Yahoo Finance Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Netflix Docuseries: 22 Major Revelations
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are opening up like never before.
In their new Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex lifted the curtain on royal life behind the scenes. Touching on everything from the early days of their relationship to the intense media scrutiny surrounding their lives, they shared some stories followers knew — and many they didn't.
Here, all of the major revelations from all six episodes of the docuseries.
RELATED: Inside Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Netflix Series — and the Palace Reaction
1. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle first 'met' on Instagram
Though they've previously spoken about their first date and early time together, the pair recounted their love story in episode one, with Harry, 38, revealing how Meghan, 41, first caught his attention.
"I was scrolling through my feed and one of my friends and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them, like a Snapchat," Harry shared.
Noting that Meghan had a dog face filter turned on for the image, Harry added, "I was like 'who is THAT?!'"
Meghan revealed that the unnamed friend then told her that "Prince Haz" had asked about her and suggested they meet. "I said, who's that?" Meghan said. "I asked if I could see his feed." The next day they swapped phone numbers.
Karwai Tang/WireImage
2. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's first kiss was in Botswana
After having only met twice, Harry invited Meghan to join him on a visit to Botswana — and was "astonished" when she said yes.
"For me, it was critical to share it with Meg," said Harry. "To start with, we're sitting next to each other and then we progressed to holding hands and then we squeezed in a kiss and amid the bumps and then everything felt totally normal and natural."
Netflix Harry & Meghan
"We had to get to know each other before the rest of the world, before the media sort of, you know, joined it," he added.
"We could both just be completely ourselves," added Meghan about life in "the bush."
"There's no distraction," she continued. "There was no cell phone reception. There's no mirror, there's no bathroom. And there was no, how do I look? Thankfully, we really liked each other."
3. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had one last night of fun before their relationship went public
After the palace gave them a heads-up that a story was about to drop revealing their romance, Meghan and Harry — along with his cousin Princess Eugenie and her now-husband, Jack Brooksbank — decided to "pull the pin on the fun grenade," as Harry said, and enjoy a Halloween night out in Toronto, where Meghan was filming Suits. They shared never-before-seen photos from the night in 2016, with both Meghan and Harry incognito in masks.
RELATED: Meghan Markle's Mom, Doria Ragland, Speaks Out for the First Time in New Netflix Show
4. Meghan Markle is a 'hugger' who learned about the 'formality' of the royal family when she hugged Kate Middleton
Meghan told the story of her very first meeting with future sister-in-law Kate Middleton.
"When [Prince William] and Kate came over and I had met her for the first time, they came over for dinner," Meghan recalled. "I remember I was in ripped jeans and barefoot."
"Like I was a hugger, always been a hugger," she added. "I didn't realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits."
Shutterstock Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle at Wimbledon 2018
"I guess I'd start to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside, carried through on the inside," she continued about the multiple etiquette rules followed by the royal family, which she mistakenly believed were only observed in public. "There is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door and you relax now. But that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me."
A source told PEOPLE that neither members of the family nor Buckingham Palace or Prince William's office at Kensington Palace were approached for comment on the content of the series, though a royal source added that Kensington Palace did receive an email claiming to be from a third-party production company through an unknown organization's email address. When they contacted Archewell and Netflix to verify the source, they received no response. The royal source also says the substance of the email did not address the entire series.
5. The royal family was initially 'impressed' by Meghan Markle — but had reservations about her career
"I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed. Some of them didn't quite know what to do with themselves," Harry said after the pair retold the story of Meghan's first meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. "I think they were surprised. Maybe 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,' " he added.
Meghan agreed that as their romance blossomed, "the actress thing was the biggest problem, funny enough," when it came to what Harry's family thought of her.
"There is a big idea of what that looks like, from the U.K. standpoint. Hollywood. It was just very easy for them to typecast that."
Samir Hussein/WireImage
6. Prince Harry coached Meghan Markle on dealing with the paparazzi
In episode two of the series, Meghan and Harry recounted the initial relief they felt with taking their relationship public, which was quickly followed by a nightmare scenario for Meghan as she was followed around Toronto.
"I remember coming out of the flower shop and there must have been nine or 10 paps standing in the middle of the street, and they were all sort of blocking cars, saying, 'Hey, how are you doing Meghan?' and I was like, 'Oh, thanks. Stay warm guys,' " she shared. "And I remember H the next day saying, 'You can't talk to them.' And I was like, 'I'm just trying to be pleasant, I don't know what to do, I've never dealt with this before.' He's like, 'Right, but the U.K. media are saying you love it. You're smiling. You love it.' "
Meghan said it took receiving a death threat to have security positioned at her home, after police previously told her they couldn't help the situation given the public nature of her relationship.
Despite Harry releasing an unprecedented statement on Nov. 8, 2016, calling out the "wave of abuse and harassment" Meghan was facing in the press, the attention and headlines continued, many with racial undertones.
7. Meghan Markle's mom, Doria Ragland, speaks out for the first time
The Duchess of Sussex spoke about what it was like to grow up as a young biracial woman and the racist remarks towards her mother Doria Ragland. The second episode featured a sit-down with Doria, marking her first public interview since her daughter married Prince Harry in 2018.
Seeing the negative words in the media caused Doria to tell her daughter, "'This is about race,'" Doria recalled, "and Meg said, 'Mommy, I don't want to hear it.' But this is what is coming down the pike," Doria added.
Netflix Doria Ragland
The camera cut to an interview with Meghan, where she said, "At that time, I wasn't thinking about how race played a part in any of this. I genuinely didn't think about it."
On being biracial, Meghan explained, "[It's] very different to be a minority but not be treated as a minority right off the bat. Obviously, now, people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I went to the U.K. But before that, most people didn't treat me like a 'Black woman.' So that talk didn't have to happen for me."
8. Meghan Markle wore neutral hues in deference to other senior working royals
In episode three of Harry & Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex spoke about her discreet sense of style while living in the U.K.
"Most of the time that I was in the U.K., I rarely wore color. There was thought in that," she said.
"To my understanding, you could never wear the same color as Her Majesty [Queen Elizabeth] if there's a group event, but then you also shouldn't be wearing the same color as one of the other more senior members of the family," she added, alluding to Kate Middleton and Queen Camilla.
Chris Jackson/Getty Meghan Markle and Prince Harry
"So I was like, 'Well, what's a color that they'll probably never wear?' Camel, beige, white," she continued, as photos flashed of her in a tan wrap coat during her first Sandringham Christmas. "So I wore a lot of muted tones, but it was also so I could just blend in. I'm not trying to stand out here. There was no version of me joining this family and me not doing everything I could to fit in. I don't want to embarrass the family."
9. Prince Harry addressed his Nazi costume scandal from 2005
Prince Harry opened up about his headline-making 2005 Halloween costume, his ignorance at the time and his learning process afterward.
"All I wanted to do was make it right," he said of what he called "one of the biggest mistakes of my life."
"I sat down and spoke to the chief rabbi in London, which had a profound impact on me," he recalled. "I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor."
The royal also addressed the idea of "unconscious bias" in his family, noting that while "it's actually no one's fault," that doesn't absolve one of responsibility.
"Once it's been pointed out or identified within yourself you then need to make it right," he said. "It's education, it's awareness and it's a constant work in progress for everyone ― including me."
10. Prince Harry 'blocked' many early memories of mom Princess Diana
"My mum certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart," Prince Harry shared of Princess Diana. "And I am my mother's son."
He recalled his mom's "cheeky laugh," but also admitted, "I don't really have any early memories of my mum. It's almost like, internally I blocked them out."
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images Prince Harry and Princess Diana
But he also said he had many early memories of cameras chasing his family and his mother's tears. "Rarely would we have a holiday without someone with a camera jumping out of a bush," he said. "Within the family, the system, the advice is always 'don't react, don't feed into it.' "
11. Kids Archie and Lili make cameos!
In a sweeter turn, Harry and Meghan's young children, Archie Harrison, 3, and Lilibet Diana, 1, make a cameo appearance in the doc.
Episode two of the series showed a moment shared between Harry and Archie on a balcony, overlooking a pool, while several hummingbirds fly around them.
The footage then pans to Harry reading a story to Lilibet as she's sitting on his lap on a white couch, surrounded by some of the family's dogs.
"What's most important for the two of us is to make sure that we don't repeat the same mistakes that perhaps our parents made," Harry said as the camera cuts to a black and white image of Meghan sitting barefoot in a nursery with Archie while reading him a story.
"There's so much I think from anyone's childhood that you bring with you into the present," added Meghan. "Especially when you're the product of divorce."
12. Prince Harry 'shouldered' responsibility for Meghan Markle's estrangement from father Thomas Markle 13.
In the third episode, the Duke of Sussex said "it's incredibly sad" how his wife and father-in-law, Thomas Markle, disconnected.
"She had a father before this and now she doesn't have a father," he said. "And I shouldered that because if Meg wasn't with me, then her dad would still be her dad."
The pair recounted, in their own words, how Thomas was reportedly taking money from tabloids for staged photos shortly before their 2018 wedding.
Meghan's mother Doria Ragland added that she was "absolutely stunned" that her ex-husband "would become part of this circus."
"And sad that the media would run with this. That he would capitalize," she said. "Certainly as a parent, that's not what you do. That's not parenting."
13. Meghan went into a 'calm space' on wedding day
Despite the millions of people around the world watching the couple's big day in May 2018, Meghan said she "went into a really calm space."
"I don't know how I was so calm," she shared. "I look back at that, how was I so calm? And all I wanted was a mimosa, a croissant. And uh, to play the song going to the chapel. Oh, that's what I did. And it was great."
After an afternoon reception where Elton John performed, the couple headed to the evening reception where they shared their first dance to "Land of 1000 Dances" by Wilson Pickett.
"Just spinning like a whirlwind. It was so great," Meghan said.
Harry & Meghan reminisce about their whirlwind first dance as husband and wife.
Volume I: Now Streaming
Volume II: December 15 pic.twitter.com/EKDx3hPmuS— Netflix (@netflix) December 10, 2022
14. Prince Harry 'hates' himself for how he responded to Meghan's suicidal thoughts
The Duke of Sussex recalled a difficult period when Meghan felt that she wanted to take her own life.
"I was devastated," Prince Harry said in the docuseries. "I knew that she was struggling. We were both struggling, but I never thought that it would get to that stage."
"And the fact that it got to that stage, I felt angry and ashamed," he continued. "I didn't deal with it particularly well. I dealt with it as 'institutional Harry' as opposed to 'husband Harry.' And what took over my feelings was my royal role."
"I'd been trained to worry more about what are people gonna think if we don't go to this event, we're gonna be late," he added. "Looking back on it now, I hate myself for it. What she needed from me was so much more than I was able to give."
Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, added, "I knew, well, I knew that it was bad, to just constantly be picked at by these vultures, just picking away at her spirit that she would actually think of not wanting to be here. That's not an easy one for a mom to hear. And I can't protect her. H can't protect her."
15. Prince Harry said his father King Charles' office leaked the couple's planned move to Canada
Harry and Meghan spent their first holiday season as parents to son Archie on a family break in Vancouver Island, Canada. There, they discussed the idea of relocating to Canada with Harry's father, then-Prince Charles, while continuing royal duties. Charles asked his son to put the plan in writing.
Prince Harry wrote the plan out in a series of emails, adding that they would give up their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles if they had to, "and five days later, it was on the front page of the newspaper," Meghan said.
Harry said, "It became clear that the institution leaked the fact that we were going to move back to Canada, and the key piece of that story that made me aware that the contents of the letter between me and my father had been leaked was that we were willing to relinquish our Sussex titles. That was the giveaway."
The plan for the move to Canada was then "scrapped," Harry said, "because it's now become a public debate."
16. Prince Harry says Prince William shouted at him during the Sandringham Summit
Five days after Prince Harry and Meghan announced their intention to step back as senior working members of the royal family in January 2020, Harry met with Queen Elizabeth, the then-Prince Charles and Prince William at the monarch's country estate in Norfolk.
"I went in with the same proposal that we'd already made publicly. But once I got there, I was given five options: one being all in no change, five being all out," he recalled. "I chose option three in the meeting: half in, half out; have our own jobs but also work in support of the Queen."
Despite this, he said that his decision provoked a reaction from the family that was not one of compromise.
"It became very clear very quickly that that goal was not up for discussion or debate," said Harry. "It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that simply weren't true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in."
17. Prince Harry believes Meghan had a miscarriage due to her legal case against a U.K. tabloid
The couple's lawyer Jenny Afia said that she was aware of the "toll it was taking" on Meghan to pursue legal action against Associated Newspapers in 2020, after the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and the MailOnline printed sections of a private letter she sent to her father, Thomas Markle, following her wedding to Prince Harry.
Afia added that Meghan was pregnant yet not sleeping as a result of the pressure she felt as the couple moved into their new home in Montecito, California.
"The first morning that we woke up in our new home is when I miscarried," recalled Meghan.
"I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did," said Prince Harry. "I watched the whole thing."
"Now do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was created caused by that? Of course, we don't," he added. Bearing in mind the stress that caused the lack of sleep and the timing of the pregnancy, how many weeks in she was, I can say from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her."
18. Prince Harry said his final royal outing with family 'looked cold' and 'felt cold'
In March 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex carried out a final week of engagements in the U.K., ending with the annual Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey.
"We were nervous seeing the family because all the TV cameras and everybody watching at home and everybody watching in the audience. It's like living through a soap opera where everybody else views you as entertainment," Harry said.
"I felt really distant from the rest of my family, which was interesting because so much of how they operate is about what it looks like, rather than what it feels like," he continued. "And it looked cold. But it also felt cold."
Phil Harris - WPA Pool/Getty
19. Meghan wanted to 'look like a rainbow' during final royal engagements
After wearing "muted tones" to "blend in" with the royal family, Meghan chose bold colors of red, blue and green for her last week of engagements in the U.K. in March 2020.
"I wore a lot of color that week," she said in the series. "I thought: 'Well, let's just look like a rainbow.' "
"It was our opportunity to go out with a bang to be honest," added Harry.
20. Prince Harry recalled reuniting with his family at Prince Philip's funeral
In April 2021, after Harry and Meghan had relocated to California, his grandfather Prince Philip died at age 99. The Duke of Sussex's return to the U.K. for the funeral marked his first trip in over a year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Meghan — who was pregnant with their daughter Lilibet Diana — did not join.
Of his return to the U.K. for the funeral after their royal exit the previous year, Harry said in the docuseries, "It was hard — especially spending time having chats with my brother and my father, who just were very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation."
"So none of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather's funeral, but we did," he added of himself, Prince William and then-Prince Charles.
"I've had to make peace with the fact that we're probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology [from my family]," Harry added. "My wife and I, we're moving on. We're focused on what's coming next."
Chris Jackson/WPA Pool/Getty Images Prince Andrew, Prince Harry and Prince Edward at the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh on April 17
21. Tyler Perry is Lili's godfather!
Tyler Perry appeared in the docuseries to talk about letting Prince Harry and Meghan stay in his Los Angeles home amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Later on, he also shared that the couple asked him a big question after the June 2021 birth of daughter Lili.
"They said, 'Well, we'd like for you to be Lili's godfather.' I go, 'Whoa,' " Perry said. "I had to take a minute to take that in. And I thought, 'I'd be honored. I'd absolutely be honored.' "
After getting off the phone with the couple, Perry thought more about the request.
"I called them back and go, 'Uh, hold on a second — does this mean we gotta go over [to the U.K.] and do all of that in church with [the royal family] and figure all that out? 'Cause I don't wanna do that,' " he said. " 'Maybe we can do a little private ceremony here [in the U.S.] and let that be that, and if you have to do it there, then that's okay.' "
22. Beyoncé texted Meghan after the couple's Oprah interview
The day after Meghan and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah Winfrey aired in March 2021, cameras were rolling as Meghan got an unexpected text...from none other than Beyoncé.
"Beyoncé just texted," Meghan said, prompting Prince Harry to theatrically gasp and say, "Shut up."
"Just checking in," Meghan said with a smile of the message. "I still can't believe she knows who I am!"
"Go and call her," Harry suggested.
"No, it's okay," his wife replied. "She said she wants me to feel safe and protected. She admires and respects my bravery and vulnerability and thinks I was selected to break generational curses that need to be healed."
Harry & Meghan is now streaming on Netflix.
