Kate Middleton andMeghan Markle 's friendship has made headlines in the British tabloids since 2017.- It was derailed by the media, much as Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson's friendship was.
- The media held Middleton and Markle to different standards and used photos as evidence of tension.
Since they met in 2017, Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton's friendship has been major news in the British press.
They went from being part of the "Fab Four" to "feuding" sisters-in-law in record time. Photos of the duchesses together were analyzed for signs of tension, and a story claiming that Markle had made Middleton cry over a flower-girl dress spread like wildfire.
Two women being pitted against each other by the press is a tale as old as time, one that Markle called out during her two-hour interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday.
"If you love me, you don't have to hate her," Markle said. "And if you love her, you don't have to hate me."
The story of Markle and Middleton's relationship, both to each other and to the press, has remarkable parallels to that of Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson, whose friendship was torn apart by the British tabloids.
And for Markle and Middleton, the issue was compounded by the racist coverage of Markle, something no other royal had faced before.
The media has long pitted famous women, from celebrities to royals , against each other
There are dozens of examples of famous so-called feuds between famous women that the media invented or exacerbated. Within the
Unlike Markle and Middleton, Diana and Fergie, as Ferguson was known in school and then in the press, were friends before either became a royal.
Fergie was at Diana's wedding to Prince Charles in 1981, and it was Diana who introduced Fergie to Prince Andrew - and helped her crash his bachelor party before the two tied the knot in 1986 - turning the old friends into sisters-in-law and palace confidantes.
At first, Diana and Fergie, who was made the Duchess of York following her marriage to Andrew, seemed to enjoy having each other to lean on for public and private royal commitments, much as it seemed with Markle and Middleton.
"From the start, humor lay at the core of my staunch friendship with Diana," Fergie wrote in her 2001 book, "What I Know Now: Simple Lessons Learned the Hard Way."
"In public we'd poke fun at the pomposity around us. In private we'd banter in rapid fire, to see who had the quicker wit. The memory I cherish most, though, is Diana's laughter at our regular Sunday lunches, when it was just family, and we could be ourselves," she added.
Much as Middleton and Markle were dubbed the Fab Four as they were seen out with William and Harry, Fergie and Diana received a nickname from the press, "The Merry Wives of Windsor."
Fergie and Diana's friendship didn't last long, thanks in large part to press coverage
Not even a year had passed since Fergie and Andrew's wedding before the stress of being compared to each other, both within the family and on the front pages of British tabloids, began to take its toll on Fergie and Diana.
The media hailed Fergie as a down-to-earth addition to Buckingham Palace, and even Diana said she was shocked and "terribly jealous" at how easily her friend fit into the royal family.
"Suddenly, everybody said, 'Oh, isn't Fergie marvelous, a breath of fresh air - thank God she's more fun than Diana,'" the princess said in secret tapes that the biographer Andrew Morton used to write the 1992 book "Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words."
"I felt terribly insecure," she added. "I thought maybe I ought to be like Fergie. And my husband said, 'I wish you would be like Fergie, all jolly. Why are you always so miserable?'"
But as Diana's star grew at home and abroad, Fergie reportedly found it hard to swallow the media's constant comparisons of the sisters-in-law.
"It became fat Fergie against wonderful Diana," the Sun journalist Harry Arnold told Tina Brown in "The Diana Chronicles."
During her own interview with Winfrey in 1996, Fergie, whom the tabloids had nicknamed the "Duchess of Pork," called the British press "completely and utterly cruel and abusive."
Fergie and Diana's friendship had ups and downs as they went through their own divorces and tried to forge paths away from Buckingham Palace. But when Diana died in 1996, they hadn't spoken for over a year.
"I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something stuck in her head, it stuck there for all," Fergie wrote in her 2011 book, "Finding Sarah."
"Diana's death left a God-sized hole in my heart," she added. "I loved her so much."
In 2019, as the British tabloids reported on a rift between Markle and Middleton, Fergie wrote an open letter that touched on how the media had treated her and Diana.
"Women, in particular, are constantly pitted against and compared with each other in a way that reminds me of how people tried to portray Diana and me all the time as rivals," she wrote in Hello magazine.
"I believe that it's time to take a stand," she said, adding that "it's not acceptable to pit women against one another all the time."
That year, Channel 5 in the UK aired a documentary titled "Kate v. Meghan: Princesses At War?" In 2020, the channel released "Fergie vs. Diana: Royal Wives at War."
Middleton and Markle were friendly at first, and the media portrayed their relationship positively
Harry told Winfrey that his entire family, including Middleton, embraced Markle when he introduced them in 2017.
When Harry and Markle announced their engagement in November, Middleton told The Associated Press that she and William were "absolutely thrilled."
Two months after Markle and Harry's wedding in May 2018, the Duchesses of Sussex and Cambridge were seen smiling and laughing together at Wimbledon, their first outing without their husbands.
And in October, photographers snapped the Fab Four happily sitting together at Princess Eugenie's wedding.
But the dynamic between Markle and Middleton changed after Harry and Markle's Australia tour in October 2018
Harry told Winfrey that there was a shift in the couple's relationships with the royal family after their Australia tour in October 2018. Harry said it was "the first time that the family got to see how incredible" Markle was at the job.
A month after the tour, reports said Harry and Markle planned to move out of Kensington Palace, where William and Middleton live, and into Frogmore Cottage so they could have more space for their baby on the way.
Days later, a story in The Telegraph claimed that the Duchess of Sussex had made Middleton cry over a flower-girl dress during the week of her wedding. The story said their relationship was at a "breaking point."
Markle told Winfrey that it was actually Middleton who had made her cry, adding that Middleton "owned it, and she apologized, and she brought me flowers and a note apologizing."
The Duchess of Sussex also told Winfrey that "everyone in the institution" knew that the story in the papers wasn't true and that it had been Middleton who made her cry. But they never refuted the rumors. Markle described it as the "beginning of a character assassination."
"That was the turning point," Markle added. "That was when everything changed."
In December 2018, another story claimed that Markle and Middleton had gotten into a fight after the Duchess of Sussex yelled at a staff member. This time, Kensington Palace said in a statement that "this never happened."
Markle was criticized for doing many of the same things Middleton was praised for
The royal commentator Kristen Meinzer said several headlines showed how Markle was criticized for doing the same things Middleton was praised for.
When Markle wore wedges during her Australia tour, InStyle accused her of breaking royal protocol. Months later, the magazine praised Middleton for wearing wedges, saying they were "the most versatile shoes of the summer."
"Meghan is subjected to double standards that are blatant in their intent to frame her as an ignorant, uncouth, and unfit for the aristocracy, much less the royal family," Meinzer told Insider.
Middleton received glowing headlines when she was photographed cradling her pregnant belly, while a headline in The Sun called Markle "Baby Bump Barbie."
"I don't think Meghan would be facing any of these double standards if she were white," Meinzer said. "Simply put, the press loves attacking Meghan because she is not like the rest of the aristocracy. Unlike them, she's an American, a self-made woman, and Black."
The press used photos of them together as evidence of tension
Markle and Middleton were photographed together at various events. And royal experts told Insider's Mikhaila Friel that certain pictures were used to push the narrative of a rift.
"The British press picks up something - the way they look at each other, it's 'Oh, they hate each other,"' Marlene Koenig, a royal author and expert on British and European royalty, said of photos from the Commonwealth Day service in 2019. "But that's a photo frame. You go to the next photo frame and they're smiling."
Meinzer pointed out two photos of Markle and Middleton watching Harry and William play polo.
The photo that ran in many papers showed Markle and Middleton looking away from each other.
Meinzer said the photo "seemed to be implying that while everyone was at the same event, Meghan was either being ignored by her in-laws or choosing to ignore them."
But a rare photo from the event showed Middleton and Markle interacting with each other and a playful Prince Louis.
"I love these photos so much," Meinzer said. "At the time of this event, I remember vividly all the papers publishing photos of Kate playing with her children and separate photos of Meghan walking around all alone, holding young Archie.
"These photos show otherwise. They are together! Kate is laughing! Louis is reaching for his aunt and cousin! They are having fun," she added.
But by the time of Harry and Markle's last official engagement as senior royals, in March 2020, there clearly was tension among the Fab Four.
The couples arrived and left separately, and they didn't speak or look at each other during the event.
An insistence by the royal family that Markle's treatment in the press was no worse than what other royal women faced could have worsened the tension
Middleton has had her share of critical headlines, but Markle told Winfrey that they were "not the same."
"Kate was called 'Waity Katie' waiting to marry William. While I imagine that was really hard, and I do, I can't picture what that felt like. This is not the same," Markle said. "And if a member of this family will comfortably say, 'We've all had to deal with things that are rude' - rude and racist are not the same.
"And equally, you've also had a press team that goes on the record to defend you, especially when they know something's not true," she added. "And that didn't happen for us."
We may never know whether it was the press that sparked tension between Markle and Middleton or whether the incessant headlines pitting the duchesses against each other added fuel to flames that were already burning as Harry and William struggled with brotherly issues of their own.
But Markle made it clear on Sunday that stories like the fight over the flower-girl dress only made her feel more alienated from the royal family as the press relentlessly attacked her. She said the situation left her feeling suicidal and hopeless.
Fergie and Diana never had a chance to mend their broken friendship. It remains to be seen whether the royal family and the press give Markle and Middleton a fighting chance.