Prince Harry says Meghan's popularity 'upset people' as show claims 'internals at the palace' didn't like her eclipsing senior royals

Prince Harry says Meghan's popularity 'upset people' in the Royal Family as he speaks about how the press turned on his wife while she was pregnant. 

• In the second volume of Netflix's Harry & Meghan, Prince Harry opened up about Meghan Markle's treatment by the press.
• In the fourth episode, the Prince spoke about how his wife's popularity 'upset' other members of the family.
• In other royal news, Kate Middleton decorates Christmas tree at Westminster wearing the coziest festive jumper.

In the latest episode of his docuseries, Meghan Markle's extreme popularity following their marriage and first pregnancy was explored. The couple spoke about their 16-day tour to New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji, and how popular they were following the success of this trip. Prince Harry revealed that Meghan Markle's incredible popularity eclipsed other members of the Royal Family and led to her being torn down by the press. 

"I think Australia was a real turning point," said their friend Lucy Fraser. "Because they were so popular, so popular with the public, the internals at the palace were incredibly threatened by that."

"The issue is when someone who is marrying in, who should be a supporting act, is then stealing the limelight, or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people. It shifts the balance,” said Prince Harry. 

He added, “You’ve been led to believe that the only way your charities can succeed, and the only way that your reputation can be grown or improved, is if you are on the front pages of those newspapers. But the media are the ones to choose who to put on the front page.”

Prince Harry then told a story about how the 'penny dropped' for Meghan when they went to an event with all of the family's senior members. The next morning, it was Meghan on the front page and not other senior royals such as the Queen, Camilla, or Catherine. Harry revealed Meghan's initial reaction to this cover was to say, 'But it's not my fault.'

James Holt, former palace spokesperson from 2017-2019 said, "When some people in the institution around the family started to see that this new couple could destabilize the power dynamics, whether actively talked about or not, the aim was to put them in a box or make them irrelevant."

"All of a sudden these tabloid stories started to appear, criticizing Meghan for every little thing," he added.

The docuseries then compared Meghan to Princess Diana as a clear similarity was drawn between how Princess Diana's success eclipsed Charles - which led to frustration from her former husband. 

The Princess said, "we'd be going round Australia for instance and all you could hear was 'oh she's on the other side'" meaning that fans were disappointed they were on the side of the barrier to see Charles and not Diana. "Now if you're a man, or my husband, a proud man you mind about that," said Diana in the Panorama interview from 1995. "With the media attention, came a lot of jealousy," the late Princess added.

The docuseries continued to insinuate that Meghan's fall from grace in the eyes of the British press was because the Royal Family was threatened by her success. It was suggested that stories were leaked to the press because they didn't want her to eclipse other senior royals who should be more popular because of their position in the royal line of succession.