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Meghan Markle reportedly felt blindsided when her 2017 Vanity Fair cover was published with the headline 'She's Just Wild About Harry', according to a royal biographer.
Author Tom Bower claims in his new book Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors the Duchess of Sussex was furious about how she was portrayed in the magazine.
According to excerpts in the book published in The Sun, Meghan angrily called her publicists and demanded to know why her relationship with Prince Harry was splashed all over the cover of Vanity Fair.
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Bower also claimed Buckingham Palace was less than impressed with the mention of Harry in the interview, which Meghan reportedly only wanted to be about her acting, activism and philanthropy.
"Meghan's unprecedented brazenness took Buckingham Palace by surprise - and electrified the British media," Bower wrote. "Like a thunderclap, the interview triggered sensational reactions: Meghan had used her relationship with Harry to promote herself."
"The Hollywoodisation of the royal family had sealed Meghan's fate as Harry's fiancée."
In the interview, when Meghan was directly asked about Harry, she replied: "We're a couple. We're in love."
"I'm sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time," she added.
"This is for us. It's part of what makes it so special, that it's just ours. But we're happy. Personally, I love a great love story."
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Meghan was also reportedly under strict orders from the royal family's PR team to avoid "sensitive" topics such as politics and race – and, of course, Prince Harry.
Bower said Vanity Fair contributing editor Sam Kashner, who conducted the interview, faced complaints from Meghan following the magazine's publication.
Kashner recalled: "She complained because she wasn't presented in the way she wanted. She demanded the media do what she expected. I felt manipulated."
Meghan's PR representative Ken Sunshine also allegedly told Vanity Fair's editor that he would have to "deal with the Queen on this", the book claims.
However, Bower writes, Sunshine was told that the future royal only landed the cover story "because of who she was likely to marry".
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Bower's newly-released book contains several other sensational claims about the royal family's perception of Meghan, both before and after her and Harry's departure from the monarchy.
Elsewhere in the biography, Bower claimed the Queen had a relieved response upon hearing that Meghan would not be attending Prince Philip's funeral in April 2021.
He said the monarch's response to news of Meghan's non-attendance to the funeral was simply: "Thank goodness Meghan is not coming."
According to a source who spoke to The Sun, Meghan was said to be apprehensive about the book's publication.
"This is the book Meghan will be dreading," said the source. "Tom doesn't pull his punches."
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