The Duchess of Sussex tried to lighten the mood at her first Trooping the Colour in 2018 but a joke made to her new sister-in-law Kate Middleton went down like a lead balloon, according to her husband, Prince Harry.
In his memoir Spare, the prince, who had only tied the knot with Meghan a few months before the ceremony, wrote that his wife tried to crack a joke with Princess Kate – but was met with a brutal “yawning silence”.
Kate had asked Meghan Markle what she thought of her first official Trooping the Colour – which also marked her first time on the iconic Buckingham Palace balcony – to which she replied: “Colourful”.
Perhaps intended as a short and sweet summation of the day, which celebrated the late queen’s offical birthday, the remark didn’t go down well, with Harry remembering a consequent “yawning silence (that) threatened to swallow us whole”.
Despite simmering tensions behind the scenes, the event – one of Harry and Meghan’s first as a married couple – went down a treat with royal fans. Large crowds lined the streets to watch the procession make its way to Horse Guards Parade and the Duke and Duchess arrived alongside the Duke of Kent in a horse-drawn carriage.
Harry wrote in detail about the highly-publicised fallout between the royal couples in Spare, including revelations from private conversations and claims that Kate and William “stereotyped” Meghan.
He also wrote about a disagreement between Meghan and Kate, when Meghan responded to Kate’s forgetfulness about an aspect of her wedding plans by suggesting she had “baby brain” – something the Princess of Wales reportedly took great offence to.
This year’s Trooping the Colour, celebrating King Charles’ second official birthday as monarch, looked a little different from 2018. Harry and Meghan didn’t make an appearance, for one – and they haven’t since stepping down as working royals back in 2020.
The ceremony in June did, however, mark Princess Kate’s first appearance of the year after revealing her cancer diagnosis in June.
She waved at passersby from the Glass State Coach with her three children, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six, and wowed the crowds with a chic white dress and matching hat.
