The couple's controversial Netflix documentary, Harry and Meghan, has been released on the streaming platform tonight, with the couple promising to recall their experiences of their bitter split from the British royal family.
The documentary is a mix between historical footage, recorded interviews and self-shot clips filmed by Meghan and Harry themselves. According to Prince Harry it was the "sensible" thing to do due to misinformation.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Netflix's Harry & Meghan documentary.
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'What on earth happened? How did we end up here?'
The documentary opens with self-filmed confessionals by both Harry and Meghan, who say they were advised by a friend to document their love story. It's Harry who wonders how he and his wife ended up "here".
How Harry & Meghan came to be
It was in July 2016 that the Sussexes met, just after Meghan had signed on for another season of Suits. She was single, and ready to travel the world with her friends.
"She was just going to be free," Meghan's friend Lindsay Jill Roth says.
"I was like, really intent on being single," Meghan says. "I had my career, I had my path, and then came H. I mean, talk about a plot twist."
Harry says he met Meghan over Instagram, after a video of Meghan came up on his friend's feed. Harry's friend, who was also a friend of Meghan's, then reached out to Meghan via email, and said Harry wanted to meet her.
'The institution knows the full truth'
The moment Buckingham Palace has been bracing for is here – at least the first part of it is – and it's looking like Harry and Meghan won't be holding back.
In the first few frames of Harry & Meghan, the former senior royals have teased at what's to come in their highly-anticipated six-part Netflix docuseries, a "first-hand account" of their "personal story" from their "never before seen personal archive."
The docuseries stipulated in its opening statement that all interviews were complete by August 2022, and members of the British royal family declined to comment for the series.
It promises a raw look at the private life of the Sussexes, but as Harry says, it's not just about them.
"It's always been so much bigger than us," Harry says.
He says "the institution knows the full truth" and the "media knows the full truth" as they have "been in on it."
Harry said that Meghan had no idea what she was getting into.
"When you feel like people haven't got any sense of who you are for so long, it's really nice to just be able to have the opportunity to let people have a bit more of a glimpse into what's happened and also who we are," Meghan says.
"I ended up sacrificing everything that I had to join her in her world," Harry says.
The Sussexes release statement
Harry opens up about childhood, lack of early memories of Diana – and her infamous interview
Interspersed with behind-the-scenes footage from his childhood alongside older brother Prince William, father King Charles III, and Diana, Harry says he remembers his childhood as one "filled with laughter, filled with happiness and filled with adventure".
The Duke of Sussex also says he does not have many early memories of his mother, the former Princess of Wales - except for her "cheeky laugh". Harry says he'll "always be that cheeky person inside."
Harry also touched on the relationship between the Firm and the media, and how Diana "did such a good job to protect us".
"Paparazzi used to harass us to the point where we had to be forced into smiling and answering questions to the travelling press pack," Harry says as footage of himself, his brother, and cousins Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie on holiday as children overlaid the screen.
"That made me feel really uncomfortable from the get-go," Harry says.
It also shows Diana trying to get the press pack away from the children on that same holiday.
The episode then takes a turn, commenting on how Diana sat down with BBC's Panorama and gave a tell-all interview, which, years later, was revealed to be conducted under false pretences.
"She was deceived into giving the interview but at the same time, she spoke the truth about her experience," Harry says of the controversial interview with Martin Bashir.
Meghan's mum, Doria Ragland, speaks out for first time
Since Meghan's entry into royal life, her mother Doria Ragland has remained steadfast in her silence – but now she's speaking out.
"The last five years has been challenging. I'm ready to have my voice heard, that's for sure, a little bit of my experience as her mum," she says.
Ragland recalls Meghan telling her in a whispered phone call that she was dating Prince Harry – "I started whispering, 'Oh my God'" – and meeting him for the first time.
"He was a 6'1 handsome man with red hair, really great manners ... they looked really happy together. Like he was The One."
Ragland says when the couple's relationship news finally went public, it felt like "a novelty", but that soon changed.
She remembers warning her daughter that race was playing a significant role in how the tabloid media was responding to her relationship with Harry, following the news breaking in 2016. She says Meghan initially dismissed this, but it soon became clear she was right.
Reflecting on one headline declaring his new girlfriend was "(almost) straight outta Compton" – a reference to her Los Angeles upbringing – Harry says the palace's direction to the couple was "don't say anything".
The prince claims the palace's position was that the treatment of Meghan by the press was "a rite of passage", of sorts – "Everything she had been put through, they had been put through as well" – and, thus, why should she get protection when they didn't?
"I said, 'The difference here is the race element'," he recalls. Meghan adds, "It was horrible but I continued to hold the line, like, say nothing."
On the topic of the media in the third episode, Meghan's mother said she "felt unsafe" by the scrutiny she faced.
"I can't just walk my dogs, I can't just go to work," Doria says. "There was always someone there waiting for me, following me to work. I was being stalked by the paparazzi. Once I pulled out and he said, 'I'm just trying to get a story. You know you can get a lot of money for this'."
Ragland said she told him: "This is my child, I have nothing to say."
Meghan recalls meeting royal family for first time
The couple gets candid about the reception Meghan received from the royals when she met them for the first time – and her own reaction to the 'formality' of the family, even privately.
Reflecting on the first time she met "Will and Kate" when they came over for dinner, she recalls being barefoot in ripped jeans.
"I was a hugger, always been a hugger. I didn't realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits," she says, laughing.
"I guess I'd start to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside, there there is a forward-facing way of being and you close the door and go, 'Ah, we can relax now' but that formality carries over on both sides, and that was surprising to me."
Harry says his late grandmother was the first senior royal to meet Meghan, an experience the duchess calls 'surreal': "I didn't know I was going to meet her until moments before."
She remembers thinking Harry was joking when he asked her if she knew how to curtsy, and re-enacts the moment she gave it a crack in front of the Queen, demonstrating a low and dramatic bow she likens to something out of "medieval times".
"It was so intense," she laughs, and remembers Sarah, Duchess of York, Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank – who were all at Royal Lodge when the encounter took place – telling her, "You did great".
In a more serious moment, Harry says his family members were "incredibly impressed" by Meghan, though some had obvious misgivings.
"Some of them didn't quite know what to do with themselves, they were surprised," he says.
"The fact I was dating an American actress was probably what clouded their judgement more than anything else at the beginning … [thinking] 'This won't last'."
Meghan agrees, saying she felt the UK had a particular view of what being an actress meant, and that it was "easy to typecast".
How the engagement really unfolded
Meghan and Harry have previously told the story of how their engagement unfolded during their first joint interview with the BBC in 2017.
However, they say in the documentary that the interview was heavily orchestrated and rehearsed, with the couple keeping plenty of details to themselves.
The prince says he had wanted to propose earlier, and that because he had to ask the Queen for her permission first, he "couldn't" pop the question outside of the UK.
Harry confirms the proposal took place at home as Meghan roasted a chicken, and says he inadvertently tipped her off to something special happening when he brought home champagne.
"It was a magnum!" Meghan laughs.
To set the scene, Harry revealed he'd set up electric candles in the courtyard of their Kensington Palace cottage, and "of course" got down on one knee. A photo from the moment shows Guy sitting beside Harry as he presents Meghan with the ring.
A friend reveals Harry and Meghan celebrated privately with an engagement party, with all the guests wearing animal onesies. The couple of honour chose penguin onesies in a nod to the fact penguins mate for life.
Of the formal engagement announcement, Meghan suggests The Firm were controlling the narrative.
"We weren't allowed to tell our story because they didn't want…," Meghan began, before Harry interjected: "We've never been allowed to tell our story."
"That's true," Meghan said with a laugh, the couple agreeing that had been a point of "consistency".
Harry and Meghan bond over being 'the product of divorced parents'
The couple reflect on their shared experience of being the "product of divorced parents" – like Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Doria Ragland and Thomas Markle, Sr split when Meghan was young.
As photos of both sets of parents appear on screen, Harry recalls the impact of growing up in this environment: "[You're] being pulled from one place to another, maybe your parents are competitive … there's all sorts of pieces to that."
In a rare move, Meghan opens up about her father Thomas, from whom she has been estranged since her wedding to Harry in 2018.
She recalls spending weekdays with her mother, and living with her father on weekends.
"I was a daddy's girl my whole life and I was with him a lot, but I do remember also feeling lonely when I was a kid and wanting to have more people around," she says.
Harry on the responsibility of raising mixed-race children
In the first three episodes, the issue of race comes up repeatedly - in Meghan's treatment by the press as well as Harry's new life as a dad of mixed-race children.
The Duke of Sussex admits that after a lifetime of travelling around the Commonwealth, he thought he had "an awareness to issues, ways of living, unconscious bias, all of it". But when he met Meghan, and heard her speak out on issues of injustice, he realised: "Here you are, blissfully sleepwalking through life."
Now, as a "proud father" to two children with a mixed racial heritage, he says he's aware of the importance of speaking up and doing the right thing: "When my kids grow up and they look back at this moment and turn to me and say, 'What did you do in this moment?' I want to be able to give them an answer."
Harry says it's the responsibility of parents to make the world a better place for their kids, adding, "Equally, what's most important for the two of us is to make sure we don't repeat the same mistakes, perhaps, our parents made."
We meet Meghan's niece Ashleigh Hail, daughter of half-sister Samantha Markle
Despite the estrangement between Meghan and her half-sister Samantha Markle, the duchess reveals she grew close to Samantha's daughter Ashleigh Hail, an immigration attorney.
Rather than an aunt-niece relationship, Meghan says the pair are more like "sisters" and describes the calculated decision by aides to not invite Ashleigh to the couple's wedding, because of Samantha, as "heartbreaking".
Hail also claims that Samantha tried to bad-mouth Meghan to her, and she says she believes Samantha resents Meghan. Hail is estranged from Samantha.
Hail says she and her brother were raised by their paternal grandparents, and they adopted her.
"For me, they were my parents," Hail says of her paternal grandparents, noting how she only reconnected with her biological mother, Samantha, in 2007. Hail says she hadn't seen Samantha since she was six.
Meghan says it was her father, Thomas Markle, who informed her that Samantha and Hail had reconnected, and Meghan asked if she could have Hail's email address. They started corresponding, and then eventually, they travelled together while Meghan was working on Suits.
"I think she takes on a lot of roles for me. There's a sister element, there's something maternal. She's my best friend, she's kind of all the things," Hail says of Meghan.
Meghan recalls Christmas with the royal family in 2017
In an unprecedented move by Queen Elizabeth, Meghan became the first royal fiancée to be invited to spend Christmas with the royal family at Sandringham in December 2017, five months before Harry and Meghan tied the knot.
By contrast, Kate had to wait until she was married to William before she was allowed to attend.
"I remember the first Christmas at Sandringham vividly and calling my mum and she said 'How's it going?' and I said 'Amazing. It's just like a big family like I always wanted,'" Meghan recalls. "And there was just this constant movement and energy and fun."
Meghan revealed she was seated next to Prince Philip at the dinner table.
"I was just like, 'This is so wonderful, and we chatted and it was great and we talked about this, and this, and this,'" she says.
"[Harry] was like, 'You had his bad ear. He couldn't hear anything you were saying,'" she continues.
"I was like, 'Oh. Well, I thought it went really well,'" Meghan concludes with a smile.
Prince Harry's regret over wearing Nazi uniform to costume party
Back in 2005 Prince Harry made front pages around the world for wearing a Nazi costume, calling it "one of the biggest mistakes" of his life.
"I felt so ashamed afterwards," he said of his decision.
Determined to make it right, the royal met with a Rabbi in London and spoke to a Holocaust survivor in the aftermath.
"I could have just ignored it and gone on and made the same mistakes over again in my life, but I learnt from that," he says.
Princess of Wales dazzles at Buckingham Palace event
The first three episodes of Harry & Meghan dropped at 7pm AEDT on Thursday.
The final three episodes will be released next week, on December 15.
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2022-12-08 11:49:43Z
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