Queen Elizabeth ‘Friends, Equals’ With Kate Middleton But Not Meghan, Says Expert

Queen Elizabeth II is reportedly closer to Kate Middleton than Meghan Markle because they are considered as “equals.”

Judi James, a body language expert, told Express that even though Markle’s solo engagement with the Queen came sooner than Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge still has the upper hand when it comes to their personal relationship with each other.

“Kate has always been a ‘duck to water’ in terms of her royal body language displays, and the fact that she had known William for years and had more access to role models for her new role emerged strongly in her non-verbal behavior with the Queen,” she said.

James also talked about Middleton and the Queen’s first engagement in 2012 where the former was seen walking behind the latter in St. Pancras station. James that Middleton managed to pull herself out a tricky situation at that time.

“She managed to pull off the challenging trick of walking slightly behind the monarch but without looking diminished or uncomfortable and this was probably down to her time spent doing the same with William before their engagement. Her ability to do this followed her to manage her communications with the Queen to the point where the two women look like friends and almost equals,” she said.

On the contrary, Markle looked a bit more stressed during her first engagement with the Queen. This may be because she just joined the royal family less than a month earlier.

“Meghan was thrown into the deep end when she married Harry with little to no royal experience, and although she is clearly putting in an industrial-strength effort to develop her royal poise and body language the fact she is having to learn on the job seems to have created a very different balance between her and the Queen,” she explained.

“The shared laughter and affection signals look very similar to Kate’s poses but Meghan is currently looking more like a grand-daughter-in-law than a female friend. At some moments she uses some pseudo-infantile re-motivational techniques to look cute and slightly vulnerable but at others, her smile looks more nurturing as she listens to a woman who is nearly three times her own age,” James added.