43. Why is Meghan Markle so unpopular in Britain?

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[00:00:00.00] - Oliver (Host)

Welcome back to English and Beyond, the advanced-level podcast for learners of English as a foreign language. There are few people who divide opinion in Britain quite like Meghan Markle.

[00:00:13.14] - César (Guest)

For some, she represents progress, honesty, and the courage to speak out.

[00:00:18.07] - Oliver (Host)

But for others, she's entitled, manipulative, and has done untold damage to the Royal family and offended a nation.

[00:00:27.44] - César (Guest)

And now, just as things have started to go relatively quiet, Meghan's launching another podcast, almost as many as me now, which means the headlines are back, the opinions are flying, and the British public seems ready to have the same debate all over again.

[00:00:45.13] - Oliver (Host)

But what is it really about? Why does she provoke such a strong reaction, particularly here in the UK? Is it her background, her behaviour, her marriage, or is it something deeper?

[00:00:59.29] - César (Guest)

In today's In this episode, Oliver is going to try to unpack some of that as carefully as possible and explore how this one woman became a lightning rod for so many issues.

[00:01:10.23] - Oliver (Host)

Now, I won't cover absolutely everything in this opening monologue. Some parts are better discussed with another person, and César and I will get into those in the second half. So if you want the full picture and a step up in terms of difficulty of listening skill, stick around for our chat. If you need a transcript or want to practise and learn the toughest vocabulary using our flashcards, you can find these resources on www.morethanalanguage.com. Let's go!

[00:01:45.27] - Oliver (Host)

So, let's start with what we know. Meghan Markle was never going to blend seamlessly into the Royal family. She was always going to attract attention. She was not a conventional Royal bride. She was a TV actress. She's mixed race. She'd been once divorced. She was in her mid-30s when they met, and perhaps most crucially of all, she's American. Now, none of those things are shocking in the 21st century in in the real world, at least. But the British Royal family isn't exactly known for its flexibility. It's an institution built on tradition, protocol, and silence, and Meghan came into it with a very different set of expectations.

[00:02:31.22] - Oliver (Host)

She wasn't raised to keep quiet or stay in the background. She's articulate, she's somewhat media savvy, and she's used to speaking up for causes she believes in. That would be admirable in many circles, but within the royal setup, it was never going to go down well. There's a saying about the royal family: Never complain, never explain. That's long been their unofficial motto, and it's one that Meghan clearly did not and does not share.

[00:03:01.59] - Oliver (Host)

Meghan and Harry met in 2016, and there was tension between the new couple and their critics pretty much straight away. Only eight days after the relationship was made public, Harry issued a statement complaining about the treatment of his then-girlfriend by internet trolls and certain sections of the media. Nonetheless, the news of their engagement a year later initially garnered a positive reception from the British public and press, but it was unfortunately not to last. And it's fair to say that Meghan is not popular in the UK. In a YouGov poll conducted in February 2025, only 21% of respondents said that they had a favourable opinion of her, while 68% viewed her unfavourably, giving her a net popularity rating of minus 47. To put that into context, the most popular royal in the same poll was Kate Middleton, with a net rating of positive 59.

[00:04:04.38] - Oliver (Host)

In fact, the only royal less popular than Meghan Markle is a man accused of sexual abuse, linked to a convicted sex trafficker, and rumoured to have ties to foreign spies, Prince Andrew. And the royal just above Meghan in the list? Prince Harry. And that in itself is quite remarkable because Harry often used to top such polls. His fall from popularity in the UK is astonishing, and many people attribute the responsibility for this to Meghan. For my part, I'm not really sure that it's her fault at all. I think the speed with which Harry initially complained about the media's treatment of her, so soon after revealing their relationship, shows that he was already at the end of his tether because of the stresses of his royal role and desperate for a change. His confrontation with the media and critics online was therefore inevitable, in my opinion. Meghan may have been the catalyst, but I think that's all. But let's examine how and why the couple have become so unpopular. And I do mean become, because even Meghan, when she was first introduced as Harry's girlfriend, was received positively by 55% of the British population, with another large chunk totally neutral at the beginning.

[00:05:26.13] - Oliver (Host)

Harry once represented a very specific kind of British masculinity, rebellious but likeable, emotionally closed off but basically decent, with just enough scandal to make him relatable, basically regarded as one of the lads, however you want to interpret that. He went to war, he drank too much. He did some incredibly stupid and inappropriate things, but people forgave him for it all. Not because they admired the behaviour necessarily, but because of the idea that he never pretended to be something other than who he was. He seemed to many Brits to be a bit of a likeable idiot, to be honest, but had, ironically, seemed very authentic to his real personality. Then came Meghan, and with her arrival, there was a total shift in tone, in language, and in public positioning. Suddenly, Harry was talking about trauma, therapy, emotional wounds, unconscious bias, and even systemic inequality. And many people in Britain simply didn't buy it, or rather, they didn't buy him in that role. We had this extraordinarily privileged prince, a man who had infamously who had previously cheated during his final exams at his now £63,000-a-year school, and who had worn a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party, now telling the country that they needed to examine their privilege more.

[00:07:00.08] - Oliver (Host)

And so people resented this sudden transformation. But to his newfound critics, to the people who used to be fans and had lost all their love for the Prince, Harry hadn't evolved. He had been brainwashed, he had been converted, and Meghan, in their eyes, was the missionary. But for reasons I'll discuss, I don't think that's fair. I think it's quite a common pattern, no, a familiar story, that if a man changes and behaves in a way people don't like, a woman is often seen to be to blame. She's the manipulator, the mastermind, the corrupting force. From Lady Macbeth to Yoko Ono, from Hillary Clinton to Meghan Markle, we've seen it before: powerful women cast as the ones who ruined their men, when in reality, those men made their own choices. But that said, I'm not saying that Meghan's unpopularity in the UK is totally surprising to me, or that it only exists because of Harry, or that people dislike her because she's a woman. But I think that the change in Harry, matched with Meghan's own character traits, means that a lot of the negative attention around Meghan, fixates on the idea that she is hypocritical and manipulative.

[00:08:19.43] - Oliver (Host)

I think most countries, most people, have a strong dislike for people who say one thing and do another. And Harry and Meghan's critics would to you that the couple's brand of progressive politics is exactly that: insincere, curated, and inconsistent. To their critics, the couple are walking contradictions. They talk about mental health, but allegedly freeze out family members and bully staff. They highlight the need for authenticity, but then they film lifestyle content in someone else's house. They advocate for the environment, but they fly in private jets. They demand privacy, but sign huge multimedia deals. They speak out against injustice, but then they appear to monetize their pain. It's a long list, and it's one that gets repeated often. But to their defenders, these contradictions are not hypocrisy, they're just what modern public life looks like now. In a world where public figures are expected to be transparent, consistent, polished, vulnerable, and marketable all at once, nobody survives without contradiction. Yes, the production is slick. Yes, the branding is intentional. But in today's media landscape, that's survival, not manipulation. And if Meghan and Harry sometimes get it wrong, they're in good company. Most people do. Most people, if you look hard enough, can be exposed as hypocrites.

[00:09:53.35] - Oliver (Host)

I suppose that a key difference is that they've chosen to narrate their own story, and in doing so, they've refused to play the role that the public, and the press especially, had already assigned them. That makes them harder to pin down, harder to control, and much easier to criticise. And yes, they've made mistakes, but they've also spoken honestly about things that most royals wouldn't touch: mental health, racism, grief, isolation, and the emotional cost of public life. That takes nerve, especially when you know that the world is waiting to pull you apart for it. So maybe the question isn't whether they are perfect. Clearly, they are not. Maybe it's whether we'd ever accept anyone in their position who tried to do things differently.

[00:10:45.20] - Oliver (Host)

And I think there's also a geopolitical edge to all this that is often ignored when we talk about Meghan and Harry. Meghan's American identity isn't just a cultural footnote. It's actually pretty important, I think, if we're discussing reasons for her lack of popularity. A lot of Brits and other Europeans see the US as a country that exports not just entertainment and tech, but ideology, particularly recently around race, gender, identity, and power.

[00:11:16.09] - Oliver (Host)

And when those ideas arrive in Europe and the UK, I think some people feel like they're being transposed to Europe rather than adapted for the cultural context of those different countries. The nature of the internet is such that it makes everything international, and so all countries and their citizens end up being judged by the moral standards of the US. I think the people who dislike Meghan now partially dislike her because they associate her with the cultural influence of the USA. When Meghan and Harry sat down with Oprah in 2021 and accused an unnamed royal of making racist remarks, it wasn't just the content of the interview that bothered people in the UK. It was the way that they did it. It was glossy, it was American, it was carefully staged. And to many Britons, it felt like a public shaming, not just of the royal family and its individual members, but of Britain itself. There were no names, no outright accusations, but the implications were clear that the institution, and perhaps even the country, was cold, racist, uncaring, and that Harry's own family had failed him and his wife in their hour of need. They spoke about pain and trauma with emotional clarity.

[00:12:37.13] - Oliver (Host)

And remember, this wasn't some niche podcast or minor magazine or something like that. This was Oprah, the biggest platform in American media, perhaps the world. For millions of viewers, Meghan and Harry weren't just telling their stories; they were seen as casting judgement on Britain, and for many British people, misrepresenting the country and explicitly doing so in a way designed to make their American audience feel sympathetically towards them. For some Britons, it felt like they were throwing his country and their family under the bus in front of the whole world. Of course, one of the most important issues of that interview was about racism, and of course, racism exists in Britain. I think virtually everyone would agree on that, and I think that most British people would have to accept that at least some of the negative reaction that Harry and Megan have received is due to her being mixed race. But the reasons that she's become so unpopular are much more complex than that. The issues Meghan and Harry have raised, mental health, unconscious bias, press intrusion, institutional power, are all part of a wider progressive vocabulary that's becoming incredibly polarising in the West. These are the topics that dominate the so-called culture war: race, gender, privilege, power, trauma, identity.

[00:14:05.01] - Oliver (Host)

And whether or not their intentions were sincere, Harry and Meghan have found themselves on one side of that war, the side that many people associate with cancel culture, with victimhood politics, with change that feels rapid, moralising, and in some cases, imported. So it's not just that people don't like them, it's that to their critics, they embody a version of society  that feels like it's being forced on them. They feel like it's a world where tradition is suspect, where emotion trumps hard evidence, and where the rules keep changing. In a way, the reaction to Harry and Megan mirrors what we've seen with other high-profile progressives, people who speak the language of social justice, but do so from extremely privileged platforms. And that's where the backlash begins, not necessarily at the message, but at the messenger.

[00:15:01.51] - Oliver (Host)

So, César, I think the first question has to be, do you like Megan Markle?

[00:15:07.34] - César (Guest)

You know what? I didn't have strong, like, opinions about her. I did listen to some of the episodes of her podcast on Spotify, and I thought she was intelligent, very well-spoken.

[00:15:19.46] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, I think, she is, she's articulate.

[00:15:21.40] - César (Guest)

She reminds me a bit of Gwyneth Paltrow.

[00:15:26.19] - Oliver (Host)

Gwyneth Paltrow. They're competitors now.

[00:15:28.25] - César (Guest)

Yeah, they are.

[00:15:29.55] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah.

[00:15:31.34] - César (Guest)

I guess it's very difficult to relate to people who's got a lifestyle business where you sell products that are very, not affordable to most people.

[00:15:42.53] - Oliver (Host)

Like a jar of honey for $25.

[00:15:45.40] - César (Guest)

Exactly, things like that. But I think there are elements of racism, classism, gender.

[00:15:53.54] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. But actually it's-

[00:15:55.49] - César (Guest)

Different cultures.

[00:15:56.10] - Oliver (Host)

It's funny because I think that you just picked up on... There's so many examples on the internet, so many clips from her shows, from her documentaries and things like that, which I think actually cut the essence of why people don't like her, because you mentioned about the very expensive things that she sells. One of those things is actually honey. And the reason I know this is because I saw a clip taking the mick out of her where she has, they… I don't know what the verb would be, but they cultivate honey, they have bees, she and Harry. And so she was talking about this artisanal honey that they create, that she put so much effort into it. And in the middle of the documentary, she's like, "I don't actually even like honey", or "I never used to like honey." And lots of people in the comments were like, "Why are you doing it then? Why are you keeping bees?" And I think that that cuts to why people dislike her. Because it feels, a lot of the things about her, I think, feel performative for people.

[00:17:01.31] - César (Guest)

I guess she's like a Hollywood star, and she thought she could bring that culture over, across the pond.

[00:17:12.16] - Oliver (Host)

To the UK.

[00:17:12.49] - César (Guest)

To the UK and to the British Royal family, and it's like very different worlds.

[00:17:19.36] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, I think part of the problem as well is that that old-fashioned Hollywood glamour, like Grace Kelly, who I think was the Princess of Monaco, which is why I think some people are hoping that Megan Markle would be like, that she would bring that Hollywood glamour - I feel like that glamour exists in a different world, before Instagram, before the internet, before 24-hour news, where we didn't know that much about celebrities. And so the problem, I think, partially with Meghan and joining the Royal family is that they are such different worlds where everything that you see about Meghan and Harry now, now that they are free from the confines of the royal family, it's all about sharing their feelings, talking about their mental health. The absolute opposite of what the royal family represents itself to be, which is this, kind of, constant, uncomplaining, unemotional institution that doesn't really... They're not supposed to feel anything themselves.

[00:18:24.41] - César (Guest)

Politically neutral.

[00:18:25.52] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. They're just supposed to be there for us to project our, our feelings onto and our feelings of patriotism and everything like that. And she pulled the rug out from under the Royal family, but also, to mix my metaphors, she pulled the wool from everybody's eyes. So she and Harry revealed so much of the dysfunction that we obviously knew was happening - we knew from the Diana scandals, the other scandals from Charles and his siblings - we knew it was happening, but now I think part of the reason that people found it so disappointing is because Harry and William seemed to be such close brothers, they seemed to be so well adjusted despite the terrible things that they had gone through as children. And it turns out not to be the case. And somehow people have blamed Meghan, I think, for that.

[00:19:17.41] - César (Guest)

Yeah, that's quite unfair. I think the problem is I see the monarchy, the royal families across Europe as companies. And if you start working for a company, you have to adapt to the culture. You cannot pretend that the company is going to change for you. I guess if someone can change the culture, it's probably the king, the current king and queen, or the whole family as a whole. But you cannot pretend, being the last one, coming in, trying to change everything. I don't think her intentions were bad. But it obviously didn't work out, and...

[00:19:54.17] - Oliver (Host)

I don't think she really had any intentions when she started. I don't think that she had thought that deeply about it. I think genuinely that because she was American, she didn't know what it would be like. And I remember actually my mum saying when she first got introduced to the nation, that she thought this would end in tears because Meghan was so American, which means that I think she thought it would be like a fairy tale, whereas I think any British person knows that-

[00:20:27.52] - César (Guest)

It's the opposite.

[00:20:28.29] - Oliver (Host)

It's awful being in the royal family, which is why I think when they did The Crown and they had Kate Middleton's character and everything in it, you had her mother, like Machiavelli, in the background planning it because no one else could ever want to marry into the royal family except someone who regarded it as kind of a career step. Whereas I thought that Meghan thought it would be kind of like, she'd have people take care of all of the glamorous aspects of it, she'd go and meet people and shake their hand and smile, and it would be a really nice, relaxing, high-quality life full of, you know, luxurious houses and things like that, instead of the draughty, cold, run-down castles that I think they actually have.

[00:21:21.00] - Oliver (Host)

So why do you think Meghan is so polarising then?

[00:21:27.35] - César (Guest)

Well, I think as you put into the words very wisely in your monologue, she represents... You know, there's a cultural war.

[00:21:36.58] - Oliver (Host)

A culture war, we tend to say.

[00:21:38.38] - César (Guest)

Cultural war.

[00:21:39.25] - Oliver (Host)

Culture.

[00:21:40.09] - César (Guest)

Culture war. And she represents what many people hate, talking about diversity, talking about mental health. You got people like her, and you got also people who prefer old values and things like that. So I think she's polarising because she talks about topics that polarise people. And I don't think that's necessarily bad. I do that on my podcast, and I get a lot of hate on YouTube, especially when I talk about those topics. In the same way, I think she has to accept that. If you talk about those topics, you might get backlash, and you might get people saying that you are wrong or whatever.

[00:22:23.30] - Oliver (Host)

I mean, I guess a little bit like you as well, you get backlash, not just if you say the wrong thing, but you also get backlash if you don't say anything at all. So whatever she would do, she might get criticised.

[00:22:34.45] - César (Guest)

And by the way, while I was listening to your monologue, I was thinking of Letizia, our current queen, when she was presented to the public. She was a commoner. I mean, she was famous as well. She was the newsreader in the public.

[00:22:50.51] - Oliver (Host)

I guess I knew that actually, but I'd forgotten. So it's similar as well, in the media.

[00:22:56.33] - César (Guest)

Yeah, in the media. She was famous enough in Spain. But many people were like, "Are we going to get a commoner as a queen in Spain?" It was the first time that was happening in Spain. So many people - she was a victim of classism and I think that actually you had the same thing with Kate Middleton as well, where she was also a commoner, not blue-blooded, or not blue-blooded enough, at least. And I'm not sure that that was such a big thing in the UK, the fact that she was a commoner, although I think the people found her interesting. But she definitely... It's funny because she's so popular now. As we said, she's the number one most popular royal, according to that latest poll. But she was certainly not respected in the way that she is now. And I think that in a way, it shows how British people interact with their royals because Kate, I think, won a lot of respect because the newspapers were humiliating her. They were laughing at her. They were calling her Waity Katie because she wasn't getting proposed to, and everyone was laughing about the fact that William wasn't really sure, and he was stringing her along and everything like that. They laughed at her about that, and then she never complained. She never talked about it. I don't recall her ever giving any interviews. She just got on with it and just did it. I think that people like that about the royals, that idea that they don't complain and don't explain. I think that's why the Queen was loved so much, because she just got on with things. And terrible as it sounds, I think things like when the royals go through terrible problems, like Kate with her cancer diagnosis, and don't talk about it, somehow it makes people like them more because it makes them stoic. And it allows the real family to be this blank space that we project so much onto them. I think part of the trouble for Harry and Meghan is that they are so modern in probably the most old-fashioned institution in the UK, so -

[00:25:17.01] - César (Guest)

They stand out for sure.

[00:25:18.02] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. Not only are they not stoic, but they're incredibly in touch with their feelings.

[00:25:23.00] - César (Guest)

But do you think that stoicism or those stoic figures represent the British society? Which is a projection that people look up to them as?

[00:25:34.37] - Oliver (Host)

I think it's an aspiration, isn't it? I think that that is the one way in which the royals really can be aspirational, because I've talked about before the way that they're not more intelligent or more talented or more successful or better-looking or anything than the average Britain, I would say. But they are, you know they can, with their personality, show that they can be stoic and aspirational for the average person. And I think that the national stereotype of the stiff upper lip, I think, is still an important part of the national self-identity in Britain. It might be a complete myth, but I think that people want it to be true, and the royal family needs to represent that. I think that's part of what Meghan "did wrong", in inverted commas. She was so American, and she was so LA, and so in touch with her feelings, and talked so much about her feelings. I'm sure it must have been absolutely… I'm sure it was dreadful for her, to be honest. But I think that she was the wrong woman for the job. And I think, sadly, it basically is a job, marrying into the royal family.

[00:26:48.07] - César (Guest)

At the end of the day, Meghan is like, counting dollars.

[00:26:51.52] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. Well, is she?

[00:26:53.28] - César (Guest)

With all the hate.

[00:26:54.33] - Oliver (Host)

Is she? Let's hope that she is. Let's hope that the new podcast will be an economic boom for Meghan.

[00:27:01.26] - César (Guest)

We can produce your next podcast, Meghan.

[00:27:03.40] - Oliver (Host)

I think if she falls to that level, then we really can feel sorry for her. But anyway, thank you, César, as always. Thank you, Oliver. Please subscribe. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

[00:27:19.24] - César (Guest)

Bye.