Meghan’s friend Omid Scobie quotes email he claims she sent to Kensington Palace

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The Duchess of Sussex’s biographer has published an email in which she demands aides release a statement claiming Kate drove her to tears at a bridesmaid dress fitting.

Omid Scobie wrote yesterday that Harry and Meghan’s exasperation with officials came to a head when Kensington Palace ‘urgently requested’ Harry join forces with them in co-signing a statement critical of a newspaper report.

He said the palace wanted him to deny an ‘offensive’ article in The Times in January 2020 which claimed that Prince William had ‘constantly bullied’ the Sussexes before they decided to quit royal duties.

He writes that a source revealed Meghan emailed an aide: ‘Well, if we’re just throwing any statement out there now, then perhaps KP can finally set the record straight about me [not making Kate cry].’ He then says she asks why her side of the story was never considered important to anyone at the palace.

‘But, as with many requests made by the couple, her suggestion was ignored,’ he writes. ‘The Duchess of Cambridge, she was told, should never be dragged into idle gossip.’

The article was written for the website of US magazine Harper’s Bazaar.

The email was clearly a private one, sent by Meghan to only two or three of her most senior staff at most.

Its quoting in full raises the question of how it came into the author’s possession and was it leaked by the Duchess of Sussex herself?

If not, then surely, critics asked yesterday, she would be complaining that a private email had been published without her knowledge.

The issue is one that has clearly irked Meghan for some time as she raised it in her interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night.

The original story, published in a British broadsheet newspaper in 2018, claimed that Meghan had made Kate cry during a fitting for Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress, possibly in a row over whether she should wear tights.

In the programme Meghan says: ‘The truth? The reverse happened. A few days before the wedding, she was upset about something – yes, the issue was correct, about the flower girl dresses – and it made me cry and it really hurt my feelings.’

She went on to claim that Kate apologised and brought her flowers and ‘took accountability for it’.

But Meghan said that no one at the palace was willing to help her set the record straight, even when friends asked if they could dispute the story for her through the media.

‘Everyone in the institution knew it wasn’t true,’ Meghan told Miss Winfrey, who asked: ‘So why didn’t somebody just say that?’ Meghan replied: ‘That’s a good question.’

Mr Scobie, who co-authored the Sussexes’ biography Finding Freedom, went on to accuse Buckingham Palace of ‘failing to acknowledge racism’ aimed at a mixed-raced senior royal and questioned the monarchy’s commitment to the ethnically diverse Commonwealth.

And shockingly, Mr Scobie wrote: ‘If it’s not considered appropriate to acknowledge racism or racial ignorance when aimed at a mixed-raced senior royal, then how should the 54 countries of the Commonwealth and its predominantly black, brown, and mixed population feel about the realm’s figurehead belonging to an institution that claims to celebrate ‘diversity’ but in practice appears to uphold white supremacy?’

The monarchy is reeling from the CBS interview, where the couple said a member of the royal family was ‘concerned’ over how dark Archie’s skin would be, and that Meghan was not given adequate support for her mental health. 

An eventual statement from the Queen promised to investigate the matter privately, but also appeared to contest their version of events. 

Ahead of the two-hour interview which aired early on Sunday, Meghan and Harry’s PR team insisted this would be the ‘last word’ on the family rift.

The couple said that they felt they ‘needed to have their say’ but now ‘considered the matter closed’ and wanted to ‘move on’.

But since the screening, a raft of close friends and supporters have been given permission to push their case on social media and over the airwaves.

Yesterday, Meghan’s close friend Janina Gavankar firmly rejected the Queen’s statement that ‘recollections may vary’ over the claims made by the Sussexes.    

The actress, who has known Meghan for 17 years, said: ‘Though their recollections may vary, ours don’t.’

She also said the duchess gave her backing before she appeared on TV – despite Meghan reportedly agreeing a period of silence to cool tensions with the Palace.  

Gavankar appeared on ITV’s This Morning to insist the Sussexes were confident of their claims.

She said: ‘After reading this short statement that came out from Buckingham Palace today, I felt two things.

‘One side, I thought: I am so thankful that they are finally acknowledging the experience.

‘But on the other side, I am well aware that the family and the staff were well aware of the extent of it, and though their recollections may vary, ours don’t, because we lived through it with them. There are many emails and texts to support that.’ 

While Gavankar stressed she was not speaking on Meghan’s behalf, she revealed she had talked to the duchess before being interviewed. 

Asked by presenter Phillip Schofield if she had spoken to Meghan about coming onto the show, she replied: ‘Oh yes, absolutely, I talk to them of all the time.

‘We watched the special together, actually. We’re all happy that we are in a new era, we get to tell the truth.’ 

It came hours after sources close to the Sussexes signalled the couple had accepted the Queen’s desire to resolve the matter privately within the family, according to the Telegraph.

The 94-year-old monarch will personally extend an olive branch to Harry in a bid to defuse the situation.   

A source told the Daily Mail: ‘There is a long way to go but hopefully things will start to move in the right direction in order for bridges to be built.’

It is hoped Harry and Meghan will now take the same approach.

Gavankar, 40, yesterday said the couple would now concentrate on ‘humanitarian and environmental work’ following the interview.

Meghan and Gavankar, who lives in Los Angeles, became friends after meeting when they were both starting out as actresses in the early 2000s.  

The actress, who is best known for her roles in Ben Affleck movie The Way Back and Apple TV’s The Morning Show, added of the Sussexes: ‘I think they are feeling free. 

‘It is nice to see them feel free. Now they can get back to what they really were focused on and how they really met and fell in love, that was through humanitarian and environmental work, they have Archewell.

‘They have been doing that kind of work way before they met each other and now they can do it together. It is actually a really good time.’

Gavankar, who attended the 2018 Royal Wedding and took the couple’s 2019 Christmas card photo, dismissed allegations of bullying after a number of claims were made against Meghan.

‘I have known her for 17 years and I have seen the way she regards the people around her and the people she works with, and I can say she is not a bully,’ the actress said. 

‘But I can also say that I am personally glad people are doing their due diligence because I also know why someone had to leave, and it was for gross misconduct.

‘The truth will come out, there are plenty of emails and texts about that.’ 

It follows Buckingham Palace’s statement saying that the issues raised in Harry and Meghan’s bombshell interview, especially over race, were ‘concerning’ and would be addressed by the Queen and her family privately.

The Royal Family said it was taking ‘very seriously’ the couple’s shocking allegation that a member of the family – not the Queen or Duke of Edinburgh – raised concerns about how dark their son Archie’s skin tone might be before he was born.