An expert claims Meghan Markle thought “we have got to be a brand” after she and Prince Harry stepped down from their top royal responsibilities.

Meghan at 40: The Climb to Power, a documentary which premieres this week on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom ahead of the royal’s 40th birthday on August 4, interviews royal pundits on the Duchess of Sussex and her journey from TV actress and celebrity to royal and entrepreneur.

When the couple travelled to Canada, there seemed to be an “unholy scrap” about what the Sussexes wanted to be called, according to royal analyst Tom Quinn.

Quinn said: “They wanted to be Sussex Royal. Again this is an American culture thing coming in via Meghan.

“She, having crossed the Atlantic, began to think ‘we have got to be a brand’.

“That terrible word that the Royal family would always think ‘they’re talking about brands, it’s awful!’”

He went on to say that the couple “wanted to be Sussex Royal” “in order to put the name on their goods, but “they were told they couldn’t be Sussex Royal or HRH’s.”

He goes on to say: “It was the royal family again saying to them because clearly Meghan and Harry clearly hadn’t checked.

“You can’t just carry on with the titles you had when you were working members of the royal family!'”

“Any form of commercial venture risked bringing the royal family into disrepute if it didn’t fit with the monarchy’s remit of public operations back in Britain,” royal historian and critic Ed Owens said.

Meghan at 40: The Climb to Power goes not just into the couple’s split from the monarchy and commercial success, but also into the couple’s motives behind the media interviews they’ve done since moving to the US, including their March 2021 sit down with Oprah.

Meanwhile, Tom told the show that Meghan was “hoping for an apology” from the royal family following her shocking interview with Oprah Winfrey.

“I think she was hoping for an apology, I think she was hoping they would phone and say, ‘We are really sorry, we now see that we pushed you too far. We should have behaved differently, we should have sat down as a family and discussed your mental health issues’,” Quinn said.

“I think she was horrified afterwards that the reaction was so negative from the family and they didn’t respond in the way that she wanted.”

Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry, sat down with the TV personality in March for a tell-all interview and made a number of stunning claims.

Pauline Maclaran, a Professor of marketing and consumer research at Royal Holloway University, revealed to US Weekly at the beginning of July how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have developed “a competitive brand” with “their version of royalty” that has destroyed the royal family’s brand.

Since leaving the royal family last year, the Sussexes have used the TV interview, as well as Harry’s conversation with James Corden, to discuss their time in the Firm and disagreements behind palace walls.