The royal family removed certain phrases from the script, preventing Meghan Markle from speaking them in Suits.
The actress had never met Prince Harry before playing Rachel Zane in the popular US courtroom drama.
Naturally, Markle left the show in 2018 engaged to the prince and about to become Duchess of Sussex.
The couple originally met in July 2016 and announced their engagement in November 2017, just after the seventh season of Suits ended.
The creator acknowledged that the ‘Meghan Markle effect’ may have contributed to the show’s dramatic spike in viewership after Netflix added it.
Aaron Korsh was ‘as delighted in some ways as anybody else’ when he discovered the singer was dating a member of our royal family.
This doesn’t mean her relationship didn’t affect Suits.
“I mean, your initial reaction is, like, ‘We’re dating a prince!'” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
“But we shot in Toronto, and the writers room was in Los Angeles, so other people had to deal with it.”
“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.”
While the royals weren’t involved in many activities, their connection did result in a few things that the showrunners wanted to do but couldn’t accomplish.
Korsh continued, “It was a little irritating.”
According to the author, one of the things the team ‘couldn’t do’ was use a specific term in the screenplay for Markle’s role.
“Look, let me just tell you what the line was. When my wife’s family discusses a difficult matter, they use the term ‘poppycock,'” Korsh remarked.
Let’s say you wanted to discuss doing something your spouse didn’t want to do. You wouldn’t hold him accountable for anything he said; you’d say, ‘It’s poppycock.'”
“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.’ The royal family did not approve of her uttering the phrase.
The designer believes the directive came from the royals, who were concerned about the footage being reduced to merely ‘c*ck’.
However, they seemed satisfied with the change to ‘bulls**t’—I’m sure you weren’t expecting that.