Meghan Markle’s confession over ‘jarring’ habit that sparked awkward Princess Kate moment

Upon her engagement to Prince Harry, Meghan says she began to experience the full weight of what she claims to be cultural and procedural differences between British people and Americans. Meghan first met Harry in 2016 and it was not long before she was introduced to Harry’s family including the heir to the throne Prince William and his wife, Princess Kate.

According to Meghan their first encounter was “surprising” for a specific and “jarring” reason. On the Netflix show titled ‘Harry & Meghan’, the Duchess of Sussex described the first time she met Harry’s relatives. She recalled: “When Will and Kate came over, and I met her for the first time, they came over for dinner, I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot. I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger, I didn’t realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.”

She claimed she believed it was a “formality on the outside” that “carried through on the inside” which was “surprising”. Prince Harry echoed Meghan’s sentiments in his bombshell memoir, Spare in which he also found the hug uncomfortable. Harry wrote: “I introduced Meg, who leaned in and gave him a hug, which completely freaked him out.” He continued: “He recoiled. Willy didn’t hug many strangers. Whereas Meg hugged most strangers. The moment was a classic collision of cultures, like flashlight-torch, which felt to me both funny and charming. Later, however, looking back, I wondered if it was more than that. Maybe Willy expected Meg to curtsy?”

However, those close to the Royal Family claim they have been seen hugging well-wishers out and about on royal duties. For instance, a well-wisher in a crowd in Guernsey leaned in to kiss King Charles on his cheek. He was seen to accept and she was seen to have replied “Thank you very much.” Following the release of the Sussexes’ Netflix show, a close friend of the Princess told People Magazine: “Kate’s a big hugger. She is warm and friendly and greets everyone with a big hug and kiss. It comes naturally to her to be like that.”

Meghan Markle’s claim that the royals are not huggers has been proven wrong in pictures. Festive pictures of the Royal Family at Sandringham seem to have disproved her claims with one image showing Prince George being hugged by former World Cup-winning England rugby player Mike Tindall. This was not the only time that the Duchess of Sussex was unsure of protocol, with Harry having to remind her that she would need to curtsy for the Queen when they first met at Windsor Castle in 2016.

Meghan said of it: “We were in the car, driving and Harry’s like, ‘You know how to curtsy, right?’. And I just thought it was a joke.”

Harry recalled: “How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American. That’s weird.”