‘Needy’ Prince Harry ‘clings’ to Meghan Markle: royal expert

Prince Harry “clings” to wife Meghan Markle “like a needy man, like a life raft,” royal biographer Tom Bower tells Page Six exclusively.

The Duchess of Sussex “satisfies all” of the Duke of Sussex’s “requirements,” which he “didn’t get from other girlfriends,” the author of “Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors” explains.

Bower also claims that Harry, 38, is a “damaged” and “very disturbed” man as a result of childhood trauma — and Markle, 41, allegedly knew just how to win him over.

“He is psychologically harmed both by his mother’s death and the father’s treatment of his mother, and of Harry himself, when he was a child,” the author alleges to us.

Prince Harry’s difficult life — and those of his royal relatives — has been highly publicized for years.

His mother Princess Diana’s unhappy marriage due to King Charles III’s long-term affair with now-wife, Queen Consort Camilla, was well-documented in the press.

The former Princess of Wales’ tragic death in August 1997 — when Harry was just 12 — also captured intense media attention.

The Duke previously opened up about the trauma surrounding his childhood, accusing his father of passing down a “cycle” of “genetic pain and suffering” on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast in 2021.

Markle has always claimed she knew nothing of the royal when they were set up on a date, and only asked if he was a “nice.”

However, in “Revenge,” Bower alleged that the “Suits” alum carefully researched Harry before their first date at the Soho House’s Dean Street Townhouse in early July 2016.

“Her genius was that before she ever met him, she carefully researched him and as an intelligent woman with a lot of experience, knew exactly what buttons to press,” the biographer claims to Page Six.

Bower stresses that Harry was miserable as a senior royal and Markle offered a way out.

The two bowed out of their royal duties in January 2020 — less than two years after they wed in May 2018.

Harry and Markle now live in Montecito, Calif., with their two children, Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 1, and have signed lucrative deals with Spotify and Netflix.

“I think he much more enjoyed paddling in the Pacific than shaking hands in the rain in a Northern town in Britain,” Bower tells us, referencing the often unglamorous events the royal family undertakes yearly.

Bower also believes that Queen Elizabeth II’s recent death and funeral must have been particularly difficult for the renegade royal, which saw him barred from wearing his military uniform, saluting his grandmother’s coffin and uninvited from a pre-funeral reception.

“I think the funeral awakened some misery in him that he was so cut off from his family and friends and was an outsider,”…