Millie Mackintosh has revealed how her friendship with Meghan Markle ended after she started dating Prince Harry.
Speaking on her Mumlemmas podcast, the former Made In Chelsea star said she became close with the Suits star after they met at a hotel event in Turkey.
The 33-year-old explained: “Years ago, I’d say about eight years ago, I went to the opening of a hotel in Istanbul and I met Meghan Markle.”
“I was a fan, I watched Suits, and we met at the bar and we were both ordering a drink at the same time I started chatting. We got on really well, we got on like a house on fire, and just stayed in touch.”
“Then we went to lunch, she didn’t know London very well, she’d never been to Chelsea, so I took her to The Ivy on Kings Road,” Millie continued.
“She didn’t know anyone so I gave her the best places to get your nails done, basically my little black book. I gave her all my contacts.”
The mother-of-two claimed she and Meghan bonded over their marital troubles, as Millie was married to rapper Professor Green at the time, and Meghan had split from her first husband Trevor Engelson.
“When we first met I was married, going through a bit of a turbulent time, and I got divorced, and she was divorced so we had quite a lot to talk about,” Millie recalled.
“That was quite bonding, and we were both into our wellness, she had our blog, we were both just into the same things.”
“We hung out a handful of times, we weren’t best friends, but whenever she was in town she’d let me know and we would just hang out.”
“Then the last time I saw her was down at a hotel in the Cotswolds, she was staying there, what I thought was going to be a day of yoga ended up being rosè and margaritas in the pool.”
“It was a really fun afternoon, there were pictures taken of us riding around on the bikes. That was the last time I saw her.”
“When I was there, we were chatting and she told me about [Prince] Harry and that they were messaging, and a friend had introduced them.”
“I don’t know him, just to clarify, I’ve never met him. Me and Harry do not know each other I’ve never met him. I didn’t really ask too much about it.”
Millie then said she reached out to Meghan when her romance with Harry became public knowledge.
“I messaged her and said, ‘Hey I hope you’re OK, thinking of you,’ and she sent me this really abrupt message, that was really unlike any of our communications before,” she said.
“It’s not like I messaged her asking if it was true, that was none of my business… What I read from that message was that she needed a bit of space, to cool off.”
“I didn’t message her again, but I did expect that we would stay in touch. I thought she’d message back and say, ‘Sorry everything is a bit stressful right now.'”
“I never heard from her again. I felt like she’d basically told me to f**k off in that message. So I did. And we haven’t spoken since.”
Millie added: “My take on it is that, this is my instinct why it happened at the time, she thought right I’m gonna be royal now, I don’t need Millie in my life.”
“I was on a reality show at the time, she thought, ‘I can’t be associated with Made In Chelsea, I’m gonna be royal.'”
Meghan started dating Prince Harry in the summer of 2016, after being set up by a mutual friend.
The couple went public with their romance the following year, before they tied the knot in May 2018 – becoming the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
In 2020, Harry and Meghan announced they were stepping down as senior working royals, and subsequently moved to California – where they now live with their two children.
