Meghan Markle Was "Naive" to Expect "Free Reign and Free Speech" in the Royal Family, Expert Claims

To her eternal credit, Meghan Markle stands up for what she believes in. But when she joined the Royal Family, there were certain expectations of her that she seemed to believe she could dodge—which simply was not the case, a royal expert has claimed.

In the second episode of the BBC's controversial documentary The Princes and the Press, which aired on Nov. 29, host Amol Rajan asked Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell, "In so many ways, Meghan is a welcome breath of fresh air but the last thing Britain needs is an over-confident, virtue-signaling American actress using her position in the Royal Family to promote her right-on views. What did you mean when you said the issue was that she's over-confident and virtue-signaling?" (via Express).

Platell answered, "I think that it shows the utmost naïveté of any intelligent woman, which she is, to think that you'd join an organization like the Royal Family and have free rein and free speech."

It's cool that women can't have opinions, I guess? Very 21st century of everyone involved.

In the same documentary, columnist and broadcaster Rachel Johnson reinforced this sentiment, implying that Markle was too opinionated for the "patriarchal" culture of not only the royals but the United Kingdom, too. She explained that, by contrast, Kate Middleton exemplified the "perfect" female royal in the eyes of the press.

"There are women journalists, who basically say, 'Kate is perfect, she's our English rose,'" Johnson said (via Express). "They have a perfect template of what they want a royal female to be: not political, doesn't open her mouth very much in public, who makes very short, scripted speeches on very safe subjects.

"Whereas Meghan Markle will talk about period poverty. She will talk about racism. She will talk about female empowerment.

"These are trigger subjects in this country, where the Royal Family, despite being led by the Queen for 70 odd years is still a very patriarchal, hierarchical country." Ugh.