Here’s Why Meghan Markle Isn’t Your Average Royal

Ever since Meghan Markle traded in her maiden name for a royal title when she married Prince Harry and became the Duchess of Sussex, she has measured up to royal standards pretty well, handling herself with poise and grace at all times.

Despite the tiara and the title, Meghan has remained very much the same down-to-earth person she has always been, with ET Online detailing a number of ways in which the duchess has shown this.

When makeup artist and old friend Daniel Martin was busy applying blusher to Meghan’s face before her May 19 wedding, he admitted to her that he wouldn’t know how to act around her after she had been given a royal title, and wasn’t sure if he would need to curtsy to her.

“I asked her that. ‘Do I bow to you? I don’t want to disrespect you, but I’ve known for almost 10 years. What’s up?'” he recalled to People.

“She started laughing and she said, ‘I’m always going to be Meg. Meg.'”

This was the first clue that Meghan wouldn’t become a lofty royal with her nose turned up at us lesser mortals, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

The infamous door incident

Last month, when Meghan stepped out at the London’s Royal Academy of Arts for her first solo engagement as a member of the royal family, netizens had a field day when she was photographed closing her own car door as she stepped out, even if this is a completely ordinary thing to do, as royal biographer Christopher Wilson noted.

“First time I’ve seen an on-duty princess shut her own car door…”

Of course, there were three people on hand to close the door for her, but the duchess thought nothing of flicking it closed herself.

Refusing to show up empty-handed

On day two of her tour of Oceania with Harry, the couple traveled to drought-ravaged Dubbo, a rural town in the state of New South Wales, where they met with farmers who had been particularly affected by the lack of water. And clearly, Doria Ragland raised her daughter right, because Meghan arrived with banana bread that she had baked herself in the kitchen of Admiralty House, where they are staying in Sydney. She even added her own special touch, with chocolate chips and a dash of ginger in the recipe.

When the couple departed the farm, they also noticed a group of fans waiting outside to wave at them, and the duchess asked if they could stop to greet them. She gracefully accepted a stuffed toy bull from a little boy, asking if he would mind if she put the toy in her baby’s nursery.

Holding up Harry’s umbrella

While the couple was in Dubbo, the prince delivered a speech about the tragedy of the drought, and the rain ironically decided to make an appearance on the day. While Harry and Meghan brought 10 staff members with them on tour, the duchess was quite content to be the one to stand at her husband’s side and shield him from the rain by holding the umbrella for him, as seen on Kensington Palace’s Instagram.

When she and Harry took public transport

After the couple attended the Coach Core Awards at Loughborough University, they decided that instead of the convoy of cars waiting to take them back to London, they would take a train, just like any other commuter would, for the two-hour journey back.

She still introduces herself to fans

Just days after the couple announced their engagement in November 2017, Meghan went along with Harry on her first royal engagement up to Nottingham. At that stage, we’re pretty sure everyone knew who she was, even if they somehow hadn’t known before the engagement news broke. And yet, as she greeted adoring fans who had braved the frigid winter weather to meet her, she approached every single fan she greeted with a “Hi, I’m Meghan.”

When she broke protocol for her lookalike

While greeting the crowds waiting to meet her and Harry in Sydney on Tuesday local time, she noticed a little girl in the crowd with a “Girls can do anything” sign. But it wasn’t the sign that caught Meghan’s eye so much as the fact that the girl looks like an exact copy of her when she was that age.

After one fan told the royal, “We feel she looks a bit like you,” Meghan replied that she “was literally about to say the same thing” and, although typically against royal rules, Meghan agreed to take a photo with the little girl.

The way she’s dealing with a rigorous schedule while pregnant

Judging by the fact that there hasn’t been a sudden and unexplained disappearance of the new duchess recently, it seems safe to assume that Meghan hasn’t been suffering from the same crippling morning sickness her sister-in-law, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, suffered through at the beginning of all three her pregnancies.

But even so, pregnancy is taxing on a woman’s body, and around the three-month mark, most women experience some level of exhaustion, soreness, and that charmingly unpleasant combination of feeling both nauseated and hungry at the same time. Despite this, Meghan seems to be taking on the challenge of 76 engagements in just 16 days with her usual beautiful smile in place.

On Tuesday, she admitted to reporters that she was “running on adrenaline” and “feeling a bit tired” but appeared to power through the day regardless. She confirmed she had every intention of sticking to each and every engagement planned, adding that she was “doing pretty well so far.” The exhaustion certainly won’t be helped by the jetlag she is also no doubt experiencing after crossing 10 time zones to get to Australia.