Before meeting Prince Harry, Meghan Markle was a “failure” and “over the hill actress” according to a royal commentator.

In a recent interview, British biographer Andrew Morton gave the Duchess of Sussex, 39, a number of backhanded compliments about her determination.

Morton, who appeared in the Channel 5 documentary Meghan & The Markles: A Family At War, said the Duchess of Sussex was determined to achieve stardom as an actress before marrying into the Royal Family.

“Let’s not forget that, for ten years, her budding career as an actress was something of a failure,” Morton said,  “For almost a decade, Meghan auditioned for parts in movies, ads and gameshows.”

“She was kind of, at 30, over the hill, in Hollywood terms, when she got this gig in ‘Suits,'” he said.

“The fact that she kept on going on, the fact that she went to all these rehearsals and auditions without the prospect of work showed that kind of determination that her father imbued in her and that has propelled her to where she is today.”

Since Markle and Prince Harry made their royal romance official, Morton has been deeply critical of her.

He previously referred to the humanitarian and former actress as a “social climber,” writing in his book “Meghan: A Hollywood Princess” that she dumped her first husband Trevor Engelson after her success on “Suits.”

“She was her own woman now, earning a steady income, making new friends on-set and off, no longer dependent on her husband’s connections,” he wrote. “Her friends in LA noticed the change in her now that she was on her way up. She no longer had time for mates she had known for years … a networker to her fingertips, she seemed to be recalibrating her life, forging new friendships with those who could develop her career.”

Meghan had a short spell as a Deal or No Deal briefcase model and also starred as “Hot Girl” in noughties rom-com A Lot Like Love before breaking out as Rachel Zane in the legal drama Suits. It Feels a Lot Like Love.

The author says that while Meghan was struggling to make it, “her mother and father had backed her throughout it all.”

Meghan ran her popular lifestyle blog The Tig, which earned her thousands of fans online when she became a household name thanks to her role in Suits.

After getting engaged to Prince Harry in November 2017, the Duchess declared her departure from Suits and took down all of her social networking pages.