Meghan Markle has been ridiculed by a Congressman for using her royal title to lobby U.S. senators, noting that the British royal family had strict rules about not getting involved in politics.
The Duchess of Sussex cold-called at least two Republican senators - Susan Collins of Maine and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia - to plead with them to support paid parental leave.
Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who gave Markle the senators' personal phone numbers, said that the duchess now wants to be part of a 'working group' to thrash out policy proposals.
Jason Smith, a Republican congressman representing Missouri, said Markle was trading off her royal title and 'interfering' in an inappropriate way.
'If she wants to be a royal, she needs to be a royal - she can't have it both ways,' Smith told TMZ.
Meghan Markle, pictured with her husband Prince Harry, has been accused by a congressman of trading on her royal title
Jason Smith, a Republican congressman for Missouri, was asked by TMZ for his opinion on Markle's lobbying efforts
'I think it's great for a U.S. citizen or for a former movie star of Suits to be lobbying U.S. senators.
'But when you lobby U.S. senators, as Meghan Markle has done, as: 'I'm Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex' - she's lobbying Congress and interfering from a position of using her royal title.'
Smith pointed out that the 40-year-old and her husband, Prince Harry, decided to leave the royal family in January 2020.
He recommended that, instead of calling senators and saying it was 'Meghan, Duchess of Sussex', she should say: 'I'm Meghan Markle, the former star of Suits.'
Smith added: 'Clearly if you look at the royal family, they have a long standing policy of being neutral in U.S. politics.
'And her and Harry left the royal family. She did renounce her royal membership in the family.'
Smith said he would 'welcome' her calling him, and he would explain why he did not think the plans for paid parental leave that she and Gillibrand were promoting were a good idea.
Markle's activism on the issue began on October 20, when she wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, to ask them to support the proposal - part of Biden's infrastructure plan.
Markle referred to herself as someone from a modest background for whom eating at Sizzler was a treat, and said paid parental leave was vital for families like her childhood unit.
'I grew up on the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzler,' Markle wrote.
'I knew how hard my parents worked to afford this because even at five bucks, eating out was something special, and I felt lucky. I started working (at the local frozen yogurt shop) at the age of 13.
'I waited tables, babysat, and piecemealed jobs together to cover odds and ends,' Markle said.
However, she failed to mention the $750,000 California state lottery win her father scooped in 1990, which funded her secondary education at $9,412-a-semester Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles.
Meghan also studied a private primary school - Hollywood's Little Red Schoolhouse nursery, which she attended from the age of two.
The primary school now costs between $20,000 and $28,300-a-year, and was paid for by her father Thomas and her airline steward mother Doria's salaries.
She went on to study at Northwestern, a college in Illinois, that would have cost $24,000-$28,000-a-year for tuition when Meghan studied there from 1999-2003.
But the duchess described working
