By Molly Claire Goddard
8:39am PST, Nov 3, 2025
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During a 2022
interview with
Hoda Kotb on
Today, which happened before Queen Elizabeth II's passing,
Prince Harry said he was committed to ensuring his grandmother was "protected." The
Spare author claimed he made sure "the right people around her" while visiting the matriarch with
Meghan Markle for a private tea. Harry also alleged he and Elizabeth, who died in September 2022, shared secrets that he would never tell "anybody else."
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According to royal expert
Tom Bower,
Prince Harry's comments about Queen Elizabeth II did not sit well with The Firm. "
King Charles III,
Princess Anne,
Prince William and all the Queen's staff, implied Harry, were inadequate for the task. He appeared to speak from the heart. It seemed Harry had resumed the war against his family. The 'olive branch' media headline about his visit to Windsor splintered," the reporter wrote in his book
, Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors. "Predictably, Harry's assertion of his special status aroused accusations about his 'breathtaking arrogance' with 'no bounds to his self-delusion.' Responding to the public fury, Downing Street even issued a statement that the Queen was well-protected."
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Queen Elizabeth II was allegedly not happy with
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's exit from royal life in 2020. According to a
source, while hosting a cocktail reception at Balmoral in August 2022, Elizabeth called the
Suits actress "
evil" for taking her grandson away from his family. "It was out of character for the [late] Queen to use such a word as 'evil' to describe Meghan, but she saw straight through her. It was a startling sentence to hear from the most forgiving woman on earth," the source claimed. "At the drinks before the dinner, a small group was talking to the monarch and she explained that Harry meeting Meghan had become a complete catastrophe and described her as evil. By this point, we all knew the Queen's health was in decline and she had months left. She seemed regretful about how things had panned out."
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For their part, Meghan Markle and
Prince Harry have only spoken highly of Queen Elizabeth II. "The Queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me. We had one of our first joint engagements together," the mother of two told
Oprah Winfrey in a 2021 interview. "She asked me to join her. We had breakfast together that morning and she'd given me a beautiful gift and I just really loved being in her company. She gave me beautiful pearl earrings and a matching necklace. And we were in the car going between engagements and she has a blanket that sits across her knees for warmth. And it was chilly and she was like, 'Meghan, come on' and put it over my knees as well. It made me think of my grandmother, where she's always been warm and inviting and really welcoming."
