Why Meghan Markle says joining the royal family was nothing like The Princess Diaries

‘Joining this family, I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done,’ Meghan said

Meghan Markle has shared insight into her experience joining the royal family and why it was nothing like what she had seen in the iconic film The Princess Diaries.

In the third episode of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s docuseries, Harry and Meghan, the 41-year-old duchess revealed that there was no formal instruction on how to follow royal protocol after meeting Prince Harry.

Like most Americans, Meghan’s knowledge of royal life was limited to what she had seen in movies. However, the soon-to-be duchess said she was never taught how to curtsy, how to wave, or told what to wear.

“Joining this family, I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done,” Meghan said during the docuseries. “And, do you remember that old movie, Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway?”

The documentary then cut to a clip from the 2001 movie, with Julie Andrews – aka the Queen of Genovia – telling her granddaughter that she’ll teach her how to “walk, talk, sit, stand, eat, dress like a princess.”

In the Disney film, Hathaway plays a quirky American teenager named Mia who discovers she is heir to the throne of a fictional European country, Genovia -- unlike Meghan, an actress from California who met her future husband and third in line to the British throne over Instagram.

Meghan continued: “There’s no class and some person who goes, ‘Sit like this. Cross your legs like this. Use this fork. Don’t do this. Curtsy then. Wear this kind of hat.’ It doesn’t happen. I needed to learn a lot.”

That includes the United Kingdom’s national anthem, which Meghan said she Googled in order to practice.

Anne Hathaway, Heather Matarazzo and Mandy Moore in ‘The Princess Diaries’ in 2001 (Shutterstock)

Meanwhile, Prince Harry maintained that the press “invented protocols” that aren’t actual rules that the royal family follows. Earlier in the episode, Meghan described her first experience on a royal walkabout. Prince Harry explained he didn’t know much about how she should dress for the occasion.

“I never saw pictures or videos of a walkabout,” Meghan said. “Like, what’s a walkabout?”

Harry added, “I could talk her through as much as I knew from my own experience of what I’d seen. The piece I really didn’t know about was the style, how a woman needed to dress and all that.”

Royal protocol was a topic of much conversation through the docuseries, which was released on Thursday, 8 December. In episode two, Meghan recalled meeting the late Queen Elizabeth II for the first time when Prince Harry asked if she knew how to curtsy.

“I just thought it was a joke,” the duchess admitted, as Prince Harry acknowledged the difficulty of explaining royal protocol to an American. “How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American. That’s weird,” he said.

At one point, Meghan then demonstrated a dramatic curtsy and greeting she supposedly offered the Queen, as the camera zoomed in on Prince Harry’s face. However, the moment seemed to have divided fans, with many people calling the scene “uncomfortable” and “disrespectful”.

The next three episodes of Harry and Meghan will be released on Thursday 15 December.

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