Meghan Markle reportedly felt “unprotected” by the way the palace handled “untrue” tabloid stories about her during her pregnancy with her and Prince Harry’s first child.
“The go-to position [at the palace] was no comment or to ignore stories, and people actively prevented her from responding to stuff that we knew to be untrue,” a source close to the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared with People magazine in a piece published Wednesday. (RELATED: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Enjoying New Life: ‘A Weight Has Been Lifted,’ Friend Says)
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“That is what she is taking issue with,” the source added of the information revealed in recent court documents from the former royal couple’s lawsuit against a British media company. (RELATED: Report: Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Plan To Have At Least One More Child)
The former “Suits” actress reportedly also felt, “tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health,” leaving her feeling “unprotected by the institution and prohibited from defending herself” during her pregnancy with son Archie.
A source with knowledge, as to how the palace as an institution, has handled things like this in this past, shared that the plan is to not respond in hopes of deescalating the situation.
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“The palace teams are faced with the difficulty that when things go wrong — particularly on private life matters — quite often any action taken with the media makes it worse,” the insider shared.
“It’s not that the royal household doesn’t want to help — more that they don’t want to make it worse by giving a gossipy story more oxygen,” the source added.
The source close to Markle and Prince Harry shared that this suit is not directed at the royal family, but the institution.
“Some people are making [these documents] about individuals,” the insider explained. “It is about the [institution] as a whole and its practices.”
It all comes following reports the former duchess was suing publishers Associated Newspapers and the Mail on Sunday for publishing excerpts from a “private and confidential” letter from “a daughter to her father,” Markle’s dad Thomas Markle in August 2018, shortly after her and Prince Harry’s wedding.
The lawsuit is expected to go to trial later this year or first part of 2021.