Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Squashed an 'Enormous Opportunity' to Become 'Powerful' Figures Within the Royal Family

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry shocked the world in 2020 when the duo decided to step down from their senior-level royal roles, but royal analyst Bonnie Brownlee thinks the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could have been impactful working for The Firm.

Brownlee said on True Royalty's The Royal Beat that the couple had the potential to be "powerful" figures within the royal family.

Harry once said the family's inability to make Meghan feel safe and accepted led to the loss of an "enormous opportunity."

The Suits star symbolized something new for the monarchy, and Meghan's American culture and biracial identity could've helped modernize the monarchy.

"Meghan could have been extremely helpful to the royal family, especially in the Commonwealth," Brownlee explained. "There are a lot of millennials around the world in the Commonwealth nations. I think Harry and Meghan would have been highly successful."

"And sometimes I think they didn’t realize how powerful they already were before they moved to Los Angeles," she noted. "They could have brought a great deal of openness, fairness and change.”

During the Sussexes' 2021 tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey, the duo doubled down on how Meghan's ethnicity could've strengthened the royals' presence in the British territories.

"Yeah, I think, you know, as we talked about, she was very much welcomed into the family, not just by the family, but by the world," Harry told the talk show host. "Certainly by the Commonwealth. I mean, here you have one of the greatest assets to the Commonwealth that the family could have ever wished for."

When discussing her own struggles to transition into being a duchess, she hoped people descending from nations colonized by Britain would see themselves in her.

"Especially when — look, I — the Commonwealth is a huge part of the monarchy, and I lived in Canada, which is a Commonwealth country, for seven years," the actress explained. "But it wasn’t until Harry and I were together that we started to travel through the Commonwealth, I would say 60 percent, 70 percent of which is people of color, right?"

"And growing up as a woman of color, as a little girl of color, I know how important representation is. I know how you want to see someone who looks like you in certain positions," she continued.

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As a parent, Meghan recognized the value of the world witnessing someone who is half African American and Caucasian being married to a prince.

"Even Archie. Like, we read these books, and now he’s been — there’s one line in one that goes, ‘If you can see it, you can be it,'" she shared. "And he goes, ‘You can be it!’ And I think about that so often, especially in the context of these young girls, but even grown women and men who, when I would meet them in our time in the Commonwealth, how much it meant to them to be able to see someone who looks like them ."