Meghan Markle's controversial claim about late Queen disregarded by insiders

Comments Meghan Markle has made about the late Queen Elizabeth II have been called into question once again from a scathing article from Vanity Fair, which was published on January 17.

The article examines the life of Harry and Meghan throughout the last five years since they stepped down as senior royals. The Duchess of Sussex has already famously spoken out about her first meeting with the late Queen in the couple's Netflix docuseries, where she performed an exaggerated curtsy to the monarch as Harry sat watching.

The Mirror reports that she recalled that she first discovered she was going to meet the Queen just before lunch at Royal Lodge - home to Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. She said: "It's surreal. It wasn't like some big moment of like, 'Now you're going to meet my grandmother.

"I didn't know I was going to meet her until moments before. We were in the car, and we were going to Royal Lodge for lunch. And he's like, 'Oh my grandmother's here, she's gonna be there after church.' And I remember we were in the car and we were driving up and he's like 'You know how to curtsy right?' And I just thought it was a joke," she recalled.

Harry added: "How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother and that you would need to curtsy? Especially to an American. That's weird. Now, I'm starting to realise this is a big deal. I mean, Americans will understand this. We have Medieval Times, dinner and tournament. It was like that."

What has left people questioning Meghan's sincerity is from one moment in the docuseries. Meghan went on to say: "I curtsied as though I was like," and followed this with a pause to do a theatrical deep curtsy at which she giggled at the end of, "Pleasure to meet you, your Majesty."

These comments raised the eyebrows of many viewers, with some doubting whether she was being truthful. As such, the validity of these statements have been called into question and examined.

Tom Fitzgerald, a contributor to the Vanity Fair article, told the publication: "Meghan is the type of woman who would check a menu out online before going to a restaurant to pick what she was going to eat. So the idea that she didn’t know she was supposed to curtsy for the [late] Queen, I just didn’t find it particularly believable, because [based on] everything she ever told us about herself, I cannot imagine that she went into meeting the Royal Family completely cold, with no research whatsoever."

In the past, other sceptics of the Duchess have referred to a scene from the TV show Suits in 2010, where Meghan's character Rachel Zane performs a small playful curtsy to attorney Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman). They feel like this shows that Meghan may have overdramatised the situation.

Additionally, in his memoir Spare, Harry recalled the initial interaction differently. In the book, the Duke recalls that his aunt Sarah had already taught Meghan how to curtsy before the meeting. He wrote: "Fergie came out, a little emotional, and asked, 'Can you curtsy?' Meg shook her head. Fergie then demonstrated, and Meg imitated her."

At another point in the docuseries, Meghan said that she needed to Google the British national anthem in the early days of her relationship with the prince, and admitted that she repeatedly practiced the patriotic rendition of 'God Save The Queen', before joining the Royal Family.

The mum-of-two also said that "the wave is not a thing", claiming she was not trained to move her hand in any certain way. But she jokingly added that she made sure not to flail her hands "like an American".

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