Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix Show ‘Harry & Meghan’: Biggest Revelations From Episode 1

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Netflix Show ‘Harry & Meghan’: Biggest Revelations From Episode 1

Nearly two years after signing their big deal with Netflix, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first project — a six-episode docuseries titled Harry & Meghan — is officially here. The first three episodes of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s show were released on Thursday, December 8, kicking off with footage of the couple taping themselves in March 2020. "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?’” Harry said. “I don't even know where to begin,” Meghan said in her own video diary. “I just really want to get to the other side of all of this. I don’t know what to say anymore.” Harry added that his job is to “keep my family safe,” explaining: “By the nature of being born into this position and with everything else that comes with it and the level of hate that has been stirred up in the last three years — especially against my wife and my son — I’m generally concerned for the safety of my family. … This is about duty and service I feel as though being part of this family, it is my duty to uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media.” Meghan added: “Unfortunately, in us standing for something, they are destroying us.” The series included a disclaimer which read: “This is a first-hand account of Harry & Meghan's story, told with never before seen personal archive. All interviews were completed by August 2022. Members of the royal family declined to comment on the content within this series.” [sendtonews type="float" key="WFMJ5bOZIQ-2830301-14453"] Harry and Meghan, who wed in 2018 and share son Archie, 3, and daughter Lilibet, 18 months, have been making waves with The Firm since announcing their decision to stop working for the royal family in January 2020. Two months later, they attended their last official engagement as senior employees of Queen Elizabeth II. A photo of the couple sitting behind Prince William and Princess Kate from the event — a Commonwealth Day service in March 2020 — was included in the trailer for Harry & Meghan, which dropped earlier this month. “Harry and Meghan wear their heart on their sleeve in the docuseries and blow the lid off the prejudice they experienced at the Palace, the leaking of stories and the hypocrisy in the media. They were adamant about getting their side of the story out there, especially Harry,” a source told Us Weekly ahead of Thursday’s drop. “It’s put a huge amount of strain on relationships that are already hanging by a thread.” The insider added that the Prince and Princess of Wales, who haven’t publicly commented on the documentary, were “left flummoxed when the Netflix trailer aired during their trip to Boston.” Meghan first started promoting the docuseries in October, opening up about director Liz Garbus. “It’s nice to be able to trust someone with our story — a seasoned director whose work I’ve long admired — even if it means it may not be the way we would have told it. But that’s not why we’re telling it,” she told Variety. “We’re trusting our story to someone else, and that means it will go through their lens.” The series also features “commentary from friends and family, most of whom have never spoken publicly before about what they witnessed, and historians who discuss the state of the British Commonwealth today and the royal family’s relationship with the press,” per the description. In addition to sharing “the other side of their high-profile love story” in the unprecedented and in-depth documentary series, the show “explores the clandestine days of their early courtship and the challenges that led to them feeling forced to step back from their full-time roles in the institution. … The series does more than illuminate one couple’s love story, it paints a picture of our world and how we treat each other.” Scroll through for the biggest revelations from episode one (for episode two, click here, and episode three, click here) and come back on Thursday, December 15, for the takeaways from the final three episodes:

Credit: Shutterstock

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Netflix Show ‘Harry & Meghan’: Biggest Revelations From Episode 1

Nearly two years after signing their big deal with Netflix, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first project — a six-episode docuseries titled Harry & Meghan — is officially here. The first three episodes of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s show were released on Thursday, December 8, kicking off with footage of the couple taping themselves in March 2020. "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?’” Harry said. “I don't even know where to begin,” Meghan said in her own video diary. “I just really want to get to the other side of all of this. I don’t know what to say anymore.” Harry added that his job is to “keep my family safe,” explaining: “By the nature of being born into this position and with everything else that comes with it and the level of hate that has been stirred up in the last three years — especially against my wife and my son — I’m generally concerned for the safety of my family. … This is about duty and service I feel as though being part of this family, it is my duty to uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media.” Meghan added: “Unfortunately, in us standing for something, they are destroying us.” The series included a disclaimer which read: “This is a first-hand account of Harry & Meghan's story, told with never before seen personal archive. All interviews were completed by August 2022. Members of the royal family declined to comment on the content within this series.” [sendtonews type="float" key="WFMJ5bOZIQ-2830301-14453"] Harry and Meghan, who wed in 2018 and share son Archie, 3, and daughter Lilibet, 18 months, have been making waves with The Firm since announcing their decision to stop working for the royal family in January 2020. Two months later, they attended their last official engagement as senior employees of Queen Elizabeth II. A photo of the couple sitting behind Prince William and Princess Kate from the event — a Commonwealth Day service in March 2020 — was included in the trailer for Harry & Meghan, which dropped earlier this month. “Harry and Meghan wear their heart on their sleeve in the docuseries and blow the lid off the prejudice they experienced at the Palace, the leaking of stories and the hypocrisy in the media. They were adamant about getting their side of the story out there, especially Harry,” a source told Us Weekly ahead of Thursday’s drop. “It’s put a huge amount of strain on relationships that are already hanging by a thread.” The insider added that the Prince and Princess of Wales, who haven’t publicly commented on the documentary, were “left flummoxed when the Netflix trailer aired during their trip to Boston.” Meghan first started promoting the docuseries in October, opening up about director Liz Garbus. “It’s nice to be able to trust someone with our story — a seasoned director whose work I’ve long admired — even if it means it may not be the way we would have told it. But that’s not why we’re telling it,” she told Variety. “We’re trusting our story to someone else, and that means it will go through their lens.” The series also features “commentary from friends and family, most of whom have never spoken publicly before about what they witnessed, and historians who discuss the state of the British Commonwealth today and the royal family’s relationship with the press,” per the description. In addition to sharing “the other side of their high-profile love story” in the unprecedented and in-depth documentary series, the show “explores the clandestine days of their early courtship and the challenges that led to them feeling forced to step back from their full-time roles in the institution. … The series does more than illuminate one couple’s love story, it paints a picture of our world and how we treat each other.” Scroll through for the biggest revelations from episode one (for episode two, click here, and episode three, click here) and come back on Thursday, December 15, for the takeaways from the final three episodes:

Credit: SASCHA STEINBACH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Why Harry and Meghan Made Netflix Show

“This is a great love story. And the craziest thing is that I think this love story is only just getting started. She sacrificed everything that she ever knew, the freedom that she had, to join me in my world, and then pretty soon after that I end up sacrificing everything that I know to join her in her world,” Harry explained. 

While Meghan noted that it’s not going to be “comfortable” to make the doc, it’s “nice to have the opportunity” to give a glimpse at what’s “happened and who they are.”

Harry added that it was a friend’s idea to document “ourselves through this period off time with all of the misinformation out there about us and the departure.  Meghan concluded that the twosome are “really conscious” of protecting their kids while “understanding the role they play in this really historic family.”

“As a dad, and as parents, I think consent is a really key piece to this. That if you have children it should be your consent as to what you share,” Harry said.

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Harry and Meghan Detail Meeting Via Instagram

“I was really intent on being single and just have fun girl-time,” Meghan said about the summer she met Harry. “I had a career. I had my life. I had my path … and then came H. I mean, he literally, talk about a plot twist.”

Harry explained he saw Meghan for the first time via his secret Instagram account.

“I was scrolling through my feed and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them, it was like a Snapchat. … That was the first thing. I was like ‘Who is that?’” he recalled.

The friend then messaged Meghan on Harry’s behalf: “Between you and I thought you might want to know this being newly single and all. I put our Snapchat on Instagram and Prince Haz follows me (he's a friend) he called me last night dying to meet you. hehehe. I might just have to set you up.” 

Meghan replied: “Who is Prince Haz?”

“That's the thing. People say 'did you Google him?' No. That's your homework. You're like, ’Let me see what they're about in their feed,’” she explained. “Not what someone else says about them, but what they are putting out about themselves. That, to me, was the best barometer. So I went through and it was just like beautiful photography and all these environmental shots and this time he was spending in Africa.”

Credit: Tim Rooke/Shutterstock

Their 1st Date

The couple shared their texts from before they met for the first time.

“So come on - what u doing tomorrow night? Hope you’re having fun over there!” Harry texted Meghan, who was in London for Wimbledon.

“Heading back to soho,” she answered. “I have a dinner tomorrow at 8 but maybe can do drinks tomorrow night. Would that work? Maybe 6?” 

“You’re ON!” Harry responded.

He was late for the date, which Meghan initially thought was a sign that he was “one of the guys who has so much of an ego that any girl would sit around and wait half an hour for you.”

“[But he was] so sweet and [he] genuinely was, like, so embarrassed and late. He was just so fun, so refreshingly fun,” she said. “We were, like, childlike together.”

The twosome got dinner the next night.

“This girl, this woman is amazing. This is everything I’ve been looking for. She’s so comfortable and so relaxed in my company,” Harry recalled thinking.

After Meghan revealed that Harry had a “list” of what he was looking for in a partner, he made it clear he’s not sharing the details. “Nice try,” he quipped.

Credit: Tim Rooke/Shutterstock; Kirsty O'Connor/WPA Pool/Shutterstock

The Urge to Marry Someone

“For so many people in the family, especially, obviously the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who fits the mold, not someone as opposed to someone who perhaps you may be destined to be with,” Harry said without naming names. “The difference between making decisions with your head or your heart. And my mom made most, if not all, of her decisions from the heart. And I am my mother’s son.”

Credit: Keith Bernstein

Harry Has ‘Blocked’ Out Memories of Childhood

Harry got candid about his mother, the late Princess Diana, who died in 1997 when he was 12.

"My childhood I remember was filled with laughter, filled with happiness and filled with adventure,” he said. “I don't have many early memories of my mum. It was almost like, internally, I sort of blocked them out. But I always remember her laugh, her cheeky laugh. Her always saying to me: 'You can get in trouble, just don't get caught' and I'll always be that cheeky person inside.”

He added that “the majority of my memories” from growing up “are of being swarmed by paparazzi.” 

“Rarely did we have a holiday without someone with a camera jumping out of a bush or something. Within the family, within the system, the advice that's always given is 'don't react, don't feed into it,’” he recalled. “There was always a public pressure, with its fair share of drama, stress and also tears. And witnessing those tears. I could always see it on my mum's face. And I guess those are the moments where I thought 'hang on, wait a second, maybe.. 'What am I? Who am I? What am I part of?”

Credit: John Shelley/Shutterstock

Princess Diana’s Panorama Interview

Diana gave a now-infamous interview in 1995 about her marriage and divorce from Charles and how much she struggled as part of the royal family. In 2021, William condemned the interview after an investigation revealed that his mother was “deceived” when agreeing to speak to the BBC. (“It is my firm view that this Panorama program holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again,” hie statement read. “It effectively established a false narrative which, for over a quarter of a century, has been commercialized by the BBC and others.”)

Harry and Meghan’s series included footage from the interview. 

“She felt compelled to talk about it. Especially in that Panorama interview. I think we all now know that she was deceived into giving the interview, but at the same time she spoke the truth of her experience,” he said. “My mum was harassed throughout her life with my dad but after they separated, the harassment went to new levels. … I saw things, I experienced things. I learned things. The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution. I remember thinking, ‘How can I ever find someone who is willing and capable to withstand all the baggage that comes with being with me?’”

He later added: “So much of what Meghan is and how she is so similar to my mum, she has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence, she has this warmth about her. I accept that there will be people around the world who will fundamentally disagree with what I've done and how I've done it, but I knew that I had to do everything I could to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mum. You know, I didn't want history to repeat itself.”

Credit: Tim Rooke/Shutterstock

Their Trip to Africa

Harry and Meghan went to Africa during summer 2016 after only meeting in person twice.

“We had to get to know each other before the rest of the world and before the media joined,” Harry said.

The twosome then made a rule to not go more than two weeks without seeing each other, with Meghan traveling to the U.K. to see Harry. 

“I could just feel everything in her body vibrating. … I could tell it was different,” Meghan’s former Suits costar Abigail Spencer explained. “It was very clear from the moment that she told me about him that they were in love and they were going to go to the ends of the earth to be together.”