The creator of “Suits” says there was at least one word Britain’s royal family didn’t want Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, uttering when she was an actor on the show.
“My wife’s family, when they have a topic to discuss that might be sensitive, they use the word, ‘poppycock,’” Aaron Korsh, who headed up the USA Network series, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Tuesday.
“Let’s say you wanted to do something that you knew your husband didn’t want to do, but you wanted to at least discuss it, and in just discussing it, you wouldn’t hold him to anything he said, you’d be like, ‘It’s poppycock,’” Korsh explained.
But after Meghan — who played paralegal Rachel Zane on the legal drama that ran from 2011-19 and has since found renewed popularity on Netflix — began dating Prince Harry while the show was still in production, Korsh said word came down from Buckingham Palace that “poppycock” was a no-go.
“So, in the episode, [characters] 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. They didn’t want to put the word ‘poppycock’ in her mouth,” Korsh told the publication.
“I presume because they didn’t want people cutting things together of her saying ‘cock,’” he added.
But Korsh said the replacement for “poppycock” wasn’t exactly a G-rated substitution: “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.”
While Korsh said he was initially “irritated” by the screenwriting snafu, his feelings eventually softened when he considered the reasoning behind the request: that trolls could have a field day creatively editing Meghan’s dialogue.
“But listen, 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,” Korsh said.
“And the thing is, I didn’t think anybody really would, but also I don’t know. People are crazy.”
Harry and Meghan tied the knot in 2018. In 2020, they stepped down as full-time working members of the royal family and moved to California.
Korsh said he’s still unsure how the royal family was able to preview scripts before filming.
“I don’t know how they got ’em,” he said. “I was aware that they were reading them because I got the feedback, but I don’t remember the process by which they got them.”