Prince Harry Suggests Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton Wedding Feud Story Was Leaked by King Charles III

Tabloids reported that Meghan made Kate cry, when the opposite happened. Kate had been upset with how Princess Charlotte’s dress fit four days before Meghan and Harry’s May 2018 wedding, texted Meghan about it, and the two had a tense conversation about it that led to Meghan crying at the end. Harry even provided texts the women sent each other.

Those texts were, per Prince Harry via Page Six:

Kate texting Meghan that: “Charlotte’s dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on at home.”

Meghan responding: “Right, and I told you the tailor has been standing by since 8am. Here. At KP. Can you take Charlotte to have it altered, as the other mums are doing?”

Kate then allegedly saying: “all the dresses [needed to] be remade,” and she had consulted her own wedding dress designer about it.

Meghan, asking Kate if she “was aware of what was going on right now. With her father [Thomas Markle].”

Kate saying “she was well aware, but the dresses. And the wedding is in four days!”

Meghan replying: “Yes, Kate, I know….”

Kate going on about “problems with the way Meg was planning her wedding. Something about a party for the page boys? It went back and forth.”

Meghan, then responding: “I’m not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn’t fit then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He’s been waiting all day.”

Shortly after the tabloid report came out, and Meghan and Harry returned from their Australian tour, Harry wrote that the two couples met secretly at his and Meghan’s then-home Nottingham Cottage on Dec. 10, 2018. The four pieced together that Harry’s father King Charles III’s press office likely planted the negative story.

Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton at Wimbledon in 2018.

“We all gathered in our little front annexe, and this time there was no small talk: Kate got things rolling straightaway by acknowledging that the stories in the papers about Meg making her cry were totally false,” Harry wrote, per Hello!. He claimed that Kate told Meghan, “I know, Meghan, that I was the one who made you cry.”

Regarding what would be done to correct the false story, Harry wrote that Kate was left “flustered,” and William offered “supportive-sounding evasions.” Harry recognized nothing would happen, and he and Meghan sought instead to figure out who leaked the story to the press.

“We went around and around,” Harry wrote. “The list of suspects became vanishingly small. Finally, finally, Willy leaned back and conceded that, ahem, while we’d been on tour in Australia, he and Kate had gone to dinner with Pa [King Charles III] and Camilla.”

“And, alas, he said sheepishly he ‘might’ve’ let it slip and that there’s been strife between the two couples,” Harry continued. “I put my hand over my face. Meg froze. A heavy silence fell. So now we knew. I told Willy you of all people should’ve known. He nodded. He knew. More silence. It was time for them to go.”

The Palace never corrected the Kate-Meghan story. Meghan spoke later to Oprah about how frustrating that was for her.

“No. [I didn’t make Kate cry],” Meghan said in March 2021. “No, no, the reverse happened. And I don’t say that to be disparaging to anyone, because it was a really hard week of the wedding, and she was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologized, and she brought me flowers and a note apologizing and she did what I would do if I knew that I hurt someone. To just take accountability for it.

“What was shocking was, was that, six, seven months after our wedding, the reverse of that would be out in the world [the story suggesting Meghan made Kate cry]. I would’ve never wanted that to come out about her ever even though it had happened. I protected that from ever being out in the world. A few days before the wedding, she was upset about something pertaining—yes, the issue was correct about flower girl dresses, and it made me cry and it really hurt my feelings, and I thought in the context of everything else that was going on in those days leading to the wedding that it didn’t make sense to not be just doing what everyone else was doing, which was try to be supportive, knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot.

“There wasn’t a confrontation, and I actually think it’s…I don’t think it’s fair to her to get into the details of that because she apologized and I’ve forgiven her,” Meghan continued. “What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do, but that happened to me and the people that were a part of my wedding going to my comms team, saying, I know this didn’t happen. I don’t have to tell them what actually happened, but I can at least go on the record saying, ‘She didn’t make her cry.’ Everyone in the institution knew it wasn’t true. I’m not sharing that piece about Kate in any way to be disparaging to her. I think it’s really important for people to understand the truth, but also I think a lot of it that was fed into by the media. Look, I would hope that she would’ve wanted that corrected. And maybe in the same way that the Palace wouldn’t let anybody else negate it, they wouldn’t let her, because she’s a good person, and I think so much of what I have seen play out was this idea of polarity where if you love me you don’t have to hate her, and if you love her, you don’t need to hate me.”

Senior News and Strategy Editor

Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.