Meghan Markle isn’t just a victim or a villain—she’s a masterclass in psychological warfare. One minute she’s crying about privacy, the next she’s signing a $100 million Netflix deal to tell the whole world her side. You can’t have it both ways, Duchess.
You ever watch someone walk into a room and immediately feel the temperature change—not because they’re warm, but because they’re *watching*?
That’s the thing about Meghan Markle. Love her or hate her, you cannot look away. And that’s not an accident.
I started this deep dive neutral. Didn’t love her. Didn’t hate her. But when I asked my Instagram followers who to break down, you screamed her name. Because something about this woman makes people lose their minds. The comments under any post about her are a war zone. The headlines are either hagiography or hate crimes dressed as journalism. And the truth—the actual, boring, complicated human truth—is buried somewhere under **$120 million** worth of Netflix deals, Spotify podcasts, and memoir advances.
So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to show you how to stop asking “victim or villain?” and start asking the question that might actually save you from the Meghan in your own life: *Who benefits from this story?*
Because Meghan Markle is not a fairy tale princess who got bullied by a castle full of mean girls. She’s also not a master manipulator who hypnotized a prince and stole him from his family. She’s a person. And persons are messy. But if you want to understand her—and more importantly, if you want to understand the people in your life who leave a trail of estranged family members and former best friends—you need to stop picking a side and start plotting data points.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
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Los Angeles, 1980s. A girl named Meghan grows up as an only child. Her father, Thomas Markle, is a Hollywood lighting director. Her mother, Doria, works as a yoga instructor and social worker. The parents divorce when Meghan is little. She’s primarily raised by Doria, but she stays close with her father—until she doesn’t.
By most accounts, young Meghan is bright, ambitious, and drawn to the spotlight. She writes to Procter & Gamble about a sexist dish soap commercial when she’s a pre-teen. She gets a response. They change the ad. That’s not nothing. That’s a kid who understood, early, that words have power and that she could *use* them.
She becomes an actress. And look, let’s just say it: if you become an actress, part of you wants fame. That doesn’t make you a criminal. But it also means you probably don’t want to live as a recluse in the Scottish Highlands with no cell service. No one wants to say that out loud because it sounds like blaming the victim. But it’s relevant. It’s a data point.
Here’s another data point. Her childhood best friend, Ninaki Priddy, knew Meghan for decades. Stood by her through her first marriage. Then they stopped speaking. And Priddy went on the record saying this: *“All I can say now is that I think Meghan was calculated, very calculated in the way that she handled people and relationships. Once she decides you’re not part of her life, she can be very cold. It’s this shutdown mechanism she has.”*
Priddy also said there’s a Meghan before fame and a Meghan after fame. And she was mourning the loss of her best friend.
Now, you could look at that and say, “Jealous friend. Hater. Throw it out.” But what I’m asking you to do is something harder. I’m asking you to hold it next to everything else. Because people can lie. People can have grudges. But patterns don’t lie. And the pattern that’s about to emerge is family estrangement—not just from her father, not just from her half-sister, but from Harry’s entire family too.
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Let’s talk about Thomas Markle.
By 2018, Meghan is engaged to Prince Harry. The world is watching. And her father starts selling photos to the paparazzi. He leaks information to the tabloids for money. Regardless of what you think of Meghan, that is a betrayal. If your own parent is your number one hater, selling your secrets to the press, you have the right to cut contact.
Meghan’s mother comes to the wedding. Her father does not.
She says on Oprah that they tried to repair things, but she couldn’t trust him anymore. She grieves him like a death. Since 2018, there have been no visits, no calls. Her father has repeatedly spoken to the press. She has not responded.
Fair enough.
Then there’s the half-sister, Samantha. She’s out there calling Meghan every name in the book. Meghan’s response? *“I don’t know her. We’re not close. She doesn’t know me.”* Honestly, if a relative I barely knew was trashing me on TV, I’d say the same thing.
So maybe Meghan estranged herself for self-protection. That’s one data point.
But here’s where it gets sticky. Because she’s not the only one cutting people off. Now Harry—who was once close with his brother, who was the fun-loving, rebellious, emotionally open prince—has also estranged himself from his entire family. And his estrangement did not start before Meghan. It started *after*.
So the question becomes: did Meghan empower him to leave a toxic institution? Or did she isolate him as a control tactic?
Both things could be true. And that’s the part the internet refuses to accept.
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I worked as a behavioral specialist right after college. Bachelor’s in psych, master’s in psych. Eight years coaching women. And one thing I learned working with severely emotionally disturbed kids is that family estrangement is never simple. It is biologically wired into us to love our parents. When a kid cuts off a parent, that kid has been through something brutal. The parent can stand there at the bar, mumbling about how their child is awful, but no kid *wants* to do this. It hurts. It is hard.
Harry didn’t wake up one day and decide his family was toxic. He didn’t see the patterns on his own. He says it himself: *“Meghan saved me. I was trapped, but I didn’t know I was trapped.”*
That could be a love story. Or it could be a red flag the size of a palace.
Because here’s what psychology knows for sure. Isolation is one of the earliest signs of manipulation and control in a relationship. That’s a fact. But self-preservation can also look ruthless from the outside. That’s also a fact. So how do we figure out which one this is?
We look at who Harry was before.
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Before Meghan, Harry was known as the wild one. He partied. He was fiery. He was close with William. He had friends. He had a life.
After Meghan, people who’ve known him since childhood say they don’t recognize him. Royal biographer Tina Brown put it this way: *“He’s so emotionally needy that he’s been completely and utterly taken over by Meghan. His whole personality has changed. They seem to be in a powerful codependency.”*
Brown points to the trauma of losing his mother at an impressionable age. Diana died when Harry was twelve. That wound never healed. And Meghan—whether intentionally or not—fits perfectly into that wound. She’s also pursued by the media. She’s also attacked by the tabloids. She’s also a woman the establishment doesn’t know what to do with.
Harry says he’s protecting Meghan the way he couldn’t protect his mother.
That’s beautiful. And it’s also a leash.
Because once you believe your partner is Diana 2.0, once you believe the entire world is out to get her, once you adopt an *us against the world* mentality—you stop listening to anyone else. You stop questioning her. You stop wondering if maybe, just maybe, some of the criticism is valid.
You become an echo chamber of two.
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Listen to their interviews. I dare you. You will never unhear the *us versus them* language. It’s in everything they say. It’s in the black-and-white photos on her Instagram—their backs turned to the camera, faces hidden, the caption always implying that the world is cruel and they are the only ones who understand each other.
That’s not inherently bad. Couples should be a team. But when a relationship becomes your entire reality—when you have no outside friends, no dissenting voices, no one who can say *“Hey, have you considered it differently?”*—that’s not a partnership. That’s a cult of two.
Meghan’s estranged sister said exactly that: they isolate themselves in their own world. Even if you have a healthy relationship, that isn’t healthy. You need to be challenged. You need other minds, other sources of information. I love my partner more than anyone. But I need friends who don’t always agree with me. I need to go out and have my own life. And I encourage him to do the same.
Harry doesn’t have that anymore. He has Meghan. And Meghan has him. And the feedback loop is so tight that neither of them can hear anything else.
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Now, before you come for me in the comments, let me say this clearly: the royal family is not innocent.
They have covered up scandals for centuries. Prince Andrew settled a lawsuit for **£12 million** (approximately $15 million USD) after being accused of raping a minor. He didn’t admit guilt, but he paid. And where was the public outrage? Where were the front pages? Meanwhile, Meghan got crucified for holding her baby bump.
Let me show you what I mean.
Headline about Kate Middleton: *“Pregnant Kate tenderly cradles her baby bump while wrapping up royal duties.”*
Headline about Meghan Markle: *“Why can’t Meghan Markle keep her hands off her bump? Experts tackle the question that has got the nation talking—pride, vanity, acting, or a new age bonding technique?”*
Same tabloid. Same action. Totally different framing.
Or the avocado thing. The *Express* ran a story about Kate: *“Kate’s morning sickness cure—Prince William gifted an avocado to pregnant duchess.”* Then they ran a story about Meghan: *“Meghan Markle’s beloved avocado linked to human rights abuse, drought, and millennial shame.”*
The flowers at the wedding. Kate’s bouquet: *“Homegrown, follows royal code.”* Meghan’s flowers: *“How Meghan Markle’s flowers may have put Princess Charlotte’s life at risk.”*
Do you see it? The bias is not subtle. And that’s before we even get to the racism—the conversations about how dark Archie’s skin might be, the way the British press treated the first woman of color to marry into the top echelons of the monarchy.
Meghan said on Oprah that she didn’t want to be alive anymore. Postpartum depression. Suicidal ideation. And the royal family’s response? The institution’s response? Basically: *“We don’t know what that is. Rub some dirt in it.”*
That is real. That is harm. That is victimization.
So yes, Meghan was a victim. Absolutely.
But here’s where the story turns.
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Once Meghan and Harry left the palace, they didn’t disappear into private life. They signed a **$100 million USD** deal with Netflix. They signed a **$20-30 million USD** deal with Spotify (which later fell through after one season). Harry’s memoir, *Spare*, reportedly had a **$20 million USD** advance. Total reported deals: around **$120-150 million USD**.
Their fortune is built on the story they say they wanted to keep private.
And that’s the contradiction that drives people crazy. Because you cannot stand on a global stage, weeping about how the media won’t leave you alone, and then sign a nine-figure deal to produce more content about your life. You cannot say *“we want privacy”* while your documentary is the number one show on Netflix.
*South Park* did an episode about this. They called them the Prince and Princess of Canada, on a worldwide *privacy tour*, shouting *“We want privacy!”* while everyone else is just trying to live their lives. It was satire. It was also accurate.
Harry keeps saying they need security—that it’s his birthright, that the royal family should pay for it. And maybe that’s true. But here’s the thing about leverage: the palace has it. They used it. They said, “You want to leave? Fine. You want to be financially independent? Fine. But we’re not paying for your security.” That’s not nice. But it’s not mysterious either. It’s a war. And Harry is shocked, *shocked*, that the other side is fighting back.
You can’t declare independence and then demand the crown still fund your lifestyle.
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Then there’s the interview Meghan did recently with Jamie Kern Lima. I watched it so you don’t have to.
It is, without exaggeration, the most out-of-touch piece of media I have ever seen. They mention the rocking chair approximately fifty times. They explain over and over that Meghan isn’t wearing makeup—even though Jamie clearly has makeup on, and Meghan’s upper forehead doesn’t move, and she’s wearing eyelash extensions. They talk about being authentic while staging a fake “casual” conversation in a house that isn’t even her real home. They put peanut butter pretzels from a big bag into smaller bags and hand them out like they’re doing something profound.
It is performance art about authenticity. And it is painful to watch.
Here’s the thing. If you want to control your narrative, fine. Everyone with a public platform does it. But don’t sit there and tell us you’re above the game while you’re playing it harder than anyone. Don’t build a brand on being a victim while cashing $100 million checks. Don’t accuse the palace of manipulation while running your own PR machine.
Meghan is not stupid. She knows what she’s doing. The question is whether *we* know what she’s doing.
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So let’s answer the question. Victim or villain?
Neither. And both.
Meghan Markle has been genuinely wronged. The media treated her with blatant racism and misogyny. The royal family failed to protect her. She experienced suicidal depression and was told to handle it herself. Those are facts.
But she has also positioned herself as the heroine of a story that requires her to be perpetually wronged. She has benefited enormously from that positioning. She has isolated her husband from everyone who might offer a different perspective. She has created an echo chamber where only her voice—and his echoing agreement—is allowed.
That doesn’t make her a mastermind with a corkboard and red string. But it does make her a person who has learned that control is safety. And that lesson came from somewhere.
Her childhood. Her fractured family. Her father’s betrayal. Her first marriage. The relentless, racist, misogynist press. At some point, Meghan learned that the world will hurt you if you let it. So she stopped letting it. She built walls. She controlled the narrative. She cut people off before they could cut her.
That’s not evil. That’s survival.
But survival mechanisms—when they go unexamined—become cages. And the people inside those cages don’t always know they’re trapped.
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Here’s what this deep dive taught me, and what I want you to take away.
The internet wants you to pick a side. Black or white. Victim or villain. Saint or monster. That’s easier. That’s more satisfying. And research shows that people with lower cognitive complexity—people who struggle to hold two opposing truths at once—are actually *happier* than the rest of us. The blue pill feels better.
But the red pill is true.
And the truth is that Meghan Markle is a survivor *and* a strategist. She has been powerless *and* she has wielded immense power. She has been hurt *and* she has hurt others. She loves Harry *and* she may be controlling him. The royal family is toxic *and* Meghan is difficult.
Two things can be true. Most things are.
So when you encounter someone in your own life who leaves a trail of estranged relationships—who has a “crazy” ex, a “toxic” family, a “jealous” former best friend—don’t just believe their version. Don’t just believe the other side’s version either. Plot the data points. Look for patterns. Ask yourself: *Who benefits from this story?*
Because the answer to that question is almost always the same.
The person telling it.
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I don’t know if Meghan is a victim or a mastermind. Neither does anyone else who wasn’t in that palace, in that family, in that marriage. But I do know this: she is a human being who learned, somewhere along the way, that the only safe way to love is to control the story.
And that’s not a fairy tale. That’s a tragedy.
What do you think? Drop it in the comments. And if you want to go deeper—if you want to learn how to spot the Meghan in your own life before she becomes your problem—stick around. We’re just getting started.
