Prince Harry always wanted to quit the Royal Family and Meghan Markle gave him the tools to do it, a royal author has claimed.
Tina Brown, whose new explosive book The Palace Papers was released this week, claims even the Queen knew Harry would go his own way at one point.
But she believes it wasn't until he met Meghan that he was able to do it as she "understood the world of agents and deals".
She also added that the term 'Megxit' was unfair as it was Harry himself who wanted out of the Firm.
Harry and Meghan quit as senior working royals more than two years ago to live a new financially independent life in California with their children.
They've signed multi-million dollar deals with the likes of Netflix and Spotify - but so far have released little content.
And speaking in a video interview with the Washington Post, Brown said: "You know, I think--I think that it is true, though, that Meghan has been unfairly--you know, I say this in the book. I actually think that it was unfair, in a sense, to call it Megxit, because I really think Harry wanted out himself. And you know, one of the advisors did say to me--and I was kind of shocked by this.
"A very close person in the circle said to me, you know, we always knew that Harry was going to go at some point. He was really unhappy. The Queen knew that at some point it was highly likely that Harry would want out. But they didn't know it would be so fast, and they didn't see it happening in the way that it did.
"And I think it's also, then, fair to say that Meghan gave Harry the tools to leave, you know, I mean because she was wired in. She understood the world of agents and deals. And I mean, this wasn't Harry's world.
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"But suddenly he had in Meghan a very worldly strategist, who he decided to trust above all the other advisors. And I don't think that was such a good, smart move.
"I think that, yes, I get that he wanted, you know, this more exciting and imaginative use of his--of his gifts. But I think there was a lot that could have been achieved inside the royal family."
However, in the same interview, the author said the couple "completely underestimated" what life would be like outside the Royal Family and didn't know what it would be like without the Palace's advisors and PR team to help them.
She explained: "I think they both complete underestimate what it was going to be like without the Palace platform.
"However much the hated, and I think they really did, the constraints and the pettiness, essentially they conceived, of the Palace and the advisors - trying doing it without the Palace advisors, right?
"Because what the Palace does, of course, it has an amazing convening power, there's no one who won't take a phone call from Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace, they've got a huge convening power.
"Every invitation in the world comes through that conduit and private secretaries can just sift and say what about appearing this, or why don't you do this?
"All of that is now gone and they have to have PRs do that for them and their judgement is not necessarily the best judgement.
"They are trying to leverage the royal brand and there is no PR who really knows how to do that better than Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace."
Brown's book The Palace Papers contains countless shocking allegations about the Queen and the rest of the royal family.
It covers everything from Prince Charles's unusual bathroom demands and requests that his shoelaces are ironed, to insight into the Duchess of Cambridge's difficult relationship with her sister-in-law, Meghan.
