Meghan Markle’s disapproval surrounding the institution of the Royal Family appears to have never been far from the surface.
In her and Harry’s Netflix ‘docuseries’, she notoriously appeared to mock her own efforts at following royal protocol when she met the late Queen for the first time in 2016 by giggling as she performed a deeply exaggerated curtsy.
She said the occasion felt like an antiquated banquet at Medieval Times, a family dinner theatre in the US featuring staged games such as sword-fighting and jousting.
However, her distaste for The Firm appeared to turn to downright dislike over the years, until she and Harry eventually made the decision to leave altogether in 2020.
In the years since she has rarely returned to the UK, and when she does, such as for the late Queen’s funeral in September 2022, she cuts an awkward figure among her in-laws as it seems she doesn’t want to be there.
But one moment at the beginning of her royal career stands out as the possible source of her tainted opinion on the family – the Blackamoor brooch row.
It was caused after the lesser-known family member Princess Michael of Kent decided to wear the jewel, which some commentators claimed was ‘racist’, to a Christmas luncheon Meghan was also attending in 2017.
The ensuing scandal caused Princess Michael, now 79, to issue a public apology saying she was ‘very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence’.
However the misstep seemed to leave its mark on Meghan, who had been Harry’s girlfriend for around six months at the time, according to the 2020 book Finding Freedom.
Journalists Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, who authored the book with help from Meghan’s then press secretary, wrote: ‘In the back of Meghan’s mind, she wondered if there wasn’t a message being sent.’
Here looks back at the Blackamoor brooch racism row and how it could have caused Meghan to dislike the Royal Family from the very beginning.
Princess Michael of Kent found herself under fire in 2017 after she wore a blackamoor brooch to the Royal Family Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace
Blackamoor are a genre of figurines, small sculptures or jewellery which depict largely men, but sometimes women, with black skin usually from the 18th century
Meghan was also snapped coming to the dinner, and would later have been introduced to Princess Michael
The annual Christmas banquet is the largest Windsor gathering of the holiday season, as all relatives cannot always travel to Sandringham for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations.
Each year usually around 40 to 50 extended family members attend the lunch at Buckingham Palace where they are served traditional turkey with all the trimmings.
For royal significant others, it’s a big deal to get invited, but Meghan made the cut in 2017 after she and Harry got engaged in November.
What was controversial about the Blackamoor brooch?
Blackamoor jewellery and art was extremely popular in the 18th Century.
But they are now considered to be highly racially insensitive and the word blackamoor has been condemned as a term of abuse for anyone with a dark skin.
In recent years there have been petitions for galleries and hotels to remove them,
Blackamoor artwork
Blackamoors first emerged during the Middle Ages when Europeans first encountered the Moors, dark-skinned Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East who came to occupy various parts of the continent.
The African figure is typically depicted with a turban, dressed in lavish jewels and are commonly fixed in positions of servitude—such as footmen or waiters. They are usually carved from ebony or painted black in the case of porcelain.
While they became an art form in the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly in Italy, many believe the figures suggest ‘racial conquest’.
It would have been a daunting experience as the entire family are in one place, and despite it being a private family occasion, there is still strict etiquette and decorum on display as they dress up for the glamorous affair.
But unlike most events at the palace, no pictures are allowed inside the private event, so photographers instead take their shots of the family from inside the cars as they enter the venue.
And this is where Princess Michael of Kent was snapped wearing the controversial blackamoor brooch as it was prominently displayed on her chest as she drove through the gates.
She was not sitting at the same table as Meghan but they would have been introduced at the intimate gathering.
The royal bride-to-be at the time, whose former lighting director father, Thomas Markle is white, and mother, Doria Ragland, is black, had often spoken about the racism she experienced both as a child and as a grown woman.
Blackamoor is a genre of figurines, small sculptures or jewellery which depicts largely men, but sometimes women, with black skin usually from the 18th century.
Many will be worth £10,000 or more.
Princess Michael of Kent has been a member of the Royal Family since she married Prince Michael of Kent, grandson of King George V, in 1978.
She lives in an apartment at Kensington Palace, just a stone’s throw from Harry and Meghan’s former cottage in the grounds.
But once the picture of her wearing the brooch made the rounds on social media, she was condemned, with comments including: ‘Has no one noticed the blackamoor pin that Princess Michael of Kent is wearing? Really? Meghan Markle official meets the family and is greeted by THIS?’
Another attacked her for her ‘racist jewellery’, while a third added: ‘I hope the Queen is going to ban this racist, horrible woman from any further gatherings. This woman is an embarrassment to the Royal Family.’
But the storm of controversy was not the first time that the royal, dubbed Princess Pushy, found herself at the centre of a racism row.
In 2004 she was accused of insulting a party of black diners at a smart New York restaurant by allegedly telling them to ‘go back to the colonies’ in a row over noise.
The princess strongly denied the allegations, claiming to have said she would be ‘ready to go back to the colonies’ during a dispute about noise with the other table.
The annual Christmas banquet at is held at Buckingham Palace and is the largest Windsor gathering of the holiday season
The royal bride-to-be at the time, whose former lighting director father, Thomas Markle is white, and mother, Doria Ragland (pictured together in 2018), is black, had often spoken about the racism she experienced both as a child and as a grown woman
Princess Michael, who is married to the Queen’s cousin, Prince Michael, could clearly be seen wearing the jewellery on her coat as she drove through the gates (pictured, a similar brooch)
But she subsequently went on to make a series of toe-curling remarks in a television interview about the incident, referring to African people as ‘adorable’.
However the brooch misstep seemed to upset bi-racial Meghan, who in the past had claimed that some who believed she was Caucasian even made distasteful ‘black jokes’ in front of her.
She has also told of her anger and hurt at hearing her mother called the ‘N’ word when she was pulling out of a parking space.
The Meghan-friendly book Finding Freedom
‘My skin rushed with heat as I looked to my mom. Her eyes welling with hateful tears, I could only breathe out a whisper of words, so hushed they were barely audible: “It’s OK, Mommy’,’ she once wrote in an essay.
But the poor choice of fashion seemed to upset Meghan as she thought it was ‘insensitive’ towards her African American heritage, a book claimed.
According to the Meghan-friendly authors of Finding Freedom Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand: ‘When it comes to royal fashion, much thought goes into every detail.
‘Princess Michael’s choice of brooch could have simply been a mistake, but in the back of Meghan’s mind, she wondered if there wasn’t a message being sent in the pin of the torso of an African man wearing a gold turban and ornate clothing.’
They claim the choice to wear the brooch to the event was ‘at the bare minimum’ an ‘insensitivity to Meghan’s African American Roots and the racism she had encountered since pairing up with Harry.’
A spokesman for Princess Michael said at the time: ‘The brooch was a gift and has been worn many times before.
Princess Michael was born Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz on her grandmother’s estate near Carlsbad in 1945
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at their final royal engagement at the Commonwealth Service in March 2020
Prince Michael of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent during Royal Ascot in June last year
‘Princess Michael is very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence.’
Following the apology, and a promise to retire the brooch, the row seemed to settle down.
However the authors wrote ‘the damage had been done’ to Meghan’s relationship with the Royal Family.
The row was brought up again by Meghan and Harry in their 2022 Netflix ‘docuseries’ where it was used as an example of ‘unconscious bias’ in the family.
Harry said: ‘In this family sometimes you’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution. And there is a huge level of unconscious bias. The thing with unconscious bias is actually no one’s fault.
‘But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself you then need to make it right.
‘It is education. It is awareness. It is a constant work in progress for everybody, including me.’
There was also a suggestion that the UK is racist and more obsessed with race than the US, with Meghan declaring that she ‘wasn’t really treated like a black woman’ until she came to Britain.
And the row was brought up once again by Scobie in his latest book Endgame, which was published last year, as he revealed more drama surrounding the event.
In the book he claimed Princess Michael of Kent said the Duchess of Sussex had ‘made it all about race because that’s all everyone does these days’.
Princess Michael of Kent at a charity dinner in London in the 1980s
Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Diana watching Pete Sampras win the Wimbledon final
Seemingly quoting Princess Michael he wrote: ‘Well… we could already guess what someone like her would be like. I saw it coming from miles away.’
Scobie, known as Harry and Meghan’s ‘cheerleader-in-chief’, wrote that following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview in 2021, the Princess made disparaging comments about Meghan.
‘At a March 2021 meeting in her Kensington Palace apartment, Princess Michael of Kent – wife of the [late] Queen’s first cousin Prince Michael of Kent – couldn’t stop herself from indulging in gossip with an aide about Meghan.
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‘Princess Michael has never been much of a fan of Prince Harry’s wife,’ the author added, before claiming the 79-year-old royal said: ‘Meghan’s made it all about race because that’s all everyone does these days.’
In fairness, Princess Michael herself had over the years spent some time boasting about her own elevated ancestry.
She has claimed to have ‘more royal blood’ than anyone who has married into the Royal Family since Prince Philip.
Typical of her self-congratulatory crowing is the following: ‘I have a great lineage. The Duke of Burgundy started the Order of the Fleece [a Roman Catholic Order of Chivalry] in 1430. And, of the first 20 members, 17 are my ancestors.
‘Even Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers [the first a French Queen, mother of three kings; the second the mistress of Catherine’s husband, Henry II of France] — I descend from them both. Do you descend from Charlemagne directly? Do you descend from Saint King Louis XI? I do!’
But not all of her family were so noble, as in 2014 it was revealed her aristocratic father had been a member of the Nazi party until he was kicked out in 1944. He served in the SS for 11 years, from 1933.
In an interview on Good Morning America in August 2020 Scobie said that Harry and Meghan’s decision to quit was prompted by racial ‘ignorance’ within the monarchy
Princess Michael, who was born in 1945, said she hadn’t known about her father’s SS past and was said to be heartbroken about the publicity it received.
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But despite the fashion faux pas and the colourful history of comments, she was invited to Meghan and Harry’s wedding five months later in May 2018.
However the whole brooch saga seemed to play a role in the Sussexes’ eventual departure from the family in early 2020.
In an interview on Good Morning America in August of that year Scobie said that their decision to quit was prompted by racial ‘ignorance’ within the monarchy.
He opened up about the couple’s move to the US, explaining that there was no sole reason for the decision – but that racism definitely ‘played a role’.
Scobie suggested that Meghan never felt comfortable within the Royal Family – and that she was never made to feel as though she was entirely welcome.
Perhaps the Blackamoor brooch incident was the moment this feeling began to take hold.