Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle’s explosive disagreement that saw the demise of the ‘Fab Four’, according to royal author

It’s no secret that Prince William and Prince Harry no longer see eye to eye.

But there was a time before their well-documented feud when the brothers, alongside their wives, were lovingly dubbed the ‘Fab Four’ by the press.

However, strain in the relationship between Kate, Princess of Wales, and Meghan Markle began to emerge even before their first meeting in January 2017, according to royal biographer Tina Brown.

Brown wrote in Palace Papers: ‘Now that Meghan was a feminist hero, tensions with the more senior royal beauty, the [former] Duchess of Cambridge, offered an irresistible story to the tabloids, who always love to stoke a rivalry between women.’

Harry and Meghan had been together for just six months when the Duke introduced his girlfriend to Kate.

At the time, it was reported that the meeting had gone ‘really well’ and it was ‘important’ to Harry that the princess liked his new partner.

However, despite the reports, Meghan recounted in the couple’s Netflix series Harry & Meghan that the introduction had been awkward.

She said: ‘Even when Will and Kate came over and I was meeting her for the first time, I remember I was in ripped jeans, I was barefoot. Like I was a hugger, I have always been a hugger. I didn’t realise that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.’

‘I started to understand that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside, that there is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door and think “Okay, we can relax now”.

‘But that formality carries over on both sides, and that was surprising to me.’

Brown wrote: ‘Meghan later said she found Kate to be cool of temperament, but that’s likely because Meghan is a “gusher”, who hugged even the guards outside Kensington Palace.

‘Kate is not a woman given to spontaneous rapport. She’d avoided recruiting new girlfriends to her inner circle/slumber party list since Marlborough and St Andrew’s.

‘Preoccupied with two young children and public duty, Kate had no serious reason to see the latest and most glamorous of Harry’s string of girlfriends as a potential threat.’ 

The royal author wrote: ‘Just as in the days when Princess Diana’s new updo upstaged the Queen at the opening of Parliament, the increasing media comparisons of Meghan and Kate – invariably casting Kate as dull and dutiful – began to inject tension.’

Brown added that Kate had ‘spent the best part of a decade wearing a tastefully inexpensive wardrobe, subsuming her personal views and signalling solidarity with working women’.

She wrote: ‘She put on the pantyhose both literally and figuratively, smiling gamely and uncomplainingly for the press.

‘It was inevitable that Meghan would be seen as Kate’s moral and aesthetic counterweight.’ 

But when the engagement between Harry and Meghan was announced on November 27, 2017, the former Suits actress paid tribute to Kate for welcoming her into the family.

‘Catherine has been absolutely amazing, as has William as well, you know, fantastic support,’ Meghan said in an interview.

But there were reports that Kate and Meghan clashed over bridesmaid dresses ahead of the wedding in 2018.

It was claimed Meghan had made Kate cry during a row over the outfits.

One unnamed friend claimed that Kate wanted to follow ‘protocol’ with the bridesmaids, including Charlotte, then three, wearing tights – but Meghan disagreed.

In his book, Revenge, Tom Bower claimed unnamed sources told him Kate and Meghan disagreed over the length of Princess Charlotte’s hemline and the fit of her dress.

He also claimed Meghan’s ‘insistence’ was ‘supported’ by Jessica Mulroney, adding: ‘Some would say that Meghan compared Ivy [Mulroney’s daughter] favourably against Charlotte.’

The Duchess of Sussex later disagreed in her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview, claiming it was the other way around and adding: ‘She [Kate] was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. And she brought me flowers.’

At the time, royal expert Katie Nicholl said Kate ‘never wanted’ reports of a rift to come out in the press and had found the situation ‘mortifying’. 

‘From what I hear, there are different versions of the bridesmaid story, not just the one Meghan discussed,’ the royal expert said. 

‘Kate felt it was all sorted, so to have it brought up again was mortifying. Kate is not in a position to respond, and Meghan and Harry know that.

The royal expert went on to claim that Kate was left ‘saddened, disappointed and hurt’ in the wake of Meghan and Harry’s tell-all interview. 

As Meghan was introduced into royal life, Harry wrote that there were signs of discord between his future wife and his sister-in-law.

In his book Spare, he detailed how Meghan asked to borrow lip gloss from Kate ahead of their appearance at the first Royal Foundation forum summit in February 2018.

He wrote that Kate was surprised, but rummaged around in her bag before offering it to Meghan.

He claimed that Meghan applied a little gloss to her finger and rubbed it across her lips before Kate made a ‘disgusted’ face. 

The summit marked the first official appearance of the ‘Fab Four’ to announce that Meghan would become the fourth patron of the Royal Foundation. 

At the time, Harry said ‘working as family does have its challenges’, but insisted ‘we’re stuck together for the rest of our lives’. 

Harry was quick to clarify there were ‘healthy disagreements’ and joked they ‘come so thick and fast’ when asked what the last thing they quarrelled about was. 

William continued the banter, quipping: ‘Is it resolved? We don’t know!’

But Harry steered the topic back towards the serious message, adding: ‘I think it’s really good we have got four different personalities and we all have that same passion to make a difference.

‘We have different opinions and they work really well [together]. Working as a family does have its challenges; of course, it does. [I think] the fact that everybody is laughing shows they know exactly what it’s like. But we are stuck together for the rest of our lives.’

Brown wrote that Meghan ‘fluently’ took up the majority of the airtime, which apparently did not sit well with Kate.

The author wrote: ‘With blithe proprietorship, she deployed an issue that was not even on the foundation’s docket – women’s empowerment, then at its fervid height with the acceleration of the #MeToo movement.

‘”Women don’t need to find a voice. They have a voice. They need to feel empowered to use it,” Meghan quotably exhorted as Harry looked on with awe and his brother and Kate stood by with expressionless irritation. 

‘When it was Kate’s moment to speak, she was strikingly less articulate, as well as brief.  

‘Few knew that it was she, after years of providing emotional support to her younger brother, James, as he struggled with clinical depression, who had been the prime mover of the foundation’s mental health campaign. 

‘It was crafted after careful consultation with mental health professionals, policy experts, and Palace advisers.

‘Now here was Meghan championing a fashionable cause, anointed by Hollywood, sure to make headlines. 

‘It was an awkward dynamic. It was later decided that the Fab Four would not play together on stage as a band again.’

Things finished so badly that it was later decided the Fab Four would only appear together in the context of larger group royal engagements, like Trooping the Colour.

A lot of the discord at the event seemed to take place behind the scenes, away from the glare of the TV cameras.

And although Harry and Meghan didn’t decide to leave the Royal Family until nearly two years later, many commentators now regard the Fab Four’s famous launch as an early clue that things were already going wrong.

There is a litany of reasons why the brothers and their partners no longer see eye to eye, but tensions between Meghan and Kate were certainly an aggravating factor. 

Many royal observers hold on to the hope that one day the band will reconcile, though this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.