Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton have been pitted against each other in the style stakes for years, with both wearing similar outfits in close succession and sporting the same hairstyles. But now the pair are going to “extreme lengths” to try and outdo the other – not just in fashion choices but in business decisions, too and their husbands, Prince Harry and Prince William, are fed up.

An insider reveals, “Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton are going to extreme lengths to outdo each other however they can – and it’s annoying their respective husbands no end.
“They’re both extremely competitive, they keep a very close watch on each other to the point where they try to one up each other with clothes. If Meghan wears all white then often Kate will wear all white for her next outing and vice versa. They’re both equal offenders and it drives Harry and Will nuts.”

Just last week, the Princess of Wales, 41, wore a wide leg trouser – Meghan’s signature style – at the Rugby World Cup in France and is sporting a new voluminous, curly hairstyle with shorter layers at the front comparable to Meghan’s. In June, Kate wore £645 Aquazzura heels favoured by Meghan to reopen National Portrait Gallery.

In April, Meghan, also 42, stepped out at the Dutch Ministry of Defence at Zuiderpark for an Invictus Games Friends and Family reception in a white suit. Weeks later, during her royal visit to Jamaica with William, Kate wore a similar white suit..
The insider adds that Kate and Meghan’s competitive nature is the “only thing” they have in common.

“It’s about the only thing they’re on the same page about these days, their mutual friends all hear about it because they both complain. It’s not just fashion, it’s what they say, who they cultivate,” they explain.

Earlier this year, the Princess appointed branding and marketing expert and ex Virgin flight attendant Alison Corfield to be her new private secretary. She has been working to frame her “Shaping Us” campaign on child development as nothing short of her “life’s work.” Recent reports alleged that Kate’s soft rebranding has less to do with normal royal duties and more to do with one-upping Meghan, with her determined to go about “besting Meghan Markle” in the public eye.
Both women are ambassadors for mental health charities. Kate, along with William, leads Heads Together, a campaign which encourages people to have important conversations about mental health, while the Sussexes’ foundation back Mind, the British mental health charity. The source adds that the charities coupled with their relationship with the public fuels the competition between the two of them, which dates back to when they first met in 2017.

“They’re in this whole battle right now over their mental health charities, each trying to outdo each other. They even copy each other’s handling of the public,” they say.
“Meghan posing with the Rwanda schoolchildren back in 2017, that’s straight out of Kate’s book. Not that Meghan sees it that way, she only sees what Kate copies and it infuriates her. She’s always bringing it up which annoys Harry so much, he wants her to just let it go.
“This entire conflict is much deeper than jealousy over who’s making the best dressed list, this goes way back to when they first met.”

Princess Kate and Meghan’s complex relationship started off on the right foot, and the two of them, alongside their husbands were dubbed the ‘fab four’. However, rumours of a growing rift between the two emerged after Meghan and Harry, 39, got married in May 2018.
Reports claimed Meghan had made Kate cry during a discussion about Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress. But Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that it was the ‘reverse’ and it was actually Meghan who ended up in tears.

“She made me cry and it really hurt my feelings,” Meghan revealed. The Duchess said she did not want to get into details because Kate had “apologised and I [had] forgiven her”.
In January 2023, Harry recalled in his memoir Spare coming home to find Meghan “sobbing” after the encounter with Kate. “I was horrified to see [Meghan] so upset, but I didn’t think it was a catastrophe,” he added. “Indeed the next morning Kate came by with flowers and a card that said she was sorry.”

He also detailed that Kate was seemingly put off when Meghan asked to borrow some lip gloss. “Kate, taken aback, went into her handbag and reluctantly pulled out a small tube,” he wrote. “Meg squeezed some onto her finger and applied it to her lips. Kate grimaced.”
In August 2020, the book Finding Freedom written by Meghan’s friend Omid Scobie suggested the two women didn’t have much in common.

The book read, “The truth was Meghan and Kate just didn’t know each other that well … Though it was not necessarily her responsibility, Kate did little to bridge the divide.”
Harry and Meghan denied having any involvement in the book, which also claims Kate once avoided a solo shopping trip with Meghan in 2017.

The insider explains Meghan feels like she bent over backwards to try and get on Kate’s good side, but it was shut down. “All Meghan wanted was to be accepted by Kate. Instead she was shunned and made to feel like an outsider that could never measure up, or at least that’s how she sees it. So it’s pretty offensive in her eyes when this woman that looked so down on her copies her style. How many footwear brands are there out there and Kate has to suddenly start wearing the exact same Aquazzura shoes she always wears? Not just the same brand, but the same exact style and colour. It’s just so obviously on purpose, it gets totally on her nerves.”

They add Meghan feels “bitter” that she isn’t seen as a style icon in her own right.
“Kate constantly gets praised for being this fashion forward genius, when she chooses nothing but bland and boring basics. It’s very obvious Meghan’s holding a huge grudge, she’s so bitter over the way Kate treated her. It’s no secret Meghan and Harry are convinced William and Kate made things worse for Meghan by meddling behind the scenes to sabotage her. It’s something both Kate and William vehemently deny, but that hasn’t stopped Meghan from carrying a grudge over it. That’s really why she feels this burning need to prove that she’s winning in some imagined competition with Kate.”

Meghan’s next move is to work with Dolly Parton, after it was reported the country singer turned down an opportunity to have tea with the princess. “She was practically jumping for joy when she heard Kate had been turned down for tea by Dolly Parton a while back. She immediately started wooing Dolly herself, her goal is to work with Dolly now just to show Kate up. Of course Kate will never react publicly to any of these antics but she’s not totally innocent in all of this. It’s hard not to notice that she does copy Meghan and a lot of people are convinced it’s to wind her up.

“She pretends not to pay attention to Meghan but she absolutely does. She feels it’s her duty to keep her standards high, she’s not going to be outshone by a C-list actress. She’s just as competitive as Meghan.”