Meghan Markle seemingly never figured out the difference between being a celebrity and being a royal.
The Duchess of Sussex was an American actress before meeting and marrying Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex.
Fox News royal contributor Duncan Larcombe noted that it's unclear if Harry gave Markle a good idea of the expectations that would be placed on her after she married into the royal family.
"I feel desperately sorry for Meghan," Larcombe told Fox News Digital. "Harry clearly never really wanted to admit to her what was actually going to be involved with the royal family. I covered William and Kate's relationship almost from the start. And for the first seven years of their relationship, if you rang the palace to ask something about Kate Middleton, they would say we don't talk about her when she's a private individual."
QUEEN ELIZABETH THE PEACEMAKER: MONARCH URGED MEGHAN, HARRY TO REUNITE WITH DAD THOMAS MARKLE
"But she had years to adjust to the attention, and I think Meghan basically didn't ever get straight in her mind the difference between being on the red carpet as a celebrity and the red carpet as a royal, and she just didn't understand the incredibly important distinction. I don't know that she was guided, and I don't think the royal family really knew what they've got when Meghan showed up."
Larcombe explained that Markle's struggle to adjust to being a royal family member instead of a celebrity had similarities to the late Princess Diana's own struggles.
"I've seen it, and we saw it all the way back from Diana. We've seen it time and time again with people that marry into the royal family," he noted.
The most important difference between being a celebrity on the red carpet and a royal on the red carpet is a sense of "duty," according to the royal expert.
"As a royal on the red carpet, especially as a working royal who is directly representing the king — or in Harry and Meghan's case, obviously, the queen. When you’re in a movie premiere, it’s because you're in the film, or you're a Hollywood actor, or you're a celebrity on the red carpet. It's about you, that’s your image, it's about what you get," Larcombe said. "When you’re on the red carpet as a royal, it's about the people you're coming to meet, you’re doing it out of duty."
PRINCE HARRY ‘HAS A PENCHANT FOR WANTING HIS CAKE AND EATING IT, TOO,' ROYAL EXPERT CLAIMS
Markle's journey as a working royal didn't last long. She married Prince Harry in 2018, and by 2020, the couple had stepped back from their roles as senior royals to embark on their own path to financial independence.
Since then, Markle has written a book, "The Bench," and released a Spotify podcast titled "Archetypes."
"If you look at the commercialization Meghan has embarked on, yes, she's done very well. She's absolutely up there now, almost with Beyoncé … certainly in her own mind. She's achieved that. No one's got a problem with that," Larcombe said. "But the reality is, she's made a lot of enemies out of people that just feel second, to see Meghan as part of her new commercial brand, to be portraying herself as the victim when they themselves feel like they were treated unfairly by her."
Markle and Harry's departure from the royal family caused a stir and eventually led to the royal rift between the couple and the rest of the working royals.
The bombshell interview the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021 seemingly left the royals wondering when the next drama would drop. Most recently, the palace allegedly became concerned after Markle claimed she uncovered a diary she kept while living at Frogmore Cottage.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
"I think the royal family would take a ticking time bomb because I think she's more like a minefield that keeps going off," Larcombe said. "If it's not one thing, it's another. It creates this sort of frenzy around Meghan because she's got a kind of ‘love her or loathe her’ character. Others might say she's such a divisive character."
"And we only have to look at her family. You know, she doesn't speak to her father, and her sister seems to absolutely loathe her. I think that Meghan's a divisive figure."
As Markle and Prince Harry jump back into their daily lives in California following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, all eyes will be on the duchess' next move, according to Larcombe.
"That is the question that people that are interested in the royal family are asking themselves in Britain right now," he told Fox News Digital. "She's got more Spotify stuff coming out. Is she going to address the fact that even some of Harry's old friends have publicly accused Meghan of faking her own grief at the queen's funeral? That's a pretty strong accusation to make."
