Meghan Markle was slammed on social media after part of the new Netflix documentary featuring her and her husband Prince Harry showed her making an exaggerated curtsy to imitate how she acted when she met the late Queen Elizabeth, Harry’s grandmother.
Harry prompted Markle’s curtsy as he recalled his conversation with her before they met his grandmother, saying, “How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you will need to curtsey? Especially to an American, that’s weird.”
“I mean, it’s surreal,” Markle chimed in, according to the Daily Mail. “There wasn’t like some big moment of ‘Now you’re gonna meet my grandmother. I didn’t know I was going to meet her until moments before. We were in the car and we were going to the Royal Lodge for lunch, and he was like, ‘Oh, my grandmother is here, she’s gonna be there after church.”
Markle’s exaggerated imitation of her curtsy provoked condemnation.
Tory MP Mark Jenkinson raged, “The ultimate betrayal. And he just sits and watches.”
The ultimate betrayal. And he just sits and watches. https://t.co/g7rHfQjNxy
— Mark Jenkinson MP (@markjenkinsonmp) December 8, 2022
Darren McGrady, who cooked for Queen Elizabeth, Harry’s mother Princess Diana, Pince William, and Harry for 15 years, chimed in, “The look on his face when his wife laughs about having to curtsey to The Queen says everything for me. … I’ve known Harry since I held him as a baby while Princess Diana was eating cereals in the kitchen at Windsor Castle. Prince Harry, with respect, sir, your wife will never be like or similar to your mother. I knew Princess Diana for 15 years. Not even close.”
Royal author Gyles Brandreth added of Harry, “He would know that the bow, as it were, is a brief curtsy. It is just a curtsy to show respect for the sovereign, and in the case of the queen, a lady in her 90s who had actually earned respect through a lifetime of service, and that was it. And to do this sort of mocking thing is uncomfortable.”
In the documentary, Markle referenced the movie “The Princess Diaries,” saying, “Joining this family I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done. Do you remember that old movie Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway? … There is no class and some person who goes, ‘Sit like this, cross your legs like this, use this fork, don’t do this, curtsy then, wear this kind of hat.’ It doesn’t happen.
“I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed. Some of them didn’t quite know what to do with themselves,” Harry recalled, then bragged, “They were surprised that the ginger could land such a beautiful woman. And such an intelligent woman.”