A Duchess Divided Meghan's Crucial Next Steps

How she plans to continue making her mark in the world

- Judy Kean

There’s no denying that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has always had the best of intentions.

From the age of 11, when she enlisted the support of powerful women such as Hillary Clinton to get a dishwashing liquid manufacturer to change its sexist TV ads, she has spoken out about matters close to her heart. More recently, she has channelled her fame into supporting organisations such as World Vision and the United Nations (UN) in an effort to make the world a better place.

And when she married Prince Harry nearly two years ago, it seemed her new royal status would give her an even more powerful platform from which to support causes she feels strongly about, such as education opportunities for girls, women’s rights and overcoming poverty. Becoming a duchess should have been a help, not a hindrance, when it came to using her strong sense of social justice for good.

But now that it has all gone terribly wrong, and she and Harry are about to pull the plug on their roles representing the Queen, Meghan is needing to find a new way to achieve her goal of making a difference without getting people’s backs up because she’s “dragged Harry away from his family and upset the Queen in the process,” says a royal insider.

“There’s no denying that the next steps they take will be crucial ones,” says the source.

Meghan and Harry have already been lashed for the way they announced they would be stepping down as senior royals, and for how they’ve treated the Queen (93). For that, Meghan (38) has been on the receiving end of a lot of the blame.