In her interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle revealed that she had to learn how to curtsy a few minutes before her meeting with Elizabeth II.
Everyone was expected to speak up. And she didn’t disappoint the most impatient. On March 7, the American channel CBS broadcast the exclusive interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry by Oprah Winfrey. A meeting during which the Sussex revealed the unflattering backstage of Buckingham Palace, between racism, lack of support and suicidal thoughts. In this series of shocking revelations, the couple nevertheless made a point of recounting certain anecdotes, including one about the first meeting between Meghan Markle and Queen Elizabeth II.
The former Suits actress had to learn to curtsy a few minutes before meeting the British sovereign. In her interview, she described to Oprah Winfrey how Prince Harry introduced her to this characteristic gesture. A few minutes before the end of a church service attended by the Queen, Prince William’s brother asked her if she knew how to curtsy. A request that Meghan Markle, an American and unfamiliar with these traditions, had to deal with, as she thought that this ceremonial bow was only performed in public.
Very strong curtsy
The Duchess of Sussex quickly Googled the gesture when the couple were waiting in the car before lunching the Queen. When she was finally introduced to the monarch, Archie’s mother remembers curtsying “very tightly”. And then had a very pleasant time with her new step grandmother. A quiet beginning, far from the pressure experienced a few months later.
Naive, Meghan Markle was not expecting the media avalanche she experienced. “I’ll say I went there naively, because I grew up not knowing much about the royal family,” she told Oprah Winfrey. “I didn’t romanticize any of it, but I think that as Americans, what you know about the royal family is what you read about in fairy tales,” she said. The young woman was soon overtaken by a less glowing reality.
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