![\"\"](\"https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2274778643-e1778601514872.jpg\")
Later today [Wednesday 13th May], Kate Middleton is set to land in Northern Italy for her first trip abroad following her recovery from cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fans have been delighted by her return to the public eye this year and her solo visit can only mean one thing \u2013 Kate is back at her best. And after an incredibly tough couple of years through treatment and recovery, it\u2019s the news we\u2019ve all been waiting for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, we\u2019re told the timing of Kate\u2019s trip hasn\u2019t gone down so well with one person in particular \u2013 Meghan Markle, who just weeks ago returned from her own Australian mini tour with Prince Harry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The insider says, \u2018From Meghan\u2019s perspective, the timing couldn\u2019t be more obvious. She and Harry have just come back from this great overseas trip [to Australia] and they\u2019re finally getting some positive press, and suddenly Kate\u2019s everywhere again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018She doesn\u2019t believe for one second it\u2019s a coincidence that right after she and Harry have a successful trip overseas Kate is taking one of her own.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crux of the matter, we\u2019re told, is Meghan\u2019s belief that the \u2018royal machine\u2019 is out to bulldoze her, especially at times when her success threatens the popularity of the family\u2019s golden girl, Kate, who the source says Meghan is adamant has been \u2018competitive\u2019 with her from the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They tell us, \u2018Meghan says this whole rollout of appearances and projects by Kate is a calculated move to shift the focus back onto her and the monarchy. Meghan has always said that Kate was unnecessarily competitive with her from the first time they met, and as far as she\u2019s concerned this is more of the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019s clear she\u2019s trying to re-establish her territory and Meghan is convinced it\u2019s because Kate is feeling threatened. Meghan says every time she and Harry start building momentum, the royal machine suddenly swings into action and steals the spotlight away from them again and she\u2019s sick and tired of it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, it\u2019s now just two months until Harry is set to return to the UK to mark the one year countdown to the Invictus Games 2027, and speculation is swirling that he is hoping to meet with King Charles during his trip – an occasion that would mark a positive next step in their road to reconciliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it comes as little surprise that we\u2019re told Harry is tactfully trying to play \u2018prince in the middle\u2019 and \u2018calm\u2019 any escalating tensions before Meghan\u2019s annoyance threatens to deepen her alleged rift with Kate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The insider says, \u2018Harry has been left trying to calm the whole thing down. He\u2019s the first to accuse the Palace of unfair treatment but in this case, he\u2019s not convinced it\u2019s as cut and dried as Meghan\u2019s assuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018He\u2019s pointed out that it\u2019s very likely that this trip to Italy would have been planned months ago; that\u2019s the way protocol for an overseas trip usually works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018But Meghan isn\u2019t really interested in hearing the practical explanation because from her perspective this fits a pattern that she\u2019s been pointing out for years.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s been almost four years since Meghan came face to face with Kate at the late Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s funeral in September 2022, but there\u2019s no doubt that since her relationship with Harry first went public back in 2017, she has had to face nearly a decade of endless comparisons. During her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan said she had been so affected by the reported clash that she set the record straight, telling Oprah it had been the other way around, with Harry later insisting in his memoir, Spare, that he had picked Meghan up from \u2018the floor\u2019 in tears over Kate\u2019s insistence that the dress be changed last minute and that the flower girls wear tights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, six years on from when she and Harry stepped down as senior working royals, we\u2019re told Meghan still feels \u2018picked apart\u2019 while Kate continues to be the new \u2018people\u2019s princess\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018What really gets on Meghan\u2019s nerves is the way Kate always seems to receive this automatic wave of praise and goodwill whereas Meghan still feels she\u2019s picked apart and criticized no matter what she does,\u2019 the insider says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018She still feels there was always this unspoken hierarchy where Kate was treated as the golden girl while she was left exposed to criticism and expected to just absorb it quietly.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the tide appeared to have turned during the Sussexes’ Australian trip, which was widely lauded as a success and saw hundreds of well-wishers greeting Meghan and Harry, who appeared to thrive in the environment of a so-dubbed \u2018quasi royal tour\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the source says that with Kate\u2019s trip bound to receive widespread acclaim, especially as it marks her first following her 2024 cancer diagnosis, Meghan can\u2019t help but feel she\u2019s back to square one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re told, \u2018The Australia trip was one of the rare moments where Meghan finally felt like the positive reaction outweighed the negativity and she was genuinely excited by that. So watching attention immediately shift back onto Kate has been hugely deflating for her emotionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018It\u2019s stirred up a lot of old resentment and reopened wounds Meghan never truly got over from her time inside the royal family. But she says she\u2019s done playing that game, she won\u2019t be used as a pawn or stuck in the background anymore.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet for queen of reinvention Meghan – who King Charles is said to have once affectionately have nicknamed \u2018Tungsten\u2019 after the metal with the strongest melting point \u2013 we\u2019re told that Kate\u2019s comeback has only further motivated her to \u2018prove\u2019 that, alongside Harry, they have enough to show Kate and William exactly how it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The insider says, \u2018She\u2019s told friends that this has only made her more determined to arrange more royal-style tours to prove that she and Harry can have just as much impact, if not more, as Kate and William.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018In her view, the fact that their Australia trip provoked this sort of swift and dramatic reaction from the palace proves that they\u2019re on the right track.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photos: Getty<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Meghan Markle\u2019s reaction to Princess Kate\u2019s Italian trip reveals shocking truth about their feud It\u2019s the return we have all have been waiting for, but here\u2019s why Kate\u2019s visit threatens to deepen her rift with Meghan Later today [Wednesday 13th May], Kate Middleton is set to land in Northern Italy for her first trip abroad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":13719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity"],"acf":{"article_authors":"","send_as_draft":false,"send_as_paid":true,"send_as_featured":true},"modified_by":"closermag","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13722,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13721\/revisions\/13722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/closerv2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2271134485.jpg\")
Of course, the most famous head-to-head was the now-infamous \u2018bridesmaid dress gate\u2019, when Meghan was accused of making Kate cry over insisting that Princess Charlotte wear an ill-fitting bridesmaid dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2271711942.jpg\")
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