Meghan Markle's Parting Words as a Royal Were "It Didn't Have to Be This Way"

Speaking about the Sussexes' departure from the royal family, Meghan Markle told royal correspondent Omid Scobie that she'd envisioned a different ending.


Well, this is incredibly sad. According to newly published Sussex biography Finding Freedom, by royal authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, Meghan Markle's farewell to her Buckingham Palace staff was a deeply sorrowful one, with the Duchess of Sussex commenting on what could have been had things gone differently.

As earlier reported by Scobie, Meghan's final royal engagement was a private meeting with Association of Commonwealth Universities scholars, during which she spoke to students about their work on subjects including health, climate change, renewable energy, and sustainable travel. The Duchess used her last engagement to say goodbye to her staff, after the Commonwealth scholars departed. She hugged Scobie, he writes in Finding Freedom, and said, "It didn’t have to be this way."

In March, Scobie revealed that Meghan cried as she bid farewell to her Buckingham Palace team, writing for Harper's Bazaar that "tears that the duchess had been bravely holding back [were] free to flow among familiar faces."

"The Duchess of Sussex emotionally [bid] much-loved aides farewell, with her flight 'home' to Canada leaving in a matter of hours," Scobie recounted, adding that Meghan would fly "back to Canada on the last commercial flight of the day, eager to be back in Vancouver Island by the morning before Archie wakes up."

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Emily Dixon
Morning Editor

Emily Dixon is a British journalist who’s contributed to CNN, Teen Vogue, Time, Glamour, The Guardian, Wonderland, The Big Roundtable, Bust, and more, on everything from mental health to fashion to political activism to feminist zine collectives. She’s also a committed Beyoncé, Kacey Musgraves, and Tracee Ellis Ross fan, an enthusiastic but terrible ballet dancer, and a proud Geordie lass.