History Will Not Be Kind to How the UK Treated Meghan Sussex While Protecting Prince Andrew

For years, Meghan was treated like she was the biggest problem the Royal Family had ever faced. Newspapers, TV panels, and social media picked apart everything about her, what she wore, how she spoke, who her family was, how she held her baby, and even how she stood next to her husband. The message was loud and constant: she was “disruptive,” she was “divisive,” she was “bringing down the monarchy.” It went on for so long that it started to feel normal to blame her for almost anything that went wrong within the UK.

At the same time, the public treated another royal’s far more serious controversies with noticeably softer and slower scrutiny. Commentators called Meghan a crisis for choosing independence and privacy, while Prince Andrew stayed inside the institution as scandals around him grew. The language aimed at Meghan also turned openly hostile at times, most infamously when television presenter Jeremy Clarkson wrote that he dreamed of seeing her publicly humiliated and paraded through the streets.

The media and parts of the royal institution cast the couple who left as a danger, while they framed the prince who stayed as little more than an embarrassment or inconvenience, rather than a real threat. This unequal treatment did not happen all at once; it grew gradually until many people accepted it without much question.

The Moment Meghan Became the Story and Andrew Became a Footnote

Before any of the Epstein–Andrew documents returned to the spotlight years later, Meghan had already walked into a media storm that was already in motion. A court convicted Jeffrey Epstein in 2008, and journalists revealed Prince Andrew’s close association with him in the early 2010s through photographs, flight logs, and repeated news reports. Yet when Meghan entered the royal scene in 2016 and married in 2018, newspapers and television debates pivoted sharply toward her instead. Polls showed she was not universally disliked, and younger Britons and more progressive voters often viewed her positively, but front pages and talk shows still framed her as a national problem.

The contrast in coverage was visible in the headlines themselves. Major tabloids could run serious investigations into Andrew’s presence at Epstein’s properties on one page, while on another they fixated on Meghan and Harry taking private flights or criticised their environmental messaging, as seen in side-by-side coverage like the Daily Mail and The Sun examples. The scale of scrutiny did not match the scale of controversy. At the same time, Andrew often ranked lower in popularity surveys, yet he was not dissected with the same daily intensity. It was not simply about approval ratings; it was about who the media chose to centre every day and whose personal choices became endless debate topics.

By repeatedly showing Meghan sitting beside Andrew in ‘least popular royal’ polls, the media created a visual equivalence that made his controversies seem like mere missteps rather than the far more serious issues they actually were.

Harry & Meghan. Volume II: December 15. Only on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/ZfCcsieTHx

— Netflix (@netflix) December 14, 2022

Years later, Meghan put it bluntly in the Netflix series Harry & Meghan with a line that lingered: “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves. I was being fed to the wolves.” She was not talking about one or two harsh headlines. She meant the steady stream of negativity that never really stopped. In the Oprah interview, she said the institution did not protect her, described the racism she felt from sections of the British press, and admitted her mental health deteriorated so badly that she had suicidal thoughts.

The timing helps explain why that statement resonated. When Meghan entered the royal family, media narratives around other senior royals noticeably softened. For years, critics condemned Charles for his adultery and the pain many believed it caused Diana, yet the media suddenly recast him as steady and statesmanlike. They also began treating Camilla’s long-running “other woman” controversy as closed history rather than an open sore. Coverage of Kate often turned glowing and reverential, even though earlier headlines had branded her the “lazy duchess” or “Waity Katie” when she carried out fewer engagements.

At the same time, Prince Andrew’s connection to Epstein frequently slipped into the background or appeared as a brief aside instead of sustained investigative focus. Meghan, by contrast, could make the smallest public move, and it would dominate headlines for days.

Where Scrutiny Landed and Where It Did Not

Television debates and newspaper columns did not just question Meghan’s decisions; they often turned everyday moments into character attacks. In 2018 and 2019, several tabloids claimed Meghan had “made Kate cry” before the wedding, even though later reports showed it was a false story. When Meghan guest-edited British Vogue and chose 15 women for the cover, commentators accused her of “reverse racism” because the line-up did not centre white men, despite the issue focusing on female change-makers.

Other headlines drifted into the absurd, including an article that blamed her fondness for avocado toast for “fueling drought and murder,” while opinion pieces questioned her patriotism over private jet use or wardrobe costs. Minor lifestyle choices repeatedly became moral controversies that other senior royals rarely faced for similar behaviour.

So when dozens of female Members of Parliament published an open letter saying parts of the coverage were offensive and misleading, prominent commentators such as Piers Morgan pushed back on social media, framing the criticism as an attack on press freedom rather than engaging with the substance of the concerns.

Instead of discussing why he and so many media headlines focused on Meghan’s personal life, the conversation quickly turned into a debate about protecting newspapers.

This set a pattern. Rather than asking why articles kept zeroing in on her clothes, family disputes, or gestures, many commentators focused on defending the right to publish those stories. The result was a loop where criticism of Meghan felt constant, but real discussion about whether the tone or volume of that criticism was fair rarely lasted long.

The Palace and the Press

Another piece of the story is how the institution itself often appeared to stand back, or even lean in, while the press went after Meghan. While newspapers obsessed over the timing of her emails, alleged staff complaints, or rumours about her tone, far more serious allegations surrounding Prince Andrew rarely triggered the same internal urgency. The palace opened a formal bullying investigation into Meghan that dominated headlines for months, yet it never announced an equally public internal inquiry into Andrew’s long-documented association with the convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

When Harry and Meghan sat down with Oprah to explain why they left, much of the outrage focused on the interview itself. At the same time, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s close associate, was facing federal sex-trafficking charges in the United States, a development that received far less sustained attention in British royal commentary circles than Meghan’s television appearance. To critics, the contrast suggested priorities that looked deeply skewed; to others, it looked like scapegoating.

Lawyers representing Epstein victims publicly questioned why internal palace energy appeared stronger when addressing complaints about Meghan than when confronting Andrew’s controversies. Attorney Gloria Allred even described the bullying inquiry as a “distraction” from more serious issues. The perception that Meghan became the subject of swift investigations while Andrew remained largely shielded fed a wider belief that the palace’s relationship with the press was not passive.

Why Keeping Andrew Close Sent a Loud Message

Compounding this perception were media reports and royal commentary suggesting that senior royals appeared more comfortable keeping Andrew physically and socially close than repairing relations with Harry and Meghan. Stories circulated claiming that Prince William and Kate Middleton preferred Andrew as a neighbour over the Sussexes living nearby, a narrative that, whether formally confirmed or not, struck many readers as deeply symbolic.

It reinforced the wider impression that proximity to controversy did not automatically equal distance from privilege, while distance from the institution seemed to attract harsher judgment. To many observers, it no longer felt like isolated headlines but a repeating pattern: negative attention consistently clustered around Meghan. At the same time, scrutiny of Andrew struggled to gather the same speed or intensity.

Final Thoughts

When Prince Philip and later Queen Elizabeth died, some of the blame — unbelievably — landed on Meghan. It came up in everyday conversations, from co-workers to strangers on planes, with people insisting that if she had never entered the royal family, the Queen might still be alive. Hearing that, especially as a Black woman, was jarring. It showed how easily grief and frustration were redirected toward a single outsider instead of simple reality. The Queen was 96 years old, yet Meghan’s name still surfaced in discussions about her health. At the same time, Prince Andrew faced serious allegations and had reached a costly settlement with his accuser, but much of the anger bypassed him and landed on her instead. For many people, the blame felt wildly disproportionate.

That is the irony at the centre of this story. For years, commentators framed Meghan as the one “shaking the monarchy” and creating instability. But as more information resurfaced about Andrew and the institution’s long response to his association with Jeffrey Epstein, those earlier claims began to look misplaced. The spotlight that once stayed glued to her personality slowly shifted toward deeper institutional questions.

Placed side by side, the contrast raises an uncomfortable question: why did so much fury focus on the woman who left while the man at the centre of a far more serious controversy remained protected for so long? Many people point to power and bias. It is often easier for the public and the press to blame a woman of colour than to challenge a well-connected white man. Similar patterns appear outside the monarchy, too, where criticism sticks quickly to some figures while sliding off others with status and protection.