Every Bombshell Meghan Markle Allegation in New Royal Exposé

Meghan Markle was described as a "degree wife" by a senior royal who thought her marriage to Prince Harry would only last the length of a British university degree, according to a new book.

The Duchess of Sussex was subject to various nicknames at the palace while a high-ranking royal speculated about how long she and Prince Harry would last.

The allegation is among a series relating to Meghan in the bombshell new biography, Endgame by Finding Freedom author Omid Scobie.

Here are the extraordinary claims made about Meghan as divulged in the book.

'Too Big for Her Boots'

The book suggests that then-Prince Charles' aides offered to help plan Prince Harry and Meghan's wedding but were rejected by Harry, who feared details would leak via his father's office.

"'Far too big for her boots,' one of Charles's staffers, a regular Daily Mail source at the time, moaned about Meghan. 'Who does she think she is?'

"Just who does she think she is? This was a running theme throughout Meghan's time as a working royal.

"Here was a woman who, in the eyes of many within the institution (consciously or unconsciously), wasn't considered good enough to be part of it because of her class, her family, her ethnicity or her career history.

"Or maybe just because she wasn't sufficiently reverential and thankful for the opportunity, a haughty opinion that also stinks of prejudice and privilege."

'Degree Wife'

After the couple's wedding, they went on a tour of Australia and the South Pacific, which Scobie suggests sparked jealousy—in line with Harry's narrative about how royal relations turned sour.

Other accounts, including in Courtiers, by Valentine Low, suggested Meghan and Harry mistreated their staff. The couple have consistently denied the bullying accusations.

"This period was the birth of 'Duchess Difficult' one of the many nicknames given to Meghan by the Palace and tabloids over the years," Endgame reads.

"'Me-gain' (because it's all about 'me,' a royal insider told society bible Tatler), 'narcissistic sociopath,' and 'degree wife' (this one supposedly by a senior royal because they felt her marriage would only last the length of a British university degree three years) are a few others.

"Inside the Palace was no different to a school playground, except this time the bullies had reporters on speed dial."

Meghan was first called "Duchess Difficult" in a headline in The Sunday Times published in December 2018, two months after the tour, in a story about high turnover among her staff.

Meghan Markle 'Kind of Deserved It'

The book details a barrage of criticisms Meghan faced in public but said it was "worse behind closed doors."

"Some aides and staff found the name-calling funny," Scobie wrote. "A few even believed Meghan got what was coming to her. One former aide shared with me that a colleague told them Meghan 'kind of deserved it ...for making our lives hell' during the wedding planning."

A former palace employee is quoted saying: "They basically meant she had opinions. People didn't like that. They wanted Meghan to just go with everything that was suggested and not create any additional work.

"It was a combination of her not conforming with how women marrying into the family are expected to behave and certain individuals just being lazy."

Palace Felt Meghan Should 'Develop a Thicker Skin'

In early 2019, Meghan said she experienced suicidal thoughts while pregnant against the backdrop of a wave of negative articles about her and spoke to palace HR.

"Her supposedly 'private' meeting with Samantha Carruthers, the Palace's head of HR, surfaced as Palace gossip within a matter of weeks," Scobie wrote. "Various staff at Kensington Palace, Clarence House, and Buckingham Palace all tittle-tattled about Meghan's personal crisis, and the chatter even reached some of the reporters in the royal rota.

"There were few who were sympathetic, and even fewer who did or said anything to help."

A former palace staffer told Scobie: "The feeling was that she needed to develop a thicker skin."

"The institutional response was regrettably predictable," Scobie wrote. "Instead of lending a hand, they gave her the company line, requiring her to demonstrate some of that clichéd stiff upper lip and suffer in silence, all part of a compulsory effort to protect the company brand."

It was during the "peak" of the hostile backlash against Meghan that the author wrote that he answered the phone to what he thought would be the duchess' head of communications at the time, Sara Latham.

"'Hi, Omid!' a female voice chirped. It was different to Latham's northwestern American accent. 'It's Meghan.' I put my iced coffee down, not quite sure if the call was a prank."

"We saw your name keep coming up on the phone," Meghan told Scobie, "and I just wanted to say 'hi,' see how you're doing."

Scobie had been on the receiving end of social media trolling at the time and said Meghan was checking in on how he was coping.

"Though I appreciated the conversation," he said, "it was also deflating. Here was someone checking in on a journalist she still only really knew through a byline, when so many of the people in her royal orbit—including those on payroll- wouldn't do the same for her."

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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