Buckingham Palace is bracing for what they fear will be a new wave of bombshells as Harry and Meghan’s most controversial venture yet hits the screens.
Harry and Meghan’s controversial Netflix documentary has been released on the streaming platform tonight, with the pair promising to recall their experiences of their bitter split from the British royal family.
The documentary is a mix of historical footage, recorded interviews and selfie clips filmed by Meghan and Harry themselves. According to Prince Harry, it was the “sensible” thing to do because of the misinformation.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Netflix documentary Harry and Meghan.
Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary has aired. (Netflix)
‘What the hell happened? How did we end up here?
The documentary opens with self-filmed confessions from both Harry and Meghan, who say a friend advised them to document their love story. It’s Harry who wonders how he and his wife ended up ‘here’.
How Harry and 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,” says Meghan’s friend Lindsay Jill Roth.
“I was like, I really intend to be single,” says Meghan. “I had my career, I had my path, and then H came along. I mean, talk about a plot twist.”
Harry says he met Meghan on Instagram after a video of Meghan appeared on his friend’s feed. Harry’s friend, who was also Meghan’s friend, contacted Meghan via email and said that Harry wanted to meet her.
“The institution knows the whole truth”
The moment when Buckingham Palace has been prepared is here, at least the first part, and it seems that Harry and Meghan will not hold back.
In the first footage of Harry and Meghan, the former royals have teased what’s to come in their long-awaited six-part Netflix docu-series, a ‘first-hand account’ of their ‘personal history’ of his “never seen before”. personal file”.
An apparently pregnant Meghan poses with her son Archie on her belly. (Netflix)
The docuseries stipulated in its initial statement that all interviews were completed by August 2022, and members of the British royal family declined to comment on the series.
Prince Harry has his son Archie. (Netflix)
It promises a raw look into the private lives of the Sussexes, but as Harry says, it’s not just about them.
“He’s always been a lot bigger than us,” Harry says.
He says that “the institution knows the whole truth” and the “media knows the whole truth” because they “have been in it”.
Harry said Meghan had no idea what she was getting herself into.
“When you feel like people have no idea who you are for so long, it’s really nice to be able to have the opportunity to let people have a little more insight into what’s been going on and also who we are.”, Meghan says.
“I ended up sacrificing everything I had to join her in her world,” Harry says.
The Sussexes release a statement
Harry talks about childhood, Diana’s lack of early memories and her infamous interview
Behind the scenes of his childhood alongside older brother Prince William, the father of King Charles III and Diana, Harry says he remembers his childhood as “full of laughter, happiness and adventure”.
The Duke of Sussex also says he doesn’t have many early memories of his mother, the former Princess of Wales, apart from her “cheeky laugh”. Harry says he will “always be this cheeky person inside”.
Diana’s infamous Panorama interview. (Netflix)
Harry also spoke about the relationship between the Firm and the media, and how Diana “did such a good job of protecting us”.
“The paparazzi used to harass us to the point where we had to smile and answer questions to the traveling press pack,” Harry says as pictures of himself, his brother and cousins Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenia on vacation while the children overlapped the screen.
“That made me very uncomfortable from the start,” says Harry.
It also shows Diana trying to get the press kit away from the children on that same holiday.
The episode then takes a twist, discussing how Diana sat down with the BBC’s Panorama and gave a revealing interview, which, years later, was revealed to have been done under false pretenses.
“She was tricked into giving the interview, but at the same time she told the truth about her experience,” Harry says of the controversial interview with Martin Bashir.
Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland is speaking out for the first time
Since Meghan’s entrance into royal life, her mother Doria Ragland has remained steadfast in her silence, but now she is speaking out.
“The last five years have been challenging. I’m ready to make my voice heard, that’s for sure, some of my experience as a mother,” she says.
Ragland recalls Meghan telling him in a whispered phone call that she was dating Prince Harry — “I started whispering, ‘Oh my God'” — and that she was meeting him for the first time.
“He was a handsome 6’1 man with red hair, good manners…they looked very happy together. Like he was the only one.”
Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland (Netflix)
Ragland says that when news of the couple’s relationship finally went public, it felt like “news,” but that soon changed.
She recalls warning her daughter that race played a role in how the tabloid media responded to her relationship with Harry, following the news in 2016. She says Meghan initially dismissed it, but soon became of course he was right.
Reflecting on a headline that declared his new girlfriend was “(almost) straight from Compton” – a reference to his Los Angeles upbringing – Harry says the palace’s direction to the pair was “don’t say anything”.
The prince claims the palace’s position was that Meghan’s treatment by the press was “a rite of passage”, in a way: “Everything she had been put through, they had been through” – and , so why should I? get protection when they didn’t?
“I said, ‘The difference here is the element of race,'” he recalls. Meghan adds: “It was awful, but I just kept holding the line, like I didn’t say anything.”
Meghan remembers meeting the royal family for the first time
The couple are candid about Meghan’s reception from the royal family when she first met them, and her own reaction to the family’s “formality”, even in private.
Reflecting on the first time she met “Will and Kate” when they came over for dinner, she remembers being barefoot in ripped jeans.
“I was a hugger, I’ve always been a hugger. I didn’t realize that’s really upsetting to a lot of Brits,” she laughs.
Meghan jokes about bowing to Queen Elizabeth II. (Netflix)
“I guess you would start to understand very quickly that the formality outside is carried out inside, there’s a way to be facing the front and you close the door and say, ‘Ah, now we can relax,'” but this formality is maintained on both sides, and that surprised 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.”
He remembers thinking Harry was joking when he asked if he knew how to bow, and re-enacts the moment he made a crack in front of the Queen, demonstrating a low, dramatic bow he compares to something from “medieval times”. .
“It was very intense,” she laughs, recalling 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 do very well.”
In a more serious moment, Harry says his family members were “incredibly impressed” by Meghan, although some had obvious doubts.
“Some of them didn’t quite know what to do with themselves, they were shocked,” he says.
“Dating an American actress was probably what clouded his judgment more than anything else at first… [thinking] “This won’t last.”
Meghan agrees, saying she felt the UK had a particular vision of what it meant to be an actress and that it was “easy to write”.
The Princess of Wales dazzles at the Buckingham Palace event
The first three episodes of Harry and Meghan dropped at 7pm (AEDT) on Thursday night.
The last three episodes will premiere next week, on December 15.
We’ll update this article with some of the key points as they hit our screens.
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