Meghan Markle had to make changes to her routine when filming Suits that didn’t always sit well with the show’s creator, a royal author has claimed
Meghan Markle starred as Rachel Zane in hit legal drama, Suits, for years before her relationship with Prince Harry went public.
After their romance hit the headlines, a number of rules were reportedly introduced by the Palace and royal courtiers, limitng what the writers could include in the show.
Despite the final episode airing in 2019, just last year Suits set a new streaming record, after being watched for an impressive total of 57.7 billion minutes on Netflix. After its resounding success on the streaming platform, this week the BBC announced it has bought the rights to the drama in full.
Tom Bower’s book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors, delves into life behind closed doors for the couple, reporting that he spoke to 80 people who know Harry and Meghan.
The author wrote: “Fearing the worst, from bitter experience, the Palace stepped in to control Meghan’s life. Aaron Korsh was told to submit all future Suits scripts to Nick Collins, Meghan’s agent.
“Scripts were thereafter forwarded to Kensington Palace for approval. Orders for changes of words were sent back from London to Los Angeles.
“The most important demand concerned Meghan’s last scene at her ‘wedding’ to Mike. No photographs, the Palace ordered, were to be shot of Meghan wearing a wedding dress. Between filming, she was always to wear a jacket over the dress. The atmosphere in the studio changed.
“Tongue-in-cheek, the Suits scriptwriters took a licence with Zane’s final words before she says, ‘I do.’ Thinking of Harry, Meghan delivered the lines to her on-stage husband Mike, ‘You are the strongest man I have ever met and you make me stronger . . . you’re the husband I’ve always wanted and I can’t wait to start our adventure together.'”
In 2023, Suits creator Aaron Korsch confirmed that the Palace had “weighed in” on parts of the show’s scripts that involved the future Duchess of Sussex, however, he noted, that their input was pretty minimal.
“Not many things, by the way, but a few things that we wanted to do and couldn’t do, and it was a little irritating,” the creator explained, breaking down one example of when the palace enforced a line change, so Meghan wouldn’t say the word ‘poppycock’ on screen.
“The Royal Family did not want her saying the word,” he noted. “They didn’t want to put the word poppycock in her mouth. I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying cock.” So instead the writers swapped out the word for “b******t”.
However, the Telegraph reported that Palace aides had suggested these changes came at the request of Meghan’s agent, and not Palace itself.
A version of this story was first published in July 2022.
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