Note: this is a second version of a story I covered earlier, about Princess Kate “resenting” Meghan. Some backstory: on the day QEII died, King Charles called Prince Harry. The conversation likely took place a short time after the Sussexes confirmed that they would travel to Balmoral, which is where (at the time) QEII was barely hanging on. Instead of keeping Harry informed about his beloved grandmother, Charles used that moment to insult and disrespect Meghan and tell Harry not to “bring her” to Balmoral. We knew that in the hours after QEII’s passing, because the Windsors openly and gleefully briefed the media about how Charles’s first act as king was banning his Black daughter-in-law from Balmoral. Harry also addressed that moment in Spare, and he basically confirmed exactly how disgusting it was that Charles used that moment to denigrate Meghan and order her not to come.

What was interesting about the whole debacle was that Kate, the soon-to-be Princess of Wales, was never flying up to Balmoral with her husband. It was one of her kids’ first days of a new school, and she had to pick them up. That would have been my excuse, if I worked for royal comms – lean into the motherhood-above-all-else thing. Instead, they made it sound like of course Kate never would have been invited, because she “knows her place” unlike Meghan. Well, to continue with that bizarre narrative, both Russell Myers and Robert Jobson are now leaning into this idea that Charles asked Kate to stay away from Balmoral as a way to keep Meghan away too…??

Royal Editor Russell Myers says Meghan Markle was asked to steer clear of the late Queen Elizabeth II amid “upset and upheaval” within the royal family over the couple’s lucrative media deals. Mr Myers was responding to claims King Charles had “struck a deal” with Princess Kate that she keep Meghan away from the Queen’s bedside to avoid upset in the monarch’s final moments.

Royal expert Robert Jobson had earlier told the Daily Telegraph of the steps King Charles took to ensure the former actress was not around amid the Queen’s ill health.

“Privately, he wanted to say Meghan was not welcome but he couldn’t say that to Harry so he personally intervened and asked Kate to stay back so that it was fairer on Meghan,” Mr Jobson said. Speaking to Royal Report host Caroline Di Russo, Mr Myers said while he wouldn’t use the words “strike a deal” there was a lot of anxiety surrounding Harry and Meghan’s return for the late monarch’s funeral.

“William and Kate’s children had just started a new school, had just move to Windsor from London, so obviously a very unsettling time for the whole family. And after the late Queen’s passing you of course could understand the sort of anxiousness around the family that Harry and Meghan would fly back. During that period of time we had a lot of upset and upheaval within the royal family to do with Harry and Meghan – the Oprah interview, the possibility of Harry writing his book at that stage and a Netflix interview on the cards.”

Mr Myers said there were conversations between Harry and Charles about Meghan but Princess Kate’s choice to stay back was more likely “a family decision”.

“Whenever Harry and Meghan were in and around the royal family it was becoming a bit of an issue so those conversations really took place between Harry and his father,” he said. “For Kate to stay away and look after her children was probably more of a family decision to work out what’s best for the overall feeling of the family at that time.”

[From Sky News]

This continues to be utterly bizarre, the haphazard, months-long debate about why Kate didn’t fly to Balmoral that day. It’s always been so puzzling to me, because “the cover story” made perfect sense at the time: of course Kate wanted to be in Windsor to pick up the kids from their first week at school, and of course she wanted to be the one to tell them about QEII’s passing too. Why wasn’t that explanation ever good enough? Why did it become “Charles ordered Kate to stay back as some kind of excuse to ban Meghan.” I’ve also never understood why Charles and the rest of the family was so f–king nasty about Meghan simply wanting to physically be with Harry on the day his grandmother died. Like, this was how Charles wanted to start his reign: banning his son’s Black wife from Balmoral because Harry must grieve alone?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.