Meghan Markle Once ‘Put in Her Place’ by Queen Elizabeth II After Staff Complaint, Source Claims

Queen Elizabeth II once scolded Meghan Markle for being rude to a royal staff member, according to a source.

Claims about Markle's strained relationship with the royal family have been making headlines for years. Now, a royal biographer said that the queen once put the former Suits actress "in her place" after she allegedly bullied a gardener.

According to RadarOnline, Hugo Vickers, a royal historian and the author of a new biography about Queen Elizabeth, said on the Daily T podcast, "She, apparently, was rude to one of the undergardeners, and the head gardener went up to the queen and reported this."

"And the queen got into her car and went down and reprimanded her strongly because you cannot be rude to staff, you know," Vickers added after host Camilla Tominey reportedly gasped at the revelation.

Vickers claimed that he "knows" the story is "true." "See, she didn't know how to behave with staff," Vickers further said about Markle, 44. "She'd been rude to the gardener, so she needed to be ticked off, put in her place."

This is not the only reported instance of the late queen becoming upset with Markle.

In her 2025 book, The New Royals, author Katie Nicholls detailed another situation in which Elizabeth II reportedly had to intervene after an alleged tense exchange between Markle and a staff member.

"On one occasion in the run-up to the wedding, Meghan went to Windsor Castle for a menu-tasting and ended up having a tense exchange with a member of staff," Nicholls wrote, per RadarOnline.

"Meghan was at the castle to taste some of the dishes, and told one of the caterers she could taste egg," an insider said. The Duchess of Sussex was reportedly "upset" as she demanded that the dish be "vegan and macrobiotic."

Nicholls wrote that when Queen Elizabeth II learned about Markle's behavior, she "suddenly walked in" and warned her, saying, "In this family, we don't speak to people like that."

Markle has faced longstanding allegations of bullying palace staff. According to the media portal, after her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry, Markle was given the nickname "Duchess Difficult" by many staff members, who claimed she was challenging to work for.

In 2021, a leaked email from the erstwhile communications secretary, Jason Knauf, to Prince William's private secretary and the head of human resources for the royal family claimed that Markle had left staff members terrified and in tears.

"I am very concerned that the Duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year," Knauf allegedly wrote. "The Duchess seems intent on always having someone in her sights. She is bullying Y and seeking to undermine her confidence."

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's spokesperson responded to the allegations at the time, saying, "Let's just call this what it is – a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation."