Meghan Markle was prohibited from saying certain words in Suits after the Royal Family requested their removal from the script.
When Markle began portraying Rachel Zane in the popular U.S. legal drama, she hadn’t even met Prince Harry yet. However, by the time she left the show in 2018, she was engaged to the royal and about to become the Duchess of Sussex.
The couple first met in July 2016 and publicly announced their engagement in November 2017, shortly after the seventh season of Suits wrapped up. The show ended in 2019 but gained a viewership boost after being added to Netflix, with the creator acknowledging the potential influence of the “Meghan Markle effect.”
Aaron Korsh, the creator, was just as thrilled as everyone else when he learned that Markle was dating a royal. “I mean, your initial reaction is, like, ‘We’re dating a prince!’” Korsh told The Hollywood Reporter.
“But the security and all that stuff, we shot in Toronto and the writers room was in L.A., so other people were dealing with that. I will say, and I think Harry put this in the book [Spare], because I heard people talking about it — [the Royal Family] weighed in on some stuff.”
Although there weren’t many instances where the royals intervened, the relationship did lead to some restrictions on the show. Korsh admitted, “It was a little irritating.”
One notable example involved a specific word they had planned for Markle’s character to say. Korsh explained, “Look, I’ll just say what the line was. My wife’s family, when they have a topic to discuss that might be sensitive, they use the word ‘poppycock.’”
He continued, “So, in the episode, Mike and Rachel were going to have a thing, and as a nod to my in-laws, we were going to have her say, ‘My family would say poppycock.’ And the Royal Family did not want her saying the word.”
Korsh suspected the concern was that the word could be edited down to just “c*ck.” Interestingly, the royals were okay with replacing it with “bulls**t,” which might come as a surprise.
