Prince William made a brutal 10-word swipe that made Meghan Markle "feel like a convicted felon", according to Prince Harry.

The Duke of Sussex, 40, detailed the fall-out between him and his elder brother in his bombshell memoir Spare - which was officially released in paperback earlier this week.

Harry claimed that his brother reportedly thought Meghan would find it "difficult" to fit into the Royal Family as she was an "American actress after all".

In conversation with his brother, William reportedly told Harry: "She’s an actress, after all, Harold. Anything can happen."

Speaking of the comment, Harry wrote: "One day, sitting together in his garden, he'd predicted a host of difficulties I could expect if I hooked up with an 'American actress', a phrase he always managed to make sound like a 'convicted felon'."

He also added that William was always "discouraging" about him even "dating" Meghan.

He wrote: "It's too fast, he'd told me. Too soon."

In their docuseries, which was released in 2022 as part of their multi-million-pound deal with Netflix, Harry detailed the first time that Meghan met his family, adding that they were surprised "that a ginger could land such a beautiful woman and such an intelligent woman."

Speaking of the meeting, Harry said: "I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed. Some of them didn’t quite know what to do with themselves.

"Because, I think, they were surprised. They were surprised that a ginger could land such a beautiful woman and such an intelligent woman.

"But the fact I was dating an American actress was probably what clouded their judgment more than anything else at the beginning. 'Oh, she’s an American actress; this won’t last.'"

Meghan and Harry tied the knot in May 2018 - less than two years after meeting back in 2016.

The couple made the decision to step down as senior working royals in 2020 and eventually settled into life in the US. They pair now reside in California with their children - Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three.