The Royal Family Didn’t Want Meghan Markle to Say ‘Poppycock’ on ‘Suits,’ the Show’s Creator Claims
Buckingham Palace wanted Meghan Markle to mind her p’s and q’s on Suits. Specifically, the p’s.
Aaron Korsh, who created the USA Network’s hit series, told The Hollywood Reporter that the British royal family did not want the Duchess of Sussex to say “poppycock” on the show.
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“They didn’t want to put the word ‘poppycock’ in her mouth,” Korsh said. “I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying ‘cock.'”
The quintessentially British word, which means nonsense or rubbish, was incorporated into the script as a nod to Korsh’s in-laws but had to subbed out for another expletive.
“So, we had to change it to ‘bullshit’ instead of ‘poppycock,’ and I did not like it because I’d told my in-laws that [poppycock] was going to be in the show,” Korsh explained.
Markle played paralegal Rachel Zane on Suits for seven seasons, from 2011 to 2018. After she started dating Prince Harry in 2016, the palace allegedly began to weigh in on her scenes in the show. The Duke of Sussex previously acknowledged this in his memoir, Spare.
“The show writers were frustrated, because they were often advised by the palace comms team to change lines of dialogue, what her character would do, how she would act,” Harry wrote.
Korsh reaffirmed this by telling THR the royal family “weighed in on some stuff” and “it was a little irritating.” He said he doesn’t know exactly how they got the scripts, but he “was aware that they were reading them because I got the feedback.”
Korsh says he eventually learned that the chief concern was the “splicing potential” of the final footage. “But listen, when they explained it that way, and I’m pretty sure it got explained to me that it was about that [splicing potential], I had some sympathy because I wouldn’t want somebody doing that to her either,” he added.
Rachel was written out of the legal drama in 2018, as Markle retired from acting to focus on her humanitarian work and her new duties as a member of the royal family. After stepping back from her royal role in 2020, Markle has since appeared in a Netflix documentary and helmed a podcast series. Hopefully, she doesn’t have to deal with any linguistic poppycock in the future.
(Robb Report reached out to both Buckingham Palace and Meghan’s organization Archewell for comment, but neither immediately replied.)
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