Prince William Accused of Using ‘Racist Tropes’ About Meghan Markle

Prince William has been accused of using “racist tropes” to criticize Meghan Markle during an argument with Prince Harry.

The Duke of Sussex wrote in a leaked extract from his memoir Spare that William called Meghan “difficult,” “rude” and “abrasive” during an argument in 2019.

Harry said he replied that William was “parrot[ing] the press narrative” after Meghan had been described as “Duchess Difficult” in the media in December 2018.

Prince Harry and Prince William stand facing away from each other during the unveiling of a statue of Princess Diana at Kensington Palace on July 1, 2021. Meghan Markle is seen [inset] at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, at Westminster Abbey, on September 19, 2022. DOMINIC LIPINSKI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images/Karwai Tang/WireImage

The duke wrote: “He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”

Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, author of This is Why I Resist, wrote on Twitter: “Prince William calls Meghan Markle difficult, rude, abrasive—racist tropes Kensington Palace ‘palace sources’ FED media about her—then physically attacks Harry.

“Only a coward blames a woman for physical & verbal violence he does under guise of ‘helping’ his brother. Shameful.”

Meanwhile, Robert Jobson, author of William at 40, told Newsweek: “William is known to have a bit of a temper, I have written that in my books. But Harry claiming he was physically assaulted is taking it to another level.

“Spats between brothers, even if they descend into a scuffle, happen. Normally nobody would say anything about it.

“I feel this decision to breach the trust between brothers for a big pay day will make it very difficult to repair this brotherly relationship.”

Meghan had been accused of bullying in an internal email months earlier, in October 2018, by Jason Knauf, then Kensington Palace communications secretary.

He wrote: “I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year. The treatment of X [name removed] was totally unacceptable.”

Two months later, in December, 2018, a story appeared in U.K. broadsheet The Sunday Times quoting an anonymous source which described Meghan as difficult to work for.

The headline nicknamed her “duchess difficult” and the name stuck in other articles in the U.K. media.

Meghan discussed the trope of the “angry Black woman” in her Spotify podcast Archetypes.

She said: “We all know that sometimes things make you feel angry or sad or hurt or upset, and that’s not a gender or racially specific feeling.

“Yet this Trope of the angry Black woman, it persists.”

Later in the show, she added: “I also know that I will find myself cowering and tiptoeing into a room where… and if you ever do that, the thing that I find the most embarrassing, when you’re saying a sentence with the intonation goes up, like it’s a question.

“And you’re like, oh my God, stop stop, like whispering and tiptoeing around it. Just say what it is that you need. You’re allowed to set a boundary.

“You’re allowed to be clear, does not make you demanding. It does not make you difficult makes you clear?”

Excerpts from the book were published by The Guardian, which obtained a copy of the memoir despite reports of extreme security measures put in place by publishers Penguin Random House.

Newsweek has approached Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and representatives of Prince Harry and Penguin Random House for comment.