity Fair in a piece that was accepted as the official “launch” of her relationship with Harry—Meghan broke her silence about their relationship for the first time, saying that she and Harry were “really happy and in love.” Months later the couple announced their engagement. But Bower says that the royal family’s “fury” at the headline Wild About Harry, which accompanied Meghan’s cover shot, resulted in Meghan calling her PR team in “hysterics.” He writes that Meghan’s confirmation of her relationship with Harry “took the Palace by surprise” and “triggered sensational reactions.” In the royal family’s eyes, “Meghan had used her relationship with Harry to promote herself," he says, adding “‘The Hollywoodisation of the royal family had sealed Meghan’s fate as Harry’s fiancée.” He also states that Sam Kashner, the Vanity Fair writer who interviewed Meghan for the magazine, said he felt “manipulated” by Meghan. However, Kashner has since written to the Sunday Times saying that Bower had failed to convey the “admiration and respect” that he felt for Meghan when they met for the interview. He writes, “I found Ms Markle to be exceptionally warm and gracious and admired her intelligence and her remarkable courage, which I still do.” Next, See the first ever official joint portrait of Prince William and Duchess Kate
