Meghan Markle Biographer Says King Charles 'Never Liked Going to Africa'

A royal biographer whose Meghan Markle book earned a clapback from the duchess says King Charles "never liked going to Africa."

Tom Bower's Revenge was described as a hatchet job, accused of inaccuracies and contained claims challenged by Meghan herself, though he remains a regular commentator in Britain.

He has now said that Charles "liked going to the white Commonwealth countries" and was "forced to go to Africa shortly before he became king."

In a speech on Tuesday, Charles said it was a "great pleasure" to be in Kenya and added: "It is particularly special to be able to return to this extraordinary country in the sixtieth year of your independence."

Bower said on GB News that "left-wing American academics" have "vastly exaggerated" the crimes of the British Empire.

It should be noted that Bower also wrote a scathing biography of Charles, titled Rebel Prince, which earned him the label "undisputed Witchfinder General of contemporary biographers" from The Mail on Sunday.

"[Charles] never liked going to Africa: he was forced to go to Africa shortly before he became king because he neglected the Commonwealth. He liked going to the white Commonwealth countries," Bowers told GB News. "He liked going a lot to India, but he avoided Africa if he could. He just didn't find it culturally that interesting, whereas he was very interested in the culture of India. And the real truth is, [Queen] Camilla doesn't like traveling long distances."

Charles is on a tour of Kenya to mark the 60th anniversary of the country's independence from British rule and expressed his sorrow for the suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion, which saw 90,000 Kenyans executed, tortured and maimed in the 1950s.

The official death toll stands at 10,000, and the British Government in 2013 paid out around $25 million dollars to more than 5,000 survivors of the British camps.

"I don't think [Charles is] a natural diplomat or politician. I think he does struggle because he knows very well, of course, that terrible things happened during the Mau Mau period, but more Kenyans were murdered by Kenyans, many, many more than by the British," Bower, whose book dominated royal reporting when it was released in summer 2022, said.

"It was all vastly exaggerated, the suffering caused by the British because it's the work of left-wing American academics who lied, positively lied, about what happened. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office bowed to this argument that Britain had been terrible during the colonial period," he said.

"The whole thing has been completely turned on its head," Bower added. "The British have a hugely advantageous reputation still in Kenya to this day because of the legacy of the imperial past. Kenya is a booming, very flush African country unlike many of the others, thanks to the British legacy."

The royal family has also faced calls to pay reparations for slavery, including from countries in the Caribbean. The British Government maintains it does not accept liability in law for the actions of the British administration in Kenya.

"There'll be no reparations," Bower said, "no government can be that foolish, and hopefully Charles would say 'not out of my mouth.' But the truth is that we're reaching this odd period at the moment with the colonial past. I mean, South Africa has suffered terribly under its victorious ANC government.

"It's about time that Britain stops saying sorry for what happened. It did some bad things. There's no doubt there were some horrors, but there were also a lot of good things done as well."

Tom Bower and Meghan Markle

Among the claims in his book, Bower disputed Meghan's account of being friends with tennis star Serena Williams: "Serena Williams denied she was Meghan's friend but just an acquaintance."

Meghan did not name Bower but appeared to clap back at three suggestions from his book in the first episode of her Archetypes podcast.

The duchess interviewed Williams, saying, "We became such fast friends," and asked her: "So I guess part of it just to set the table is, what made you want to do this with me, besides the fact that you're my girl?"

Williams replied: "I was gonna say because I love you and I believe in you! We've been friends for so long."

The episode was titled: "The Misconception of Ambition."

Months after Bower had described her as ambitious during an interview on Good Morning Britain, she said: "I don't remember ever personally feeling the negative connotation behind the word ambitious until I started dating my now husband."

And she also doubled down on a story about her campaigning to change a dish soap commercial at age 11, which Bower had disputed.

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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