Revealed: The Most Controversial Quotes Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton Allegedly Said to Each Other

LONDON — Renewed public attention on the long-strained relationship between Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Catherine, Princess of Wales, has focused once more on a handful of private exchanges detailed in Prince Harry's 2023 memoir Spare and in Meghan's own 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey. Those accounts remain the primary sources for specific words the two women are reported to have directed at each other. No independent corroboration from Kensington Palace or the Princess of Wales has been issued, and the institution has maintained its customary silence on private family matters.

The reported exchanges center on two episodes in 2018: a text conversation about flower-girl dresses days before Harry and Meghan's wedding, and a later discussion involving a comment about postpartum "baby brain." Harry presented them as moments that left lasting marks. Meghan has publicly described the dress incident as a turning point that contributed to her sense that she was not protected by the institution in the same way as her sister-in-law.

According to Spare, Kate texted Meghan about Princess Charlotte's bridesmaid dress shortly before the May 19, 2018, wedding. Harry wrote that Kate said: "Charlotte's dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on at home." Meghan replied that a tailor named Ajay had been standing by at Kensington Palace since 8 a.m. and asked whether Kate could bring Charlotte for alterations "as the other mums are doing." Kate's response, as recounted by Harry, was that all the dresses needed to be remade and that her own wedding dress designer agreed.

When Meghan raised the concurrent crisis involving her father, Thomas Markle, Kate acknowledged awareness of the situation but returned to the dresses and the fact that the wedding was four days away. Meghan's reported reply was: "Yes, Kate, I know." She later texted: "I'm not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn't fit, then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He's been waiting all day." Kate answered with "Fine." Harry wrote that he returned home to find Meghan sobbing on the floor. The following day, according to both Harry's account and Meghan's later description to Winfrey, Kate arrived with flowers and a note of apology.

Meghan addressed the episode directly in the Oprah interview. She rejected the contemporary tabloid narrative that she had made Kate cry, stating that "the reverse happened." She told Winfrey it had been "a really hard week of the wedding" and that Kate "was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologized, and she brought me flowers and a note apologizing." Meghan added that she did not consider it a confrontation and that she had forgiven Kate, while expressing frustration that the incorrect public version of events was never corrected by the palace. She described the episode as the moment "everything changed."

A second reported exchange concerned a phone conversation about wedding rehearsal timing. According to Harry, Meghan remarked that Kate's difficulty remembering a detail was "not a big deal, it's baby brain. Because you'd just had a baby. It's hormones." Months later, during a meeting of the two couples, Kate raised the comment. Harry wrote that Kate said she was owed an apology and, when pressed, stated: "Yes. You talked about my hormones. We're not close enough for you to talk about my hormones!" Meghan, according to the memoir, appeared confused and replied that she was sorry and that such language was how she spoke with friends. The conversation escalated when Prince William intervened; Meghan is reported to have told him to take his finger out of her face. Harry framed the episode as an illustration of cultural and personal friction.

In a subsequent "summit" at Nottingham Cottage after media reports claimed Meghan had reduced Kate to tears, Harry wrote that Kate opened by saying the newspaper stories were false and stated: "I know, Meghan, that I was the one who made you cry." Meghan, according to the account, appreciated the private acknowledgment but asked why no public correction had been issued. Harry described Kate as flustered and William as offering supportive but noncommittal responses.

Additional smaller moments appear in Spare. Harry recalled Meghan asking to borrow Kate's lip gloss backstage at an event; Kate provided it but grimaced as Meghan applied it with her finger. At Meghan's first Trooping the Colour, when Kate asked what she thought of the occasion, Meghan replied "Colourful," followed by what Harry called a yawning silence. These incidents are presented as minor style and cultural clashes rather than heated arguments, yet they are cited as early indicators of differing approaches.

Meghan has also spoken more generally about the public polarity surrounding the two women. In the Oprah interview she said: "If you love me, you don't have to hate her. And if you love her, you don't need to hate me." She has described Kate as "a good person" while maintaining that the media treatment and institutional response differed sharply.
These reported exchanges have never been independently verified by the other parties involved. Biographers and former staff have offered conflicting versions of the dress fitting itself, with some claiming both women were distressed and others aligning more closely with one side or the other. Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace have declined to comment on the specific claims in Spare or the Oprah interview.

As of August 2026, the two women have not appeared together publicly since Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in September 2022. Recent reports of Harry and Meghan's planned extended return to the United Kingdom have prompted fresh discussion of the family dynamic. Sources close to the Prince and Princess of Wales have described continued caution and a focus on their own children's relationships with their cousins, while noting that any broader reconciliation remains subject to the brothers' decisions. King Charles has held private meetings with the Sussexes, but the relationship between the two couples is widely described as distant.

The limited set of attributed remarks continues to shape public understanding of the early years of Meghan's entry into the royal family. They remain, by definition, one-sided accounts drawn from memoir and interview. Whether additional context or different recollections ever emerge is unknown. What is clear is that the reported words, sparse as they are, have outlasted the specific moments that produced them and continue to color perceptions of two women whose lives have been scrutinized in parallel for nearly a decade.