Slightly skeptical. Before Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in May 2018, her high school friend Simone Burns Dilley had mixed emotions — especially when it came to the British press.
“We were excited for her, but … at the same time, I was worried,” Dilley recalled in a clip from a new episode of E! True Hollywood Story, airing Monday, March 22. “She was divorced, she’s half-Black. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. They’re gonna be so mean to her.’”
The Suits alum, 39, was previously married to movie producer Trevor Engelson from September 2011 to August 2013. Meghan and Harry, 36, started dating after they were introduced through friends in July 2016 and announced their engagement just over a year later. Millions around the world watched as the pair exchanged vows at St George’s Chapel in Windsor, England, in May 2018.
Even before she officially became a member of the British royal family, Meghan was subject to waves of negativity online. In November 2016, the prince addressed the “abuse and harassment” his then-girlfriend was experiencing in the public eye, defending her against “the racial undertones of comment pieces” and other toxic treatment by the media. He issued a similar statement three years later, comparing Meghan’s “private suffering” to that of his late mother, Princess Diana, who died in 1997 in a car crash in Paris while being chased by paparazzi.
“There comes a…
