Meghan's best friend Serena Williams dragged into ‘shocking' royal racism saga after Princess Michael of Kent revelations
Princess Michael of Kent, the wife of the late Queen's cousin, has been embroiled in a series of controversies since marrying Prince Michael of Kent in 1978.
Although the Kents are not technically working royals, the couple enjoy the full trappings of royal life and live in a lavish apartment inside Kensington Palace.
The couple's children Lord Frederick Windsor and Lady Gabriella Kingston remain 54th and 57th in line to the throne, respectively.
Writer Aatish Taseer, who dated Lady Gabriella for three years in the early 2000s, sparked a media storm in 2018 after revealing Princess Michael kept a pair of pet black sheep she named after tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams.
Mr Taseer originally made the claims in a piece for Vanity Fair in 2018, around the time Markle married into the royal family.
On Monday, Mr Taseer elaborated on the infamous sheep story and theorised why Princess Michael would find the gesture acceptable.
'I think the (story about) Venus and Serena was part of that weird air of abstraction that exists around these people and how they're not even aware of how shocking or offensive that might be,' he said on the 'Tell Me About Your Father' podcast.
Serena, widely regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all time, first struck up a friendship with Markle while the future Duchess of Sussex was an actress on Suits.
The pair have remained close pals since the Sussexes left royal duties and Williams publicly supported Harry and Meghan at the ESPY Awards last year.
The revelation about the royal's black sheep was not the first time Princess Michael of Kent has been accused of racially insensitive behaviour.
In 2004, she was accused of racially insulting black diners at a restaurant in New York City.
A spokesperson later accepted that the Princess had been angry at the group, who were seated at a table near her, but denied that she had told them to "go back to the colonies".
In 2017, the royal sparked outrage again after wearing a 'blackamoor' brooch with a stylised figure of an African man to a Christmas banquet attended by Markle.
A spokesperson for Princess Michael said the royal was 'very sorry' that the brooch caused offence.
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