Wendell Pierce used his CBS show Elsbeth to support Suits daughter Meghan Markle against public criticism.
During the Thursday, January 30, episode, Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) is investigating a holistic wellness center after a patient is found dead in his car. Elsbeth immediately gets a bad feeling about the facility’s founder (Eric McCormack) after getting the case assignment from Captain Wagner (Pierce).
“In the meantime, I need you on a case. A young man, Cole Campbell, was found deceased on the highway. His car ran off the road,” Captain Wagner said. “The last place he was seen was some fancy spa where celebrities and the royals go to.”
Wagner poked fun at the wellness center’s popularity, adding, “The global press was already trying to frame Meghan Markle, and she wasn’t even there!”
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Before starring on Elsbeth, Pierce, 61, played Meghan’s onscreen dad in Suits, which ran from 2011 to 2019. The Duchess of Sussex, 43, filmed her final scene for Suits in 2017 amid her engagement to Prince Harry. Meghan later departed the series, moved to the U.K. and married the Duke of Sussex, 40, in 2018.
Pierce recently recalled the last time he filmed a scene with Meghan.
“It was the last night of working and I said, ‘Meghan, your life is going to change, and you’re going to be in a bubble, but just always remember, no matter what, I’m your friend, you have lots of friends,’” he recalled on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? in March 2024. “‘We’re always thinking about you, we’ll always be there for you. And you know, no matter where you are, always know you have a friend in me.’”
Harry and Meghan’s time in the U.K. was full of ups and downs and the couple made headlines in 2020 when they announced that they were stepping back from their duties as working members of the royal family. Harry and Meghan confirmed in February 2021 that they would not return to their senior roles and instead moved to California with son Archie, now 5, and daughter Lilibet, now 3.
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Meghan later revealed that the public scrutiny took a toll on her. “I was like, ‘All of this will stop if I’m not here.’ And that was the scariest thing about it. It was such clear thinking,” she recalled in her and Harry’s 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan.
At the time, Meghan “wanted to go somewhere to get help” but claimed she “wasn’t allowed” to seek treatment for her mental health. According to her husband, the royal family didn’t want Meghan’s personal issues to be a public topic of discussion.
“They thought, ‘Why couldn’t she deal with it?’ As if to say, ‘Well, you know, everybody else has dealt with it, why can’t she deal with it?’ But this was different. It was really different,” he explained. “But actually, if you strip all that away and say, ‘OK fine, it was exactly the same,’ so do we still believe that she should have just sucked it up like other members of the family? Or does one think that maybe it’s about time that we stopped?’”
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Harry blamed himself in the aftermath, adding, “I was devastated. I knew that she was struggling. We were both struggling. But I never thought that it would get to that stage. And the fact that it got to that stage, I felt angry and ashamed.”
He continued: “I didn’t deal with it particularly well. I dealt with it as institutional Harry, as opposed to husband Harry. I had been trained to worry more about, ‘What are people gonna think if we don’t go to this event? We’re gonna be late.’ I hate myself for it. What she needed from me was so much more than I was able to give.”
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Elsbeth airs on CBS Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Paramount+.
