Harry & Meghan’s Netflix Documentary Part One: Shocking Revelations On The Royals, Their Romance, & More

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• Harry & Megan premiered on Netflix on Dec. 8, 2022 with three episodes
• The docuseries allows Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to candidly recall the last six years of their lives together on their own terms
• The couple, who have been married since 2018, defended their decision to bow out as senior royals, recounted Meghan’s experiences with racism, and talked about their marriage as children of divorce

The first three episodes of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s Netflix documentary are here and there’s a lot to unpack. In the highly anticipated docuseries, Harry & Meghan, the pair look back on and discuss some of the most defining moments of their lives, including their groundbreaking decision to leave behind their lives as working royals and move to Los Angeles, Calif. for a more grounded life. Some other topics covered during the telling documentary include Prince Harry’s childhood and the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana, his and now 41-year-old Meghan’s first interactions, and Meghan’s first impressions of the British royal family. Meghan and Harry also offered a peek at their very private life with their two kids, Archie and Lili.

Harry, 38, addressed the media frenzy around his life and took aim at the media near the beginning of the documentary before things got super juicy. “No one knows that full truth. We know the full truth, the institution knows the full truth, and the media knows the full truth because they’ve been in on it,” he claimed. He added that he feels it is his “duty” to “uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media.” Within the first few shots of the show, a title card reads, “Members of the Royal Family declined to comment on the content within this series.”

With that in mind, read on to learn about the biggest revelations from Harry & Meghan.

Harry Feels He Is Part Of The Reason Meghan Is Estranged From Her Father

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been estranged from Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, 78, since their wedding in 2018. While Thomas, who was reportedly close with Meghan throughout her life, was invited to the famous wedding, he ended up missing it due to a series of both unfortunate and planned events. The estrangement began when Meghan and Harry learned that Thomas may have been working with the paparazzi to make money off of photos showing him trying on his tux for the special day. In the documentary, Meghan and Harry claimed they reached out to Thomas to ask him about the rumors and said he denied them. Of course, the photos came out.

After that, Thomas stopped returning Meghan and Harry’s calls and instead chose to speak to the press about the ordeal. He even allegedly ignored their efforts when he was in the hospital due to the heart attack he suffered days before the wedding. A text message that Meghan allegedly sent him read, “Please can I ask that you stop talking to the press… You haven’t returned any of our 20+ calls since we all spoke on Saturday morning; which only adds to the hurt you’ve been causing. We aren’t angry but we do really need to speak to u. Love M and H.” They received one text back, although Harry and Meghan don’t believe it was sent by Thomas.

As fans know, Thomas did not attend his daughter’s wedding, and Prince Charles, now King Charles III, stepped in to walk Meghan down the aisle. Reflecting on the entire situation, Harry said, “Of course, it’s incredibly sad what happened. She had a father before this. And now she doesn’t have a father. And I shouldered that. Because if Meg wasn’t with me, then her dad would still be her dad.”

Meghan’s Mom New Prince Harry Was ‘The One’ Right Away

Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, 66, spoke out for the first time about Meghan’s royal life in Harry & Meghan. Remembering the first time she met Prince Harry, she gushed that she knew he and Meghan were meant for each other.  “You know, he was just like six one, handsome man with red hair. Really great manners. He was just really nice,” she noted. “And they looked really happy together. Yeah, like he was the one.”

Doria Ragland Warned Meghan About How Race Would Come Into Play

Shortly after discussing her first interactions with Prince Harry, Doria revealed she immediately warned Meghan that her Black ancestry would be a huge story. “I said to her. I remember this very clearly, that this is about race,” she explained. “And Meg said, ‘Mommy, I don’t wanna hear that.’ And I said, ‘You may not want to hear it, but this is what’s coming down the pike.’” Of course, she proved to be right, and Meghan received harsh criticism and tabloid coverage based on her race alone.

Harry Claimed The Royal Family Thought Of The Scrutiny Meghan Faced As A ‘Rite Of Passage’

Harry has previously said he asked his family for help when Meghan was dealing with overtly racist criticism during their relationship. As he has stated before, they denied it. Explaining the situation in greater depth than ever before, he said, “What people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they’d been put through as well. So it was almost like a rite of passage.”

“Some of the members of the family were like, ‘But my wife had to go through that. So why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’” he continued. “And I said, ‘The difference here is the race element.’”

Harry Was ‘Terrified’ Meghan Would Leave Him Due To The Attention On Their Relationship

Although Prince Harry was one of the most eligible bachelors when he met Meghan, he admitted in the insightful documentary that he was “terrified” Meghan would be scared off by the nosey media. “The same media that had driven so many other people away from me,” he said. He confessed he always knew finding a life partner would be difficult due to the “pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution.”

Meghan Has The ‘Same Compassion’ As Princess Diana

During one sentimental moment in the documentary, 3-year-old Archie touched a photo of Princess Diana and said, “Hey, Grandma.” Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a 1997 car accident after being chased by paparazzi through the streets of Paris. Harry has made it one of his life missions to make sure the memory and work of his mother, a beloved humanitarian, lives on. Once he married Meghan, he also made it a priority to ensure she did not end up with the same tragic fate as his mother.

“I accept that there’ll be people around the world who 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,” he said, referencing his decision to leave the institution. “Especially after what happened to my mom. You know, I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”

He went on to gush about how much Meghan reminds him of his mother. “So much of what Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mom,” Harry smiled. “She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her.”

Harry Pursued Meghan After Seeing A Photo Of Her On Instagram

Although it’s known that Meghan and Harry were set up by a mutual friend, it was not known before the Harry & Meghan documentary that they were set up after Harry inquired about Meghan. “Meghan and I met over Instagram, I was scrolling through my feed and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them, like a Snapchat and it’s up…” the father of two recalled, adding that Meghan had the dog ears filter on her. Harry messaged the mutual friend, who let Meghan know someone was interested in her.

Meghan was then shown Harry’s private Instagram feed and was impressed with what she saw. “I went through it and it was just like beautiful photography and all these environmental shots and this time he was spending in Africa,” she gushed. After that, they connected via text message. “We were just constantly in touch and I went, ‘Let’s meet,'” Harry remembered.

They decided to meet at 76 Dean Street in London, and Meghan quickly threw Harry under the bus for being late. “I was panicking. I was freaking out. I was, like, sweating,” he said, defending himself.

Recalling her first impression of her future husband, Meghan said, “He was just so… fun. Just so refreshingly fun. And that was the thing, we were like childlike together.” The rest is history.

Harry Got Real About His Deepest Regret

Prince Harry found himself embroiled in controversy after he wore a Nazi uniform paired with a swastika armband to a friend’s birthday party in 2005. He opened up about the deplorable incident during the docuseries and said he felt unbelievably disgusted with himself afterward. “It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I felt so ashamed afterward. All I wanted to do was make it right,” he said in the third episode of Harry & Meghan.

He also explained that he immediately worked to correct his wrongs. “I sat down and spoke to the chief rabbi in London, which had a profound impact on me. I went to Berlin and spoke to a holocaust survivor,” he said of the work he did to educate himself. “I could have just ignored it and got on and probably made the same mistakes over and over again in my life, but I learned from that.”

Meghan Said She Was Not Prepared For How Formal The Royal Family Was

Meghan revealed she shocked her future in-laws, Prince William and Kate Middleton, when they first met due to her casual and laid-back nature. “When Will and Kate came over, and I met her for the first time, they came over for dinner, I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot,” she confessed. “I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger, I didn’t realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.”

“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside,” she continued. “There is a forward-facing way of being, and then you close the door and go, ‘You can relax now’, but that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”

Harry Revealed Meghan’s Profession Was A Red Flag For His Family

Before Meghan was subject to intense racism by the media and reportedly his family, Harry revealed that his royal relatives were at first concerned that she was an actress. “I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed, some of them didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. Because I think they were surprised,” he recalled. “They were surprised that a ginger could land such a beautiful woman and such an intelligent woman. But the fact that I was dating an American actress was probably what clouded their judgment more than anything else at the beginning, ‘Oh, she’s an American actress; this won’t last’.”

“The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough,” Meghan chimed in. “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.”

Harry Brought Up Princess Diana’s Infamous Interview

Harry recalled what was possibly Diana’s most famous interview — her 1995 Panorama chat with Martin Bashir — in Harry & Meghan. The interview is famous for her quip that her marriage to now King Charles was crowded because “there were three of us in the marriage”, which referenced Charles’ ongoing affair with his now-wife Camilla Parker-Bowles. Commenting on the controversial interview, Harry said his mother “told her truth.”

He went on to detail how being children of divorce has influenced his and Meghan’s union. “What’s most important to the two of us is to make sure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes that perhaps our parents made,” he noted. “I think most kids who are the product of divorced parents have a lot in common, no matter what your background is. Being pulled from one place to another or maybe your parents are competitive, or you’re in one place longer than you want to be or in another place less than you want to be. There’s all sorts of pieces to that.”