Harry and Meghan Netflix doco: What we know and new bombshells
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix docuseries has revealed some stunning bombshells. Here’s a quick guide to everything you need to know. Warning: Spoilers
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It’s the explosive Netflix docuseries that has the world talking and the royal family bracing for the worst.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s tell-all six-part series, which threatens to further destroy the exiled royal’s relationship with his father King Charles and brother Prince William, has dropped.
Here’s everything you need to know.
HARRY AND MEGHAN’S USE OF PHONES
The Netflix docuseries opens with the disclaimer that it was filmed before the Queen’s death.
It states: “All interviews were completed by August 2022. Members of the royal family declined to comment on the content within this series.”
The first episode starts in March 2020, with headlines of the couple’s split from the royal family.
The Duchess of Sussex can be seen holding back tears wearing a towel around her head, saying she doesn’t know “where to begin”.
“I just really want to get to the other side of all of this.
After a pause, she says: “I don’t know what to say anymore.”
Prince Harry said they both decided to record themselves on their phones and said it was a “sensible” thing to do, with “all the misinformation” after Megxit.
The opening scenes show an airport with a close-up of a departures sign and cuts to Prince Harry and words on the screen tell viewers he is in the Windsor Suite at Heathrow Airport in March 2020.
He appears to be filming himself speaking into his phone camera and says: “Hi. So we’re here on Wednesday the something of March.
“We’ve just finished our two weeks, our like final push, our last stint of royal engagements.
“It’s really hard to look back on it now and go ‘what on earth happened’? Like, how did we end up here?”
HOW HARRY AND MEGHAN REALLY MET
*Prince Harry reveals the first time he saw Meghan Markle was scrolling through his Instagram feed. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex share intimate details of their early courtship.
*He was late to their first date.
*Ms Markle had a moment of terror when they were camping in Botswana when an elephant decided to have dinner from the tree near their campsite.
“He said ‘I promise I’ll keep you safe’ and I believed him,” she said.
*He was “Prinze Haz” in her phone contacts during the early weeks of their relationship.
*The Duke of Sussex said the seeds of his loathing of being shadowed by the “paparazzi” were sown early during childhood holidays with his mother.
DIG AT ROYALS AND MARRIAGE
*Prince Harry said there is a temptation in the royal family to marry someone who “fits the mould”.
“I think for so many people in the family, especially obviously the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mould as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with.
“The difference between making decisions with your head, or your heart. And my mum certainly made most of her decisions – if not all of them – from her heart.
“And I am my mother’s son.”
REVELATIONS ON PRESS AND DORIA
*The docuseries gave many fans their first real sense of Ms Markle’s mother Doria Ragland, who revealed she felt “unsafe a lot”.
*And the intrusion soon got worse, the Duchess said. The UK press “paid certain neighbours to put livestream cameras into my back yard…All the curtains were pulled, all the blinds were pulled… it was scary,” she said.
All of this made it difficult for the couple to get to know one another better.
*Prince Harry said his father Charles saw the press intrusion in Meghan’s life as a mere “rite of passage”.
After news of the engagement broke and press interest in Ms Markle turned into a feeding frenzy, Prince Harry said the palace directed the new young couple not to say anything.
“As far as the family were concerned, everything she had been put through they had been through as well, almost like as a rite of passage,” the Duke of Sussex said.
“It was almost like ‘My wife had to go through that, why should your girlfriend be any different? Why should she be protected?
“And I said the difference here is the race element.”
MEETING KATE, THE QUEEN
*Rumours of tension between Meghan and Kate Middleton are set to explode following Ms Markle’s revelations about their first meeting.
*An attempt at friendliness with her future sister-in-law quickly became an awkward moment, Ms Markle recounted.
*Ms Markle also described meeting Queen Elizabeth II for the first time as “intense” and “surreal”.
“The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough. There is a big idea of what that looks like from the UK standpoint – Hollywood – and it’s just very easy for them to typecast that,” she said.
THE PROPOSAL
*A magnum of champagne “sort of” gave the game away on the night that Harry proposed. The prince revealed he got down on one knee to ask for Markle’s hand in marriage, and never-before seen selfies taken on the night show a couple full of excitement – and deeply in love.
THEIR ENGAGEMENT
*Within seconds of the start of episode 3, Markle stated that their engagement interview was all “rehearsed” and that it was an “orchestrated reality show”.
Then the documentary cuts to three quick clips of Charles, Camilla and Kate all saying the same thing, that they were “thrilled”.
FATHERLY FEUD
*Prince Harry said he “shouldered” some of the blame for the breakdown of his wife’s relationship with her father following the pre-wedding photo scandal, because she would still have a father if she had not married him.
ARCHIE’S FAVOURITE SONG
*Ms Markle said her son Archie’s favourite song is Bennie And The Jets by Sir Elton John.
ATTACK ON UK SLAVERY ROLE
*The documentary dives straight into Britain’s role in slavery, saying that kings and queens financed slavery until it was abolished, while one author, who is captioned as ‘Brit (ish)’ claimed that, “Britain had a deep south that was just as brutal, that actually enslaved more Africans than the United States of America did”.
MEGHAN’S CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH NIECE
*Markle also spoke of her close relationship with another member of the family - her niece, Ashleigh.
Ashleigh’s mum is Markle’s controversial half-sister Samantha, who has constantly criticised the Duchess in the press.
ROYALS AND RACISM
*Prince Harry stoked the flames further saying there were issues in the family.
“In this family sometimes, you know, you’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution,” he said.
“There is a huge level of unconscious bias”.
*It was also revealed that Prince Harry had undergone a “transformation into an anti-racist”.
*Prince Harry said he regretted the moment he wore a Nazi uniform in 2005.
HARRY’S ‘SECOND FAMILY
*Prince Harry claimed he was “literally brought up” by a “second family” in Africa where he chose to spend three-month stints in his late teens and twenties as he came to terms with his mother’s death.
WHAT IS THE PALACE’S REACTION SO FAR?
Senior royals are reportedly bracing for the worst and are prepared to address unfounded accusations after the series drops.
Officials from both Buckingham and Kensington Palace will watch the first three episodes of the series, but it’s understood King Charles and Prince William will hold crisis talks.
WHEN WILL PART 2 OF THE DOCO AIR?
The Sussexes’ documentary series, titled Harry & Meghan will tell the couple’s story in six episodes.
The first instalment of three episodes is out now.
The second volume (episodes 4 to 6) will then be released next week on December 15.
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Originally published as Harry and Meghan Netflix doco: What we know and new bombshells
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