- Royal fans and the media have debated the real story behind "Megxit" since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their "step back" in January.
- British tabloids and royal commentators have largely blamed Meghan Markle for the couple's decision to leave, suggesting that she "manipulated" her husband into doing so.
- A look at
Prince Harry 's past, however, suggests that this simply isn't true — and that the decision was actually in the making for 23 years. - Prince Harry said in 2017 that he had "wanted out" of the
royal family years before but ultimately stayed to try to "work out a role" for himself. - This internal struggle started for the Duke of Sussex when he lost his mother, Princess Diana, in 1997. To this day, the prince says he is reminded of her death every time he sees a camera flash.
- His experience in the military then helped influence his outlook on royal life and was ultimately a driving force behind his decision to leave it.
Cast your mind back to 2017, long before "Megxit" and several months before Prince Harry would propose to
"I felt I wanted out," Harry said during a rare interview with Angela Levin, referring to the time he had almost quit the royal family years before. "But then decided to stay in and work out a role for myself."
It wasn't the first time the prince had spoken about his unhappiness with royal life.
Despite this, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sent royal watchers and the world's press into hysteria when they announced their "step back" in January of this year.
"We intend to step back as 'senior' members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen," the couple wrote in an Instagram post.
"We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honour our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages," they added.
In the months that followed, countless media outlets, commentators, and even former royal staff members suggested Markle was the driving force behind the decision, even though Harry said it was his choice to resign.
One of the most common adjectives used to describe Markle in the press? "Manipulative."
Darren McGrady, Princess Diana's former chef, said Harry's mother would have been "furious" that her son had been "so manipulated" into stepping down as a senior royal.
Similarly, the TV personality Eamonn Holmes (the host of the British show "This Morning") called the duchess "weak, manipulative," and "spoilt."
"She's playing the role of her life. I just find her incredibly irritating. I've never met her, but I look at her and think, 'I don't think I'd like you in real life,'" Holmes said on TalkRadio back in January.
"You're just that awful, woke, weak, manipulative, spoilt," he added. "They may be both somewhat damaged, but she's a manipulator. She's a controller."
The TV host Piers Morgan has also been one of Markle's greatest critics through the years, branding her as a "social climber" who made Harry "ditch his family."
The insinuation was that Harry, a 35-year-old man, somehow wasn't capable of making a decision of his own.
According to Harry, though, the move was his choice.
"The decision that I have made for my wife and I to step back, is not one made lightly," the Duke of Sussex said during a speech at a charity dinner back in January.
"It was so many months of talks after so many years of challenges. And I know I haven't always gotten it right, but as far as this goes, there really was no other option."
The loss of his mother, Princess Diana — who died from injuries sustained in a car crash after being chased by the paparazzi in 1997 — led to the prince's disdain for the media and the subsequent discomfort with living his life in the spotlight.
It wasn't until he joined the military years later, however, when the prince first saw a glimpse of life as "just Harry" — the name he would eventually ask to be called when he resigned from his royal post in 2020.
'Megxit ' was never about Meghan Markle
The Duke of Sussex served in the military for a decade, beginning his training at Sandhurst in 2004 before joining the Blues and
His time in the military was covered intensely by the media, resulting in a famous video clip of the prince taking off in the middle of an interview after being called to duty.
"I don't think Harry fully got to know what 'ordinary' meant until he entered the military," the royal commentator Kristen Meinzer told Insider.
"Prior to that, his life was in palaces, boarding schools, on polo fields, and other elite places that are far from how the rest of us live. The military changed that.
"Suddenly, he was sleeping in the same barracks, eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, and stationed in the same war zones as people he'd never rubbed elbows with before," she added.
"Of course, critics are likely to say, 'In 2017, Harry was dating Meghan, this is all Meghan's doing," Meinzer added, referring to the timing of Harry's 2017 interview when he said he once "wanted out" of the royal family.
"I disagree. Back in 2013, after completing a four-month tour of Afghanistan — and long before Meghan was in the picture — he was expressing the same sentiments."
In a 2013 interview with The Guardian, Harry was asked whether he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry.
His answer was: "Definitely ... My father's always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it's very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army."
In the same interview, the prince mentioned that he loved helicopters because you can fit only a certain number of people in them, "Therefore no one can follow us, like you guys."
Prince Harry didn't want to see 'history repeating itself'
But the unfortunate truth is that the duke has been followed relentlessly his entire life. As a child, it wasn't unusual to see photographers snake around the edges of his Kensington Palace home, waiting to catch a glimpse of the young royal and his family.
"Certainly I would say for Princess Diana and for all of them, the young boys as well, whenever they'd drive out of Kensington Palace, knowing there was a barrage of press photographers at the gate every morning when they went to school must have been incredibly difficult," the family's former chef, Carolyn Robb, told Insider.
"I can only imagine how incredibly intrusive and difficult it must have been for all of them," she added. "So I can see why Harry would want to make things easier for his own son."
Last year, Harry and Markle were forced to move out of their Cotswolds home after a Splash News photographer used a helicopter to take invasive photos of their living room, their dining room, and even their bedroom.
This wasn't too dissimilar from the intrusive media attention Princess Diana was subjected to. Diana sued The Mirror in 1993 after the newspaper published photos secretly taken of her working out at a gym.
"Very sadly, a lot of my memories revolve around trying to cheer her up," Prince William said of his mother in the 2017 BBC One documentary "Diana, 7 Days."
"I believe she cried more to do with the press intrusion than anything else in her life. The impact it was having on her that we would then see and feel was very difficult to understand."
The princess' battle with the press came to a tragic end in 1997, when some of the photographers at the scene of the crash that caused her death opted to take photos of the wreckage.
"Those people that caused the accident, instead of helping were taking photographs of her dying on the back seat," Harry said in the BBC One documentary. "And then those photographs made their way back to news desks in this country."
Those photographers' actions have forever changed the prince's view of the media, as he pointed out during an ITV documentary last year.
"Every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash, it takes me straight back, so in that respect it's the worst reminder of her life," he said.
It came as little surprise, then, when Harry announced last year that he and Markle were taking a stand against a British tabloid, the Mail on Sunday.
The Duchess of Sussex is suing the newspaper after it published a private letter she wrote to her father after the royal wedding. In Harry's statement, he compared what he described as the publication's "false and deliberately derogatory stories" about her to the media's treatment of Princess Diana.
"Though this action may not be the safe one, it is the right one, because my deepest fear is history repeating itself," Harry said.
"I've seen what happens when someone I love is commoditized to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother, and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces."
Harry and Markle's first official act as nonroyals involved changing their media guidelines. The couple announced they would no longer participate in the royal rota, a system that allows a circulation of royal reporters from Britain's leading newspapers to attend and report on royal family members' engagements.
In April this year, they took this a step further by announcing they would be cutting all ties with four British tabloids: The Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, and the Daily Express.
In an explosive letter sent to each publication — and released to the public by the Sussexes' press team — the duke and duchess said they no longer wished to "offer themselves up as currency for an economy of clickbait and distortion."
"The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have watched people they know — as well as complete strangers — have their lives completely pulled apart for no good reason, other than the fact that salacious gossip boosts advertising revenue," a representative wrote.
Harry wanted a different life for his son, Archie
Harry's behavior toward the press changed even more when he became a father.
Markle and Harry announced their engagement to a band of photographers outside Kensington Palace in November 2017.
In video footage from the photo call, Harry appeared to be more than happy to answer reporters' questions, telling them he knew Markle was the one "the very first time we met."
This was a drastic contrast to the low-key celebrations that surrounded the birth of their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, in May 2019. The Sussexes handpicked a few members of the press to attend a private photo call at Windsor Castle two days after Markle gave birth.
They received criticism after declining to pose for a public photo op outside the hospital steps — a royal tradition started by Princess Diana and followed by Kate Middleton after the birth of all three of her children.
Harry and Markle were secretive with the details surrounding Archie's birth, choosing not to disclose which hospital he was born in until his birth certificate was released. They did not give him a title like his royal cousins and barred the press from attending his christening ceremony in July.
The same prince who willingly gave TV interviews in Afghanistan just years before had started showing the first signs of contempt for the media when Markle revealed she was pregnant in the fall of 2018.
"Thanks for coming, even though you weren't invited," the Duke of Sussex reportedly told a group of reporters who joined them on their tour of Australia, the trip during which they announced they were expecting a baby.
Later, Harry's acquaintances would learn the intent behind his behavior.
Jane Goodall, who visited the duke and duchess at their Frogmore Cottage home in Windsor last summer, said Harry spoke about not wanting to bring up Archie as a royal.
After trying to get Archie to do "the Queen's wave," Goodall says she told Harry: "I suppose he'll have to learn this," according to the Daily Mail's Weekend Magazine.
"No, he's not growing up like that," Harry apparently responded.
Markle 'understood what life could be like outside of the royal family' and 'empowered' Harry
While thoughts of leaving royal life had been brewing in the back of Harry's mind for years, meeting Markle eventually pushed him to take action.
Hugo Vickers, a royal historian who wrote "The Crown Dissected," told Insider it's "only natural for everybody in the royal family to question their role at certain times."
He said, however, that he didn't think Harry would have left the royal family "if he hadn't married Meghan."
"So you can read into that whatever you like," Vickers said.
"I got quite worried about him, seeing him out in public a few times at different events. I just thought, it goes back to March last year, he seemed a very unhappy person. He looks like someone who's taken on something he can't cope with. But that's an entirely personal view," he said.
Melanie Bromley, the E! News chief correspondent who has reported on the royal family for almost 20 years, says Markle was essential to "empowering" Prince Harry to seek out the life he always wanted.
"She was somebody who understood what life could be like outside of the royal family, and Harry, as somebody who yearned for a more normal life, to meet somebody who knew what life was like outside of it was empowering to him," she said.
Before the duchess had joined the royal family, she was heavily involved in charity work. In 2016, she became a global ambassador for World Vision Canada, traveling to Rwanda for the Clean Water Campaign.
As an advocate for UN Women, she also gave a powerful speech on gender equality — not all that different from the type of speeches she would later give as a member of the royal family.
The way she carried out this work was undoubtedly different. As a television actress who pursued charity work when she wasn't filming, Markle used her Instagram account and her
As a celebrity, she had the freedom to choose which press outlets — if any — to work with when undergoing and promoting her charity work.
The transition from this lifestyle to one that included the royal rota, lawsuits, paparazzi intrusion, and vicious headlines is something that the former actress most likely didn't see coming.
Speaking in an ITV documentary last year, Markle said she didn't believe friends who warned her about the tabloids when she first started dating Prince Harry.
"My British friends said to me, 'I'm sure he's great, but you shouldn't do it, because the British tabloids will destroy your life,'" she said.
"What are you talking about?" she said, "That doesn't make any sense. I'm not in tabloids. I didn't get it."
It became evident that the duchess now identified with a struggle Harry had long been dealing with.
"Harry was unhappy anyway — it's just that he met someone to hold his hand through it," Bromley added.
So, why is Markle still blamed for 'Megxit?'
Given Harry's complex history, it's difficult to comprehend why so many people — including the British tabloid press — immediately assumed Markle was behind the step back.
"It is incredibly unfair that she's been blamed all the way through for everything," Bromley said.
"She's been seen as an outsider, and more so than Kate has. I think the reason for that is it was so sudden for Harry and Meghan.
"They went from dating to getting married much quicker than William and Kate. It took William and Kate 10 years, so people were able to get used to it," she said.
"Plus Meghan is American and a woman of color, so there all of these reasons. Obviously for us, none of that matters, but for the traditional British press, they judge. They judged her wrongly, and I do think their treatment of her was unfair," she added.
You only have to compare the different headlines written about Markle and Middleton to see Bromley's point. Some of Britain's most popular newspapers that praised Middleton for cradling her stomach while pregnant also shamed Markle for doing the same thing, writing that she was doing it only "for a photo op."
Similarly, Markle was criticized for being accompanied by a royal protection officer during a visit to Wimbledon last year. While the press implied that she appeared entitled, they praised Middleton for being "normal" and "down-to-earth" after she was accompanied by a security guard to a UK supermarket.
"I don't think Meghan would be facing any of these double standards if she were white," Meinzer previously told Insider.
Other discriminatory headlines Markle was subjected to over the years included that she was "fueling human rights abuses, drought, and murder" for eating avocados and that her mother's hometown was "(almost) straight outta Compton" and "gang-scarred."
This treatment is something many women of color in the spotlight have faced.
For example, Michelle Obama spoke about the media treatment she received during her husband's presidential campaign in 2008.
In her memoir, "Becoming," Obama said she noticed the press treated her differently from the other candidates' spouses.
"I was female, black, and strong, which to certain people, maintaining a certain mindset, translated only to 'angry,'" Obama wrote.
"It was another damaging cliché, one that's been forever used to sweep minority women under the perimeter of every room, an unconscious signal not to listen to what we have to say."
Markle shared the same sentiments as Harry
During the Sussexes' ITV documentary last year, Markle spoke of her struggles dealing with the media scrutiny while at the same time adapting to life as a new parent.
"Look, any woman, especially when they're pregnant, you're really vulnerable, and so that was made really challenging," she said.
However, like Harry, it seemed Markle's decision was influenced by the arrival of their son.
"So you add this on top of just trying to be a new mom or trying to be a newlywed, it's," she trailed off. "Also, thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I'm OK. But it's a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes."
Harry and Markle's messages were the same.
"This decision certainly wasn't the easy one but it was the right decision for our family, the right decision to be able to protect my son," Harry said during a leaked phone call earlier this year.
"And I think there's a hell of a lot of people around the world that can identify and respect us for putting our family first."
But while Harry and Markle's main incentive to move on from royal life may have been Archie, Harry said it was his time in the military that equipped him to take the plunge and adopt this "normal" life.
"You forget, I was in the military for 10 years so I'm more normal than my family would like to believe," he said.
Things came full circle in April 2019 after Harry appeared on "Declassified" — a podcast that aims to share stories from the military community — for his first interview since resigning from royal duties.
Shortly after, he helped to launch HeadFit, a mental-health website for members of the military and defense.
The Duke of Sussex finally became 'Just Harry'
While the death of Harry's mother was a catalyst for his resentment toward the press — and thus, royal life — it makes sense that memories from this time would resurface when the roles were reversed and he had a son of his own to protect.
Thoughts of his time in the military and his new relationship with Markle reminded him there was another way — a sense of the "ordinary" his family had been lacking, as Meinzer puts it.
For Harry, this life had always appeared out of reach, even after admitting that he "wanted out" years before.
The Duke of Sussex summed up this desire best when describing his military experience during that now-infamous interview in 2017.
"I wasn't a prince, I was just Harry," he said.
Now, he truly is.
- Read more:
- 11 warning signs that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were ready to leave the royal family
- Rare photos of Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton that the British press may not want you to see
- How the British press destroyed Meghan Markle's relationship with her father Thomas Markle before she was even part of the royal family
- Here's how Meghan Markle's treatment in the British press compares to how they talked about Princess Diana
- Prince Harry says Meghan Markle is taking legal action against British tabloids: 'I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces'
- Racism in the British media may have been a driving force behind Meghan Markle's 'step back' from the royal family
- The British tabloids have finally acknowledged Meghan Markle's struggle with racism — but they're 6 months too late