Former Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle was given her nicknames by the royal staff, not the press.

Markle was nicknamed “Duchess of Difficult” and “Me-Gain” by staff, royal expert and author Tom Quinn told Fox News in an interview published Wednesday.

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Yesterday, The Duchess of Sussex, Royal patron of the National Theatre, visited the Immersive Storytelling Studio in London, where emerging technology like Virtual Reality is being used to develop new forms of emotive storytelling. Recently, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also visited Stanford University where part of their learning journey included a virtual reality presentation that allows the user to experience life through another person’s point of view. The goal of this method of virtual reality is to enable us to better connect and empathise with each other as people, regardless of race, age or nationality. The Duchess is pictured here with Nubiya Brandon and her hologram, featured in the National’s exhibition ‘All Kinds of Limbo’, which is currently being presented at the Tate Modern. Photo © The Duke and Duchess of Sussex / Chris Allerton

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Mar 6, 2020 at 7:31am PST

“The nicknames, they’re inevitable,” Quinn told Fox News. “The British press are famously good at taking someone and building them up and saying they’re absolutely wonderful. And then when that story runs out of steam, they need something else. So they then come up with the opposite. They run that person down… The nicknames were picked up by the press and used against Meghan. They did, in fact, come from the palace.” (RELATED: Meghan Markle’s Nickname During Her Time On Suits Has Reportedly Been Revealed)

The staff reportedly felt that Markle was “demanding” and the Duchess was described as “spiky and feisty.”

“It was felt that she was demanding,” Quinn explained. “I think Meghan felt, ‘I’ve got to really do this. I’ve got to show them that I mean business.’ … I think there’s some truth in it, in the problem being that she’s so different. And so that inevitably made it more difficult from the outset for her to be accepted fully as part of the royal family. And the press is very powerful in Britain.”