Sophia Michaels
This year has marked the renaissance of the hit USA Network show “Suits.” With the first eight seasons available on Netflix and all nine streaming on Peacock, fans old and new are seeking out all the behind-the-scenes details they can get. One aspect they’re most interested in is Meghan Markle’s final season. The Duchess of Sussex famously played paralegal-turned-lawyer Rachel Zane for seven seasons, the final of which was filmed amid the initial publicization of her relationship with Prince Harry in 2016. “Suits” creator Aaron Korsh revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published on Aug. 29, that the Palace did have some input on what Markle could or couldn’t do on screen in her final season, which aired from 2017 to 2018. One of their requested changes apparently rubbed him the wrong way.
While Korsh told THR he thinks “Suits” has seen a resurgence because of its own merits, particularly the “inherent optimism” of its story about a slacker genius becoming a top lawyer, he doesn’t deny that the Markle effect is also a factor. “I was as excited in some ways as everybody else,” he admitted about finding out that one of his show’s stars was dating a royal. “Your initial reaction is, like, ‘We’re dating a prince!”
While there was a level of excitement about Markle dating Prince Harry (like the whole cast going to the royal wedding), it also came with some downsides. “I will say, and I think Harry put this in the book, because I heard people talking about it — [the royal family] weighed in on some stuff,” Korsh shared. “Not many things, by the way, but a few things that we wanted to do and couldn’t do, and it was a little irritating.”
One of the Palace’s main gripes was with one particular word they didn’t want Markle to say in a scene. “My wife’s family, when they have a topic to discuss that might be sensitive, they use the word, ‘poppycock,'” he shared, adding, “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.’ And the royal family did not want her saying the word.”
He continued, “They didn’t want to put the word ‘poppycock’ in her mouth. I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying ‘c*ck.’ So, we had to change it to ‘bullsh*t’ 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. There was maybe one or two more things, but I can’t remember.”
While Korsh was annoyed by the Palace’s interference, he admitted he could see where they were coming from looking back. “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. And the thing is, I didn’t think anybody really would, but also I don’t know. People are crazy.”
With the advent of TikTok, the idea of people splicing words from “Suits” scenes together in unexpected ways does not seem too far-fetched, so maybe the Palace had a point.
