Prince Harry Wanted to "Move Away" From the Royal Family Long Before He Met Meghan Markle

• Finding Freedom (opens in new tab) co-author Omid Scobie (opens in new tab) recently spoke to the Independent, and rejected the false narrative that Meghan Markle was responsible for the Sussexes' departure from the royal family (opens in new tab).
• "I think it’s unfair that Meghan has been blamed for convincing Harry to leave the royal family," Scobie said.
• "Anyone who knows Harry will know that this has always been a side of his life that he’s struggled with and it’s seemed really obvious to us that he wanted to find someone to be his partner so he could move away from that," the royal correspondent continued.

Meghan Markle's faced an onslaught of racist abuse, both from the media and the public, since her relationship with Prince Harry was revealed—and when the Sussexes announced they would step down as senior royals, many immediately and unfairly blamed Meghan. Royal correspondent Omid Scobie, who co-authored Sussex biography Finding Freedom with Carolyn Durand, rejected that assumption in a recent interview (opens in new tab) with the Independent, stating that Prince Harry had "struggled" with his life as a royal long before even meeting Meghan.

"I think it’s unfair that Meghan has been blamed for convincing Harry to leave the royal family," Scobie said. "Anyone who knows Harry will know that this has always been a side of his life that he’s struggled with and it’s seemed really obvious to us that he wanted to find someone to be his partner so he could move away from that."

"As we report in the book, Meghan was prepared to drop everything to make her role in the royal family work. It says a lot about how we talk about women in the public eye that she gets the blame," Scobie continued. "Any successful woman who is over a certain age is going to get called 'too loud' or 'too problematic,' and that’s especially true if you’re a woman of colour."