The much-anticipated series is already drawing fire.
All six episodes of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s highly anticipated new docuseries are now available to stream on Netflix, and it’s taking no prisoners. There’s so much to unpack, from Markle’s candid discussions about mental health and her miscarriage to a tense shouting match between Prince Harry and his brother Prince William. Here’s a look a the biggest discoveries we’ve made along the way.
Harry & Meghan Docuseries Revelations and Reactions
Taking on the British media
Within the first few minutes, Harry says of the British media: “No one knows that full truth,” adding that he became “genuinely concerned for the safety of my family” because of the media’s interest in the couple. Harry also compares Meghan’s position in the media spotlight to that of his late mother Princess Diana, who died in a car crash while being chased by paparazzi in 1997.
“So much of what Meghan is and how she is is so similar to my mum … She has the same confidence, she has this warmth about her,” he says.
“I accept that there will 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, especially after what happened to my mum.”
“My face was everywhere, my life was everywhere, tabloids had taken over everything,” Meghan says of her own experience.
Muted support from the Palace
Harry says that when the tabloid interest became relentless, the Palace’s advice was basically to do nothing.
“The direction from the Palace was don’t say anything,” he says. “But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well.
“So it was almost like a rite of passage, and some of the members of the family were like ‘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 also mentions that his family was “incredibly impressed” when they first met Meghan, but suspects her background as an American actress “clouded their judgment.” He also touches on race, saying that there is a degree of “unconscious bias” within the family that needs to be dealt with.
Stoking tensions
Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the series so far. Interviews for the documentary were reportedly made in August, the month before Queen Elizabeth II died. Those candid, insider interviews are likely to be causing considerable stress among the royal household — in particular Harry’s comments about the press pack of royal correspondents, which he describes as “essentially an extended PR arm of the royal family. An agreement that has been there for over 30 years.”
Questions over footage
The series — which was co-produced by Harry and Meghan’s production company — has already come under fire for apparently using misleading footage to portray the couple being hounded by the press.
One of the clips used in the trailer doesn’t show Harry and Meghan at all — it was reportedly taken from outside a court as Katie Price, a British media personality, arrived in December 2021. Another was recognized by the royal editor at London’s Evening Standard, who said a photo the documentary uses to illustrate excessive press intrusion was actually taken from an accredited press pool.
According to the Netflix synopsis, the film is directed by two-time Academy Award-nominated and Emmy award-winning director Liz Garbus. Garbus received widespread acclaim for her 2015 biographical documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?
“It has been a privilege to be able to work with Harry and Meghan, who bravely allowed themselves to be vulnerable by sharing their personal stories and archive,” Garbus says, according to Netflix. “I hope that when Netflix viewers press play, whatever preconceptions people have, they will be open to the discovery of what we’ve shared in this documentary series. It’s an incredible love story set against the context of huge stakes and their journey is a historical event that will be examined for a long time to come.”
The blow-up between Harry and William
The fifth episode dives into a dramatic family meeting convened by Queen Elizabeth in early 2020. The summit was held at the late queen’s country estate, Sandringham, to discuss the roles Harry and Meghan would play as they planned to withdraw from their royal duties. But the discussion quickly deteriorated.
“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in,” Harry says.
Harry said they left the meeting without a resolution, but the affair has deeply impacted his relationship with his brother, Prince William.
“The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother so that he’s now on the institution side,” Harry says.
Meghan’s mental health struggles and miscarriage
Markle opened up in the fourth episode of the series about how her outsider standing in the royal family and the barrage of negative press coverage led her to begin having suicidal thoughts.
Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, who is featured throughout the series, spoke about how hard it was to see her daughter struggle. “I knew that it was bad, but 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,” Ragland said.
The series also touches on Markle’s miscarriage, which she suffered in July 2020. Harry placed the blame for the miscarriage squarely on the shoulders of The Daily Mail, the U.K. tabloid, with which the couple has been engaged in a lengthy legal battle.
“Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was created, caused by that? Of course we don’t,” he says. “I can say, from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
Tyler Perry’s divine intervention
The final episode features the filmmaker Tyler Perry, who famously helped the couple relocate in March 2020 to a home he owned in Beverly Hills.
Harry described it as a refuge for the couple, who were finally afforded a brief respite from the paparazzi: “It was bliss because no one knew we were there.”
Perry says he reached out to Markle in 2018 because he could see what the relentless tabloid coverage was doing to her. “I sent her a note,” he said. “Just praying for her. Just to be able to move through it and hold on and let her know that everything in her life had prepared her for this moment, or so I thought.”
Perry also revealed that the couple had asked him to be the godfather to their second child, Lilibet Diana.
