Suits creator Aaron Korsh has alleged he had to change certain lines of dialogue on the hit TV show thanks to the Royal Family.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Korsh alleged that Megan Markle’s link to the Royal Family soon became problematic when it came to writing the popular legal drama.
“[The Royal Family] weighed in on some stuff,” he claimed. “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.”
Korsh revealed that the relationship between Markle, who played paralegal Rachel Zane, and Prince Harry began to affect the show. One particular gripe saw Korsh unable to use an in-joke about his wife’s family using the word ‘poppycock'.
“So, in the episode, Mike and Rachel [Markle’s character] were going to have a thing,” he explained. “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.”
Unfortunately, this meant Korsh was forced to remove the offending word. “They didn’t want to put the word ‘poppycock’ in her mouth,” he said. “I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying ‘cock'. 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. There was maybe one or two more things, but I can’t remember.”
Suits debuted in 2011 and ran for nine seasons until 2019. Markle starred as Zane until Season 7, during which her character marries Mike Ross and moves to Seattle in the season finale.
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry revealed the palace had intervened on the show and described the effect of their relationship and palace scrutiny on Markle’s career. “Meg packed up her house, gave up her role in Suits," Harry wrote. "After seven seasons. A difficult moment for her, because she loved that show, loved the character she was playing, loved her cast and crew – loved Canada. On the other hand life there had become untenable.
“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."
Despite ending several years ago, Suits has seen a bit of a resurgence, racking up 3.7 billion minutes of streaming across Netflix and Hulu.
Want to read more about Suits? Check out the abysmal residuals earned by Suits creators for its recent streaming success and look back at every show that ended in 2019.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/suits-creator-reveals-word-the-royal-family-wanted-cut-from-megan-markles-dialogue