Meghan Markle rose to the fame as the powerful paralegal Rachel Zane in Suits. But it turns out her role in the US legal drama wasn’t without its difficulties.
A former creator of suits, Aaron Kosh, has opened up about how Meghan’s relationship with Prince Harry affected the scripts. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Kosh said that the Royal Family ‘weighed in on some stuff’ once the couple’s relationship became public, continuing ‘not many things, by the way, but a few things that we wanted to do and couldn’t do, and it was a little irritating.’
Kosh gave the example of the word ‘poppycock,’ a term used by his wife’s family when they had a sensitive topic to discuss. ‘In the episode, Mike and Rachel were going to have a thing, and as a nod to my in-laws, we were going to have her say, “My family would say poppycock.” And the Royal Family did not want her saying the word. They didn’t want to put the word “poppycock” in her mouth,’ he said. ‘I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying “c**k.” So, we had to change it to “bulls**t” instead of “poppycock,” and I did not like it because I’d told my in-laws that [poppycock] was going to be in the show.’
The producer added that he wasn’t sure how the royal family was receiving the scripts for his show. 'I was aware that they were reading them because I got the feedback, but I don’t remember the process by which they got them,' he said.
The news comes in the same week that Harry's Heart Of Invictus documentary launched on Netflix, a five-part series where he talks candidly about the royal family and his own mental health struggles. Search for ‘Harry and Megan’ documentary is up by 550%, while the documentary is a breakout search term on Google.
This isn’t the first time that producers have addressed how Meghan’s relationship with Harry affected the show. In the Harry & Meghan documentary released last year, Suits producer Silver Tree revealed that the production had to ‘cage in all the trailers’ on the show to protect Meghan from the paparazzi after their relationship became public.
In Harry’s memoir, Spare, he writes about Meghan giving up her role on Suits after season seven. ‘Meg packed up her house, gave up her role in Suits. After seven seasons. A difficult moment for her, because she loved that show, loved the character she was playing, loved her cast and crew—loved Canada,’ he wrote. ‘On the other hand life there had become untenable. Especially on set. The show writers were frustrated, because they were often advised by the Palace comms team to change lines of dialogue, what her character would do, how she would act.’ It's safe to say we were also pretty devastated when Rachel Zane was written out of the Suits finale.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that Suits became the unlikely hit of the summer. The show broke its own record for the most-watched acquired title, with 3.7 billion minutes watched from 3 July to 9 July across Netflix and Peacock, according to Nielsen data. We don’t want to get your hopes up, but, given the show’s success, could a reunion be on the cards?
Probably not, if Kosh’s Twitter is anything to go by. In August, he tweeted ‘Let me say right off that there is no #Suits reboot or anything in the works. Strike would have to end, some network or streamer would have to reach out and then we would have to collectively want to. Which is no small thing.’
While seeing Meghan return to our screens might be a distant dream, the revelations around her role in Suits seem likely to continue.