Donald Trump's Meghan Markle Comments Pour Salt in the Wound

Donald Trump has claimed Queen Elizabeth II "was treated so disrespectfully by Meghan" Markle, targeting a relationship that the Sussexes have fought to protect.

The former U.S. president was interviewed by former UKIP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage on GB News and said Prince Harry's book Spare was "horrible."

Trump was full of glowing praise for King Charles III, less than two weeks after publishing private letters from him and Princess Diana in the book Letters to Trump.

The intervention came three days before the king's coronation on May 6, when Prince Harry will be alongside the royals he criticized for the first time since his bombshell book came out in January.

And it chips away at one of the most important of Harry and Meghan's relationships, as they have never criticized the queen and always sought to position themselves as close to the late monarch, both during her lifetime and since.

In fact, one of the first major disputes after they announced they were quitting royal duties in January 2020 was around allegations they "blindsided" the queen.

What Donald Trump Told Nigel Farage About Meghan Markle

Trump said: "I think it's going to be a great day and I think that they will do a great job and he loves the country. Really, I got to know him quite well and he loves the country, really loves the country and he loved his mother.

"And that's why I thought she was treated so disrespectfully by Meghan and just no reason to do that."

"I think she has been very disrespectful to the queen frankly," he continued, "even during that time. I mean how can you be so disrespectful to the queen?

"The queen was incredible for years, for decades and decades she never made a mistake, think of it."

"You cannot be disrespectful to her and I think Meghan was very disrespectful to her, very disrespectful," he added.

Trump was no less critical of Harry, suggesting Charles' second son should not have been invited to the coronation over the contents of Spare.

"I was actually surprised that Harry was invited to be honest," Trump said. "He said some terrible things when you see what he said and the book was just...to me, it was horrible."

Harry, Meghan and the Queen as a PR Battleground

Harry's relationship with the queen was put at the center of the rift between him and the palace from the very start of their post-royal journey.

Harry and Meghan's plan to start a new life outside Britain was leaked to The Sun newspaper in January 2020, prompting the couple to post their now-defunct Sussex Royal website online.

The move led to allegations in both the British and American media that they "blindsided" the queen, with CNN quoting a source saying Elizabeth was "upset."

Harry, however, has disputed this notion and made several other attempts to present himself to the world as close to the monarch.

During the March 2020 Oprah Winfrey interview, Harry said: "No, I never blindsided my grandmother. I have too much respect for her."

Meghan told CBS how, despite extraordinary allegations against the palace and other royals in the interview, she had always been close to the queen: "So, there's the family, and then there's the people that are running the institution. Those are two separate things. And it's important to be able to compartmentalize that, because the queen, for example, has always been wonderful to me."

The prince said he and Elizabeth II "have a really special relationship" during an interview with Hoda Kotb for Today in 2022 in which he added: "We talk about things that she can't talk about with anybody else. So that's always a nice piece to it."

In a comment likely to ruffle feathers at the palace, he said: "She's always got a great sense of humor with me and I'm just making sure that she's, you know, protected and got the right people around her."

And as recently as April he told the High Court in London that the queen supported his campaign to get compensation from Rupert Murdoch's empire for phone hacking, while King Charles told him to abandon a series of lawsuits.

He wrote: "I then spoke to the Director of Royal Communications for Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Household, Sally Osman, who was aware that I had spoken to my grandmother and that she had given her consent to pursue this course of action."

He added that later in October 2019: "I was summoned to Buckingham Palace and specifically told to drop the legal actions because they have an 'effect on all the family'.

"This was a direct request (or rather demand) from my father, [the queen's private secretary] Edward Young and my father's private secretary, Clive Alderton."

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.