'She's trying to be Diana': Royal experts reveal why Meghan Markle might be receiving so much negative publicity
Besides her charity work for victims of the Grenfell Fire, it seems as though Meghan Markle has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent times, with numerous reports claiming there's friction between her and sister-in-law Kate Middleton and that she's often rude and extremely demanding of her numerous assistants.
But according to royal biographer Claudia Joseph, the negative publicity may have something to do with the fact that the Duchess of Sussex is trying to change too many things too quickly, with her attempts to rapidly modernize the archaic monarchy not going down well with purists.
According to the Daily Mail, Joseph had appeared alongside fashion designer Amal Fashanu and journalism professor Suzanneh Franks on a panel hosted on the Victoria Derbyshire programme to discuss the heavy scrutiny the 37-year-old had been subjected to after her relationship with Prince Harry was officially confirmed.
The trio discussed and compared Meghan's coverage in the media to that of Kate's, who has almost always been portrayed in a positive light. They speculated it might have something to do with the fact that the Duchess of Cambridge was perceived to have a "quiet nature," while Meghan was seen as someone who was "breaking the rules."
While Fashanu tried to bring up the 37-year-old former actress' race and background as possible points of friction, Franks and Joseph concurred the negative coverage was to do with Meghan's more vigorous approach to matters since becoming a royal.
"The reality is that Kate is a very different person," said Joseph. "She's very quiet, she's not trying to change the Royal family, she's not trying to do anything differently, she's like William. She doesn't like the publicity, she doesn't like to be in the public eye."
"She has been in the press, there have been lots of stories about her over time," she continued. "Not so quickly perhaps, but she's not breaking the rules in the same way as Meghan. The reality is people admire Meghan because she's trying to bring the Royal family into the 21st century."
Meghan had caught flak recently after Prince Harry skipped out on the royal family's annual Christmas shoot — a tradition he had followed for 20 years — because she was an avid animal lover and against hunting. The news that she and Harry would be moving out of the Kensington Palace cottage to a new residence in Frogmore Cottage, which is 25 miles away, because they didn't want their firstborn to "grow up in a goldfish bowl" wasn't received too well either.
Then there's also the matters of the constant rumors that suggest there's a rift between herself and Kate, her half-sister Samantha's regular outbursts, and her father's most recent plea that aimed to involve the queen in their family feud, none of which have served to better her reputation.
Tom Bower, the unauthorized biographer of Prince Charles, had his own theory as to why the Duchess of Cambridge was being targeted. "The problem is in my view that she is trying to be Diana," he said. "She's trying to adopt the new role, and the tragedy of the story is it'll end in the same way unless someone steps in from the Palace and says 'look this is the way it's done here.'"