A dress, tears and text messages: The real story behind Kate and Meghan’s pre-wedding 'fight'.

It was the so-called 'feud' that everyone couldn't stop talk about. 

The year was 2018 and Meghan Markle had been married to Prince Harry for mere months when rumours started swirling that Meghan and Kate Middleton had a falling out over... flower girl dresses. 

At the time, The Telegraph claimed Kate "left in tears" following a dress fitting for Princess Charlotte.

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While it wasn't clear what caused Kate to get upset at the time, years of tabloid gossip and rumours followed.

"It was a hot day and apparently there was a row over whether the bridesmaids should wear tights or not," an unnamed friend of Kate and William's supposedly told Tatler magazine in 2020. 

Now, five years later, Prince Harry has finally set the record straight about that infamous 'fight'.

Addressing the incident in his memoir, Spare, the 38-year-old wrote that Kate texted Meghan before their May 2018 wedding after Charlotte's dress didn't fit properly. 

"Charlotte’s dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on a home," Kate reportedly wrote in a message to her soon-to-be sister-in-law.

Harry wrote that the dresses were "French haute couture" and had been hand-sewn based solely on the bridesmaids' measurements so "it was not surprising that they needed alterations".

"Meg didn’t reply to Kate straight away," he explained, adding that she was pre-occupied by her father who had been making headlines about him reportedly staging paparazzi photos ahead of the wedding.

"Yes, she had endless wedding-related texts, but mostly she was dealing with the chaos surrounding her father. So the next morning, she texted Kate that our tailor was standing by."

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"Right, I told you the tailor has been standing by since 8am. Here. At KP [Kensington Palace]," Meghan reportedly responded. "Can you take Charlotte to have it altered, as the other mums are doing?"

Harry claimed Meghan's response "wasn’t sufficient", with Kate writing back, "no, all the dresses need to be remade" and that Meghan's own wedding dress designer, Sarah Burton, agreed with her.

"Meg asked if Kate was aware of what was going on right now. With her father. Kate said she was well aware, but the dresses. And the wedding is in four days!" Harry wrote.

"Yes, Kate, I know," Harry said Meghan replied.

According to Harry, Kate also expressed "problems with the way Meg was planning her wedding". 

"Something about a party for the page boys? It went back and forth," he wrote.

Eventually, Meghan responded, "I’m not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn’t fit, then please take Charlotte to see Ajay [the tailor]. He’s been waiting all day." 

"Fine," Kate reportedly responded. 

In the memoir, Harry said that he came home to find Meghan "on the floor sobbing". He told her that Kate "hadn’t meant any harm". 

Kate and Charlotte at Meghan and Harry's wedding. Image: Ben Stansall/PA Images/Getty.

Meghan previously addressed the incident during her interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, where she corrected rumours that it was her who made Kate cry before the wedding, explaining "the reverse happened". 

"A few days before the wedding she was upset about something, pertaining to, yes, the issue was correct, about flower girl dresses, and it made me cry, and it really hurt my feelings," Meghan told Winfrey at the time. 

"And I thought in the context of everything else that was going on in those days leading to the wedding that it didn't make sense to not be just doing whatever, what everyone else was doing, which was trying to be supportive knowing what was going on with my dad and whatnot."

Meghan went on to share that Kate later apologised to her over the incident. 

"It was a really hard week of the wedding, and she was upset about something, but she owned it and she apologised and she brought me flowers and a note apologising, and she did what I would do if I knew that I'd hurt someone, right, to just take accountability for it."

Meghan added that "everyone in the institution" knew the rumours that Meghan made Kate cry weren't true. 

"What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do but that happened to me," she said.

"I would hope that [Kate] would’ve wanted that corrected. And maybe in the same way that the Palace wouldn’t let anybody else negate it, they wouldn’t let her, because she’s a good person."

Read more on this topic: 

• 'A remarkably unfunny joke'. The 14 biggest revelations to come out of Prince Harry's memoir, Spare.
• 'Do you acknowledge you got things wrong?' A recap of Prince Harry's viral press tour.
• Princess Diana died when Prince Harry was 12. Years later, she sent him a 'message'.

Feature Image: Jane Barlow/PA Images/Ben Stansall/PA Images/Getty.