While Meghan Markle hasn’t shied away from discussing her struggles to adjust to life as a member of the royal family, she’s always had kind things to say about Queen Elizabeth II.
When news broke in November 2017 that Prince Harry had proposed to Meghan after more than one year of dating, the Suits alum told the press that it was “incredible” to meet the monarch. When she married Harry in May 2018, the queen lent Meghan the Queen Mary’s stunning diamond bandeau to wear for the nuptials.
Things took a turn, however, in 2020 when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their plans to stop working full-time for Queen Elizabeth. The palace addressed their decision as a series of “complicated issues that will take time to work through” at the time. The queen then confirmed that the pair would no longer receive public funding and lose their HRH royal titles as they relocated to the United States.
“Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much-loved members of the family. I recognize the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life,” the queen said in January 2020. “I want to thank them for all their dedicated work across this country, the Commonwealth and beyond, and am particularly proud of how Meghan has so quickly become one of the family. It is my whole family’s hope that today’s agreement allows them to start building a happy and peaceful new life.”
Harry and Meghan, who share son Archie and daughter Lilibet, attended their last engagement as working members of the royal family in March 2020. The following year, they did a bombshell interview about The Firm.
“It’s hard for people to distinguish the two because it’s a family business, right? So there’s the family, and then there’s the people that are running the institution,” she said on CBS in March 2021. “The queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me.”
During the interview, the duke and duchess alleged that a member of Harry’s family made a comment about Archie’s skin color. Harry subsequently denied that his grandmother and her husband, Prince Philip — who died in April 2021, one month after the interview — were the ones to make the remark.
Harry, Meghan and their kids got special time with the queen during summer 2022 before she died that September, bringing the little ones to London for Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. During the June visit, the queen celebrated Lilibet’s first birthday with the Sussexes.
News broke on September 8, 2022, that Queen Elizabeth had died after more than 70 years on the throne. Harry and Meghan’s Archewell foundation’s website temporarily paused access, only displaying a tribute to the monarch: “Loving Memory of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. 1926 to 2022.”
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