It was supposed to be a joyful day — Meghan Markle's very first Trooping the Colour as a newly married royal, just weeks after her fairytale Windsor wedding. But according to Prince Harry, one innocent little joke nearly derailed the whole occasion before it had even begun.

The One-Word Quip That Said It All

Writing in his bombshell memoir Spare, Harry recalls the moment Kate Middleton turned to Meghan during the 2018 celebration and asked what she thought of her first Trooping the Colour. Meghan's response? A single word.

'Colourful.' And a yawning silence threatened to swallow us all whole.

Harry doesn't linger on the moment in his book — he doesn't need to. The image of four of the world's most scrutinised people standing in stilted silence on one of the monarchy's grandest occasions speaks entirely for itself. Whether Meghan intended the quip as a light-hearted icebreaker or simply misjudged the room, it clearly didn't land the way she'd hoped.

Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry stand on a palace balcony: Kate in light blue with a fascinator, Meghan pink, and Harry in military dress uniform.

The June 2018 event was one of Harry and Meghan's first major public appearances as a married couple, having tied the knot on 19 May that year. Harry writes that the mood had initially been upbeat — "everyone present was in a good mood" — making the sudden chill all the more jarring.

A Relationship Already Fraying at the Edges

That awkward exchange, it turns out, was just one thread in a much more tangled knot of grievances between the two couples. Harry reveals that later that month, all four of them sat down in an attempt to clear the air — and what followed was a litany of small but simmering resentments.

Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle sit together at what appears to be a formal event, one wearing a white patterned outfit and the other in a blue striped shirt.

"None of this airing of grievances was doing any good," Harry wrote bluntly. "We weren't getting anywhere."

For fans of royal drama, it's a revealing portrait of just how quickly relations between the two couples deteriorated — and how seemingly trivial slights can calcify into lasting rifts when left unaddressed.

From Palace Balcony to California Sidelines

Harry and Meghan last took part in Trooping the Colour in 2019. By early 2020, the couple had stepped back from royal duties and relocated to the United States. Their final appearance at the parade came in 2022 during the late Queen's Platinum Jubilee, when they watched from a side window at Buckingham Palace — notably absent from the iconic balcony lineup reserved for working royals.

Members of the British Royal Family stand on the Buckingham Palace balcony during Trooping The Colour, wearing formal attire and regalia.

This year's Trooping the Colour went ahead without them once again, with King Charles and Queen Camilla joined by Prince William, Kate and their three children — Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis — processing in carriages and on horseback through central London. Harry, meanwhile, made a remote video appearance at the Invictus Germany Sports Festival in Düsseldorf, the wounded veterans' competition he founded back in 2014.

It's a long way from that summer's day in 2018, when the Sussexes were fresh from their honeymoon, full of hope, and standing on a palace balcony together — before one word, one silence, and a thousand small grievances changed everything.