What episode 4 of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix documentary says

Prince Harry today suggested Meghan was ‘better’ at royal engagements than William, Kate and Charles and that people were ‘upset’ at how his wife ‘stole the limelight’. 

Episode four of Harry & Meghan, which aired this morning, sees the Sussexes’ friend Lucy Fraser say that their tour of Australia in October 2018, where Meghan’s pregnancy was revealed, went so well that ‘the palace were incredibly threatened’.

Harry then says: ‘The issue is when someone who’s marrying in should be a supporting act is then stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than the person who was born to do this. That upsets people. It shifts the balance.’ 

A friend of Harry and Meghan says the palace felt ‘threatened’ by  their 2018 tour of Australia 

Diana is seen in the episode on her tour of Australia in 1983. Later, she told Martin Bashir how Charles felt ‘hurt’ by her dominating media coverage of the event 

In other key moments from episode four – 

• Meghan claims she was called a ‘foreign organism’ by the Queen’s former aide; 
• ‘Wanted to get help’ for her suicidal thoughts but ‘wasn’t allowed to by aides’;
• ‘Couldn’t even text friends a photo’ from inside the ‘controlled’ royal bubble; 
• ‘Really important’ for King to walk her down the aisle at her wedding to Harry; 
• Recalls having a mimosa and a croissant on the morning of her wedding; 
• In private, Meghan treated the late Queen ‘as my husband’s grandmother’; 
• Was confronted by person saying: ‘What you’re doing to your father is wrong’; 
• Mother Doria cries as she tells how she felt she was ‘unable’ to protect Meghan; 
• Harry said it was ‘heartbreaking’ to see William’s aides ‘trade’ stories;
• Yet more footage is played of Diana’s notorious Martin Bashir interview;
• Archie’s nanny, Lorren Khumalo, is named and speaks in public for first time;

The opening scenes of episode four feature black and white footage from the late Queen’s wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh.

It then switches to Meghan telling how her private secretary, who worked for the Queen for 20 years, had told her: ‘It is like a fish that is swimming perfectly. It is powerful, it is on the right current. Then one day this little organism comes in.

‘This foreign organism. And the entire thing goes… What is that? What is it doing here? It doesn’t look like us. It doesn’t move like us. We don’t like it. Get it off of us.

‘And she just explained that, you know, they’ll soon see, that it’s stronger, faster, even better with this organism as part of it.

‘It will be hard at the beginning for them to adjust to this new thing but then it’ll be amazing.’

Meghan adds: ‘And I was really hopeful that that was true.’

The episode also sees Meghan describe the day of her wedding and how she prepared by eating a ‘mimosa and a croissant’ and playing the song ‘Going to the Chapel’.

As footage of joyous crowds of Union-flag-waving fans appear on screen, Meghan’s friend Heather Dorak recalled the ‘big and spectacular’ nature of the day. 

Meghan says: ‘I knew that on the drive to the castle there’d be tons of people. What I didn’t know was that people would be lining both sides of the street.’ 

Harry adds: ‘There was an expectation that Diana’s boy would have a public wedding. It was like ”mission complete with William, now let’s see if we can go the distance with Harry and say job done”.’

Harry says: ‘The issue is when someone who’s marrying in should be a supporting act is then stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than the person who was born to do this’

Meghan describes King Charles as ‘very charming’ and said it was ‘very important’ for him to walk her down the aisle

Prince Harry and Meghan can be seen cutting their lavish wedding cake in another photograph from the event in 2018

Meghan said she ‘ate croissants and drank mimosas’ on the morning of her wedding

The newlyweds kiss during their wedding reception at St George’s Hall in Windsor

As footage plays of the wedding in St George’s Chapel, Harry remembers how his father, King Charles, helped him choose an orchestra. 

Meghan adds: ‘Harry’s dad is very charming. And I said to him… like. I’ve lost my dad in this, so him as my father-in-law was very important to me, so I asked him to walk me down the aisle and he said yes. 

‘The whole thing was surreal. It was at that moment that I also saw H.’ 

Later, she says of her and Harry: ‘H and I are really really good at finding each other in the chaos.’ 

The duchess also remembers having their wedding cake cut by a sword, adding: ‘It was so over the top’.  

Meghan’s friend, Serena Williams, is also interviewed, with the tennis star saying Meghan’s decision to invite a gospel choir to her wedding was ‘really courageous’. 

‘To have her culture represented in that wedding, amazing I loved it,’ Ms Williams says, before Harry recalls how there ‘wasn’t much pushback’ to the decision. 

Another of Meghan’s friends, Dhru Purohit, recalls how during the event: ‘Myself, Oprah, Idris and his partner… we had a little bit of a chuckle. Everybody knew exactly the layers of symbolism that were taking place that day.’

Footage then cuts to Meghan dancing as the couple describe their new home, Nottingham Cottage – in the grounds of Kensington Palace. 

Harry says: ‘As far as people were concerned we were living in a palace. And we were. In a cottage. We were living on palace grounds. 

‘The whole thing’s on a slight lean. Really low ceilings, I don’t know who it was ever for. They must have been very short.’ 

Meghan adds: ‘It says palace in the name but Nottingham Cottage was so small. [Harry] would just hit his head constantly in that place cause he’s so tall.’

Footage of Meghan Markle playfully dancing in the doorway of Nottingham Cottage was shown in episode four of the docuseries

Harry eats chicken outside the cottage as Meghan’s dog Guy begs for a treat 

Harry and Meghan describe how ‘small’ their new home Nottingham Cottage was

Meghan says: ‘It says palace in the name but Nottingham Cottage was so small. [Harry] would just hit his head constantly in that place cause he’s so tall’

The couple also describe Oprah Winfrey coming round for tea.  

The duchess also speaks about her actions following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017.

Meghan says: ‘The Grenfell fire was horrendous. We were watching on the news in Nottingham Cottage.

‘The Grenfell fire left so many families displaced, outside of how many deaths it caused, and I remember saying, ‘Can we do something, can we can go down there and so something?’ And so I connected with the women at Al-Manaar, which is a mosque in Grenfell – they were living in these hotels and just given meal vouchers for fast food.’

Meghan later produced a cookbook with some of the women, Together: Our Community Cookbook.

Footage then airs of the couple’s 2018 tour of Australia, with the couple’s friend Lucy Fraser claiming the success of the trip made ‘the internals at the palace’ feel ‘threatened’.  

Meghan takes a selfie while Harry gets on with some outdoor varnishing in the background

Harry and dog guy share a cuddle on the sofa, staying true to his roots, a union jack placemat can be seen on the table with a candle on top 

The Duchess of Sussex shows off her gardening skills as she brandishes a hoe, wearing a casual button down shirt and a straw hat

Meghan’s mother, Doria, cries as she tells how she felt she was ‘unable’ to protect Meghan

The duchess tells how much she enjoyed going on royal engagements with the Queen 

Meghan’s friend, Serena Williams, is also interviewed, with the tennis star saying Meghan’s decision to invite a gospel choir to her wedding was ‘really courageous’

The episode features more footage from Martin Bashir’s controversial interview with Diana, Princess of Wales – despite William’s pleas for it never to appear again. 

Diana discusses her tour of Australia with the now King and reflects on how the media appeared more interested in her than Charles.

She says: ‘Now, if you are a man like my husband, a proud man, you mind about that if you hear it every day for weeks and you feel low about it.’

During episode four, Harry and Meghan describe an engagement they attended with other royals and complain that Meghan was the only person to appear on newspaper front pages the next day 

Meghan Markle opened up about how her friends ‘surprised’ her with a ‘beautiful’ baby shower at The Mark Hotel in Manhattan when she was expecting her son Archie (Pictured: The Duchess with friends including Abigail Spencer, Daniel Martin, Misha Nonoo, Serena Williams and Lindsay Roth)

Another snap from the event shows the group of friends all reaching out to Meghan’s blossoming baby bump 

Harry says: ‘The lies, that’s one thing. You kind of get used to that when you live within this family. But what they were doing to her and the effect it was having on her. Enough of the pain, enough of the suffering. No-one sees what is happening behind closed doors.

‘Back in the day, my mum was in the back of the car going to engagements in floods of tears. And then my dad is saying ‘We are almost there’ and 30 seconds to wipe the tears away, slap on some make-up, and then the door opens and smile and everything is fine.’

Mimicking cameras, he adds: ‘And flash, flash, flash, flash, flash.’ 

Meghan says she thought about taking her own life, adding: ‘It was like ‘All of this will stop if I am not here’. And that was the scariest thing about it because it was such clear thinking.’ 

Meghan says of her suicidal thoughts: ‘I wanted to go somewhere to get help, but I wasn’t allowed to. They were concerned how that would look for the institution’

Her mother Doria says it ‘broke her heart’ when Meghan told her she wanted to take her own life 

Her mother, Doria Ragland, says: ‘I remember her telling me that, that she had wanted to take her own life, and that really broke my heart because I knew…’

Wiping away tears, she added: ‘And I can’t protect her. H (Harry) can’t protect her.’

Harry says he ‘hates’ looking back on how he dealt with his wife when she had thoughts of taking her own life.

He says: ‘I was devastated. 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.

‘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 had been trained to worry more about ‘What are people going to think if we don’t go to this event, we’re going to be late’, and looking back on it now, I hate myself for it.

‘What she needed from me was so much more than what I was able to give.’

The episode reveals more previously unseen family photos, including this image which appears to see a young Harry and William 

Meghan and Harry are seen on a walk in the woods with two of their dogs 

Nurse Lorren Khumalo appears on the episode to describe how she was recruited by the Sussexes

Meghan adds: ‘I wanted to go somewhere to get help, but I wasn’t allowed to. They were concerned how that would look for the institution.’ 

The episode then details growing tensions between Harry and Meghan and William and Kate, with the Sussexes’ former spokesman, James Holt, describing a Christmas party including staff from both households that ‘split into two’.

Referring to the royal communications teams, Harry says: ‘William and I both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made an agreement that we would never let that happen to our office.

‘I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or this business of trading, and to see my brother’s office copy the very same thing that we promised the two of us would never ever do that was heartbreaking.’

Meghan adds: ‘We were in this bubble, where everything is controlled by them. I couldn’t even text my friends a photo.

‘You do as you’re told but your world just becomes more and more like this,’ she said, gesturing with the gap between her hands getting smaller.

Meghan describes how they were in a bubble where ‘everything was controlled’ and she ‘couldn’t even text friends a photo’. 

Meghan also complains about negative coverage of her baby shower, which she described as ‘a group of strong women coming together to spend their own money’ from ‘a place of love’

A photo shown in episode four of Harry throwing a ball to their dog at Frogmore Cottage 

Harry adds: ‘I have 30 years’ experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how the system works and how it runs. Just constant briefings, about other members of the family, about favours inviting the press in.

‘It’s a dirty game. There is leaking but there is also planting of stories. So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principal.

‘So the offices end up working against each other. It is a kind of weird understanding or acceptance that happens.

‘You can always say ‘I didn’t know about this’, or ‘Don’t be ridiculous, this would never happen, I would never get you suggesting I would condone this’.

‘I was like ‘No, but what I am asking is ‘Have you done anything to stop it?’ and the answer is no.’ 

Meghan also complains about negative coverage of her baby shower, which she described as ‘a group of independent, strong, successful women coming together to spend their own money’ from ‘a place of love’. 

A photo of Meghan while she was pregnant with Archie that was shown on episode four of their documentary 

An intimate photo aired today of Harry kissing Meghan’s baby bump

A photo taken through an old doorway showing Meghan taking a stroll through a park 

Meanwhile, Harry speaks about disagreeing with the palace over where they would do a post-birth photocall with Archie.

She says: ‘There was already the pressure of the picture with Archie on the steps. Are they going to do that or are they not? But I had been really worried going in to that labour because I am older and I didn’t know if I would have to have a C-section.

‘I had a very long-standing relationship with my doctor and that is who I trusted with my pregnancy. And they said, ‘Right but she is at Portland Hospital and the steps are at this hospital (the Lindo Wing). And I said, ‘OK, we could do a photocall in front of Portland Hospital’.

‘They said: ‘It is impossible. We couldn’t barricade the streets off and it would create a threat for the emergency room entrance because that is where you would have to do this picture’.

Meghan said she asked what the ‘hybrid’ solution was and whether they could give the press more time at the castle, adding, ‘And everything internal was like ‘Yes, yes, oh great, yes’. At no point did someone go, ‘Absolutely not’.’ 

A family photo of Harry playing on a swing that was aired on episode four of the couple’s documentary 

In a beautiful never-before-seen still, Archie is pictured as a baby being bathed by his adoring parents 

Family photos that appeared in episode four of Harry & Meghan, which aired on Netflix today 

During the episode, Harry also addresses the allegedly racist tweet by broadcaster Danny Baker following Archie’s birth. 

He says: ‘The amount of abuse that we got, especially you (Meghan), but the both of us, for not wanting to serve our child up on a silver platter was incredible.

‘Archie has just been born, media and social media starts to take on a life of its own.

‘Someone in the media posting a photograph of a couple with a chimp, and at the top it said ‘Royal baby leaves hospital’. So that was one of the first things that I saw.’

The documentary shared a follow-up tweet from Baker, which said: ‘Sorry about my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up.

‘Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased. Soon as those good enough to point out it’s possible connotations got in touch, down it came. And that’s it. Now stand by for sweary football tweets.’

Later, James Holt, executive director of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Foundation, says there were fears Meghan could cause ‘national, geopolitical rows’ between the UK and South Africa during their 2019 tour of the country.

He adds: ‘You have to see the royal family as diplomats representing the UK and so there was great nervousness about how far Meghan could go in doing or saying anything that wouldn’t cause national, geopolitical rows between the two countries.’ 

Towards the end of the episode, Meghan recalls the moment she told ITV journalist Tom Bradby she was not OK.

Footage of Princess Diana’s notorious interview with Martin Bashir is shown twice in episode four 

One of many personal images Harry and Meghan showed during episode four of the Netflix series 

A childhood photo of Harry and William that was show in the Netflix documentary 

Speaking about the interview she gave in South Africa, Meghan says: ‘I didn’t know what he was going to ask me. You could see I hadn’t touched up my make-up, I was just fried.

‘I guess, because I was so exhausted, I was just really grateful that someone seemed to ask me something like I was a human being.

‘We got in the car, got on the flight with everybody and then, I had no idea that that was going to be the thing that was going to travel around the world. That’s what spawned the #WeLoveYouMeghan. It hit a chord for everyone for something specific to them.’

Harry says: ‘When there is someone in your position speaking so openly about it (it) made so many other women feel seen. No-one in the family speaks that openly, no-one had done, apart from one person. My mum. From an institutional perspective, there was something wrong with her as opposed to the environment or the system.’

Towards the end of the episode, Meghan recalls the moment she told ITV journalist Tom Bradby she was not OK

The documentary shows another extract from the Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, and Martin Bashir for the second time in the episode.

Harry adds: ‘The fallout was bonkers – every single front page in the UK was very different to the general public’s view. When you expect support from the people closest, we got the opposite.’

Meghan said: ‘There is only so much you can take on your own, so you end up saying ‘Something has to change’. It was a huge turning point. It was when we started having harder conversations about what needs to happen for us to be able to continue to make this work.’ 

Meghan and Harry volume 1 episodes 1-3: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex discuss Megxit, racism and their new life in series rocking Royal Family

The first three episodes of Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary sparked a transatlantic war of words over whether the Royal Family were given the chance to properly respond to incendiary claims made by the Sussexes.

A senior source insisted Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and members of the family were not approached for comment on content in the six-part series in a devastating blow to its credibility.

However, a Netflix source has insisted the communications offices for the King and the Prince of Wales were contacted in advance and given the chance to react to Harry and Meghan’s ‘claims within the series’.

Kensington Palace then responded by saying that they had an email from a third-party production company, not Harry and Meghan’s Archewell foundation or Netflix. The Prince of Wales’ aides then contacted the Sussexes and the streaming giant to verify if it was genuine, but got no reply.

‘In the absence of this verification, we were unable to provide any response. The substance of the email we received also did not address the entire series,’ a source said. A Buckingham Palace source has also disputed the Sussexes’ claims that the royals were asked to comment.

Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary began with this statement – Buckingham Palace disputed this in a blow to the credibility of the series

Harry and Meghan kiss in the behind closed doors Netflix series. Harry says he made decision to marry Meghan ‘with his heart’ because he is ‘his mother’s son’ and claims his wife being an American actress ‘clouded’ his family’s view of her

Prince  Harry opens the docu-series from Heathrow as he left the country and frontline royal duties in March 2020

A pregnant Meghan Markle with her son Archie resting on her bump in the new Netflix series released

An incredibly intimate snap of Meghan and Harry’s engagement was shared in the docuseries, showing the royal on one knee with his now wife’s dog and white roses as he proposed

Meghan said she was shocked at the formality of the Royal Family and showed how she bowed for the first time when she met the Queen

It was business as usual for King Charles, who appeared in great spirits as he attended a community hub in King’s Cross, London

The row began when at the beginning of episode one, for around 20 seconds, the screen went black apart from the words: ‘Members of the Royal Family declined to comment on the content within the series.’

The insider added that, for now, there will be no official comment from the King or the Prince of Wales on its incendiary contents, including allegations of racism and ‘unconscious bias’ and a series of barbs aimed at Charles, William, Kate Middleton and other royals.

Harry said his family also failed to understand that his wife-to-be needed protection against racist attacks.

The series and the row over right of reply reveals just how badly relations have broken down between the Sussexes and the Royal Family. One source told the Mirror of William and Harry: ‘Sadly it shows the gulf between the two brothers couldn’t be wider’.

Meghan and Harry used their $100million deal with the streaming giant to launch fresh swipes at the Royal Family and Britain in shows being described as transatlantic ‘TV bombs’ hurled at The Firm.

Episode one began with a pointed attack on Buckingham Palace with a statement on screen claiming: ‘Members of the Royal Family declined to comment on the content within this series’. But hours after the first three episodes began streaming, royal officials in London insisted they were never asked to respond at all.

The source was clear that neither Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace nor any member of the family were approached for comment on the content of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix series. 

The team at Kensington Palace, who work for Prince William and Kate, later clarified that they had received an email from a 3rd party production company about the Harry and Meghan Netflix documentary. The press team contacted Archewell and Netflix to verify if it was genuine, but got no reply. The email did not contain the substance of allegations in the entire series.

MailOnline can also reveal:

As part of their $100million deal with Netflix, the privacy-conscious couple have handed over a trove of pictures and video from their relationship including the moment Harry proposed in 2017 and filming himself in the VIP lounge at Heathrow as he emigrated in March 2020. 

The first three episodes contain a series of barbs that will upset his father King Charles III, including Harry’s claim that he was ‘literally brought up’ by a ‘second family’ in Africa where he chose to spend three-month stints in his late teens and twenties as he came to terms with his mother’s death.

Harry also describes a ‘huge level of unconscious bias’ in the Royal Family – with reference to Princess Michael of Kent wearing an offensive Blackamoor-style brooch in front of his wife at Buckingham Palace. 

There is also a suggestion that the UK is racist and more obsessed with race than the US, with Meghan declaring that she ‘wasn’t really treated like a black woman’ until she came to Britain. 

And in a swipe at the choice of wives by his male relatives, viewed as an attack on his father and other senior royals, perhaps even his brother William, Harry insisted that his decision to marry Meghan sets him apart from his family because it was ‘from his heart’ and not because she ‘would fit the mould’.

He said his wife being an American actress ‘clouded’ his family’s view of her – and they believed it wouldn’t last.

The Duke of Sussex said: ‘I think for so many people in the family, especially obviously the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mould as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with. The difference between making decisions with your head, or your heart. And my mum certainly made most of her decisions – if not all of them – from her heart. And I am my mother’s son’.

There will also be some aspects of the series that will likely anger Prince William, including his younger brother’s decision to use a clip from their mother’s BBC interview with Martin Bashir, which the Prince of Wales said should never be shown again after she was duped into taking part. 

Justifying the decision, Harry told his documentary: ‘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’.

Meghan also hits out at the formality of the royals, describing meeting the Prince and Princess of Wales wearing torn jeans and bare feet. Discussing what happened, she said: ‘I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger, I didn’t realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits’. 

She also admits to being baffled by the ‘formality’ of meeting the Queen for the first time, claiming she thought Harry was ‘joking’ when she learned she had to bow or curtsey and comparing her first meal at Windsor to a ‘Medieval Times, Dinner and Tournament’.

The highly-anticipated series is being put out in two parts, with the first three episodes of the six-part docu-series now available to stream online.

The series contains tears from Meghan, who Harry repeatedly compares to Princess Diana claiming that both his mother and wife were being hunted by the press. 

Meghan also claims that as an American she found the ‘formality’ of being in the royal family ‘surprising’ – declaring that meeting the Queen for the first time was a ‘shock to the system’. She said Harry had told her in the car: ‘You know how to curtsy, right?’ And I just thought it was a joke’, she said.

They also discuss Princess Michael of Kent a Blackamoor-style brooch to a pre-Christmas event the Duchess of Sussex attended in 2017. She was forced to apologise. 

Harry said: ‘In this family sometimes your part of the problem rather than part of the solution. And there is a huge level of unconscious bias. The thing with unconscious bias is actually no one’s fault.’

Meghan adds: ‘Obviously now everyone is aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I went to the UK. Before then. I wasn’t really treated like a black woman’. 

Harry claims that his family had dismissed her when they found out she was an American actress – but he insisted he knew in his ‘heart’ he would marry her because he is his ‘mother’s son’.

In episode one, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex begin by filming themselves on the day they ended their royal duties in March 2020, with Harry in the VIP lounge at Heathrow as he flew to Canada. Meghan cries with a towel on her head as she declares: ‘I don’t even know where to begin’. 

Viewers pointed out this footage was captured six months before their $100million deal with Netflix was signed in September 2020.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told MailOnline: ‘There have been rumours and reports that they were planning to exploit their royal status early on.

‘To my knowledge nothing is confirmed as fact though it is thought that they wanted an interview with Oprah when senior working royals.’

Norman Baker, former MP and expert on royal finances, told MailOnline: ‘It may well signify a long-term plan to do something – or just accumulation of stock footage.

‘They clearly wanted to use it at some point. Their knowledge on the Royal Family essentially ended when they left the country and that institution.

‘They are essentially mining the past now, not the future.

‘They got £88million from Netflix so it’s very clear that now want their pound of flesh.’

The privacy-conscious couple have given extraordinary access to the streaming giant, including a treasure trove of pictures and footage from their private lives including of their children. 

There are also private texts and emails they shared at the time of their courtship. Meghan’s mother Doria also speaks publicly about their relationship for the first time.

The first three episodes also cover Harry’s birth and upbringing and he blames the media for the failure of his previous relationships. The Sussexes then describe how they get together, their engagement and then quitting as frontline royals.

Meghan and Harry share a candid shot with Doria and Archie on his birthday as the privacy-conscious couple released  a stream of family pictures and even texts and emails

In the opening scenes, Harry says: ‘We’ve just finished two weeks, out final push, our list stint of royal engagements. ‘It’s really hard to look back on it now and go what on earth happened?’

The first episode, which is 56 minutes long, shared the impact of Harry’s childhood in the public eye and their secret relationship in the early days. Its Netflix tags were ‘Riveting’, ‘Investigative’, and ‘Docuseries’

Harry and Meghan signed lucrative deals, thought to be worth well over £100million, with the streaming giant and Spotify, after quitting as senior working royals in 2020 following family rifts and struggles with royal life

Prince Harry, Meghan and Princess Eugenie (pictured together) party with Jack Brooksbank at a Halloween party the night before their relationship was revealed in the British press

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex discuss Megxit, racism and their new life in California. It also begins with a pointed comment that the Royal Family declined to comment on allegations in the show and reveals it was completed in August 2022 – before the death of the Queen.

Episode one begins with Harry filming himself at Heathrow Airport in March 2020 as he finishes his final royal engagements before emigrating. His wife, in Vancouver, breaks down on her bed as she says: ‘I don’t even know where to begin’.

The show opened with words written in white on a black background which said: ‘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.’

The opening scenes of the first episode show an airport with a close-up of a departures sign while piano music plays over the footage.

It then cuts to Harry and words on the screen tell viewers he is in the Windsor Suite at Heathrow Airport in March 2020.

He appears to be filming himself speaking into his phone camera and says: ‘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?’

As Harry speaks, images of the couple flash on screen, followed by newspaper headlines and broadcasters’ audio from coverage about their decision to step back from royal life.

The first episode then shifts to what appears to be phone footage, filmed vertically, showing Vancouver Island, Canada.

Meghan appears with a towel wrapped around her hair, appearing to speak into her phone camera, saying: ‘H is in London and I’m here.’

She shakes her head and says: ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’

The first episode of Harry & Meghan cuts to London in July 2016 and Harry can be heard saying that is when they met.

Meghan said another season of Suits was confirmed and she had plans to travel with friends having been ‘single for a couple of months’.

The episode features an interview with Meghan’s friend Lindsay Jill Roth, who says: ‘In the summer of 2016 she had a few different trips planned and she was just going to be free.’

This part of the episode features photos of Meghan with friends including Jessica Mulroney.

Meghan said: ‘I was really intent on being single and just have fun girl-time.’

Another friend called Lucy Fraser tells the documentary: ‘She had planned her single-girl summer and she had a lot of plans of going around Europe.’

It cuts to Meghan who says: ‘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 said he first spotted Meghan on a friend’s Instagram.

He said: ‘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.’

An image of Meghan with the popular dog ears filter is then shown.

Harry said: ‘That was the first thing. I was like ‘who is that?”

Meghan said the friend then sent her an email, the words of which are typed out on the screen, saying: ‘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’ (sic).

Meghan’s reply, which was also typed out on screen, was: ‘Who is prince haz?????’

Harry and Meghan shared pictures of their courtship and their marriage together and with their children

Meghan cries on her bed in Vancouver as Harry leaves the UK after Megxit

Below her reply viewers can see the words: ‘Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse all technological mishaps. I’m a Luddite’.

Meghan said she asked her friend who had contacted her about Harry if she could see his social media feed.

Speaking in the first episode, Meghan said: ‘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’, 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.’

Harry said they then got each others’ numbers.

‘We were just constantly in touch,’ he said, adding that they decided to meet.

The Duke of Sussex has said his wife being an American actress ‘clouded’ his family’s view of her.

Meghan, talking about meeting the Queen during episode two of their Netflix documentary, said: ‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’

Harry went on: ‘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. 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’.’

Meghan added: ‘The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough. 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.’

Doria Ragland has spoken about her daughter relationship with Prince Harry for the first time in their new Netflix documentary

The show reveals the texts and emails between the couple as their relationship began as well as  with a friend who set them up

Meghan lifts the lid on meeting the Queen and the Royal family for the first time

Meghan has lifted the lid on what it was truly like to meet the Royal Family – as she compared her first encounter with the Queen to a themed dinner at America’s ‘Medieval Times’.

The Duchess of Sussex described the pomp and ceremony of meeting the senior members of the Royal Family as part of Harry and Meghan’s explosive Netflix documentary, which saw the first three episodes released on Thursday. 

In it, the 41-year-old described her first ‘amazing’ Christmas at Sandringham, where she was sat next to the late Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip

And she recounted the ‘intense’ moment of meeting Her Majesty for the first time during a lunch at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, joking that the whole occasion felt like an antiquated banquet at Medieval Times, a family dinner theater in the US featuring staged medieval-style games, sword-fighting, and jousting.

Beaming: Meghan recounts the first moment she was introduced to the Queen while husband Harry looks on as part of the couple’s new Netflix docu-series, released

Meghan, pictured, demonstrates how she curtsied to Her Majesty during a lunch at the Royal Lodge in Windsor in 2016

But the 41-year-old Duchess compared the ‘surreal’ encounter with the late Queen to a night out at American themed-dinner institution Medieval Times. She is pictured with the Queen in Chester in 2018

The Queen was the first senior member of the Royal Family that Meghan met after she and Prince Harry announced their relationship in 2016. 

‘She had no idea what it all consisted of,’ Harry tells the docu-series, as he sits with his arm around his wife. ‘So it was a bit of a shock to the system for her.’

Grinning, Meghan added: ‘I mean. it’s surreal. There wasn’t like some big moment of ‘Now you’re gonna meet my grandmother’.

‘I didn’t know I was going to meet her until moments before. We were in the car and we were going to the Royal Lodge for lunch, and he [Harry] was like, ‘Oh, my grandmother is here, she’s gonna be there after church.’.

‘I remember we were in the car, driving and he’s [Harry] like, ‘You know how to curtsy, right?’. And I just thought it was a joke.’

The Duke continued: ‘How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American. That’s weird.’

Meghan then tells the documentary: ‘Now I’m starting to realise this is a big deal. I mean, American’s will understand this. We have Medieval Times dinner and tournament. It was like that. Like, I curtsied as though I was like… ‘Pleasure to meet you your Majesty.’

Grinning, Meghan told the Netflix documentary she had to learn how to curtesy just minutes before meeting Her Majesty 

Pictured: Meghan shows off her deep bow and curtesy during the Netflix documentary as she admitted the whole experience of meeting the Queen for the first time was ‘so intense’

‘It was so intense. And then when she left, Eugenie and Jack and Fergie say ‘you did great!’. Thanks. I didn’t know what I was doing.’

Meghan and Harry’s Netflix began with an attack on Buckingham Palace’s decision not to co-operate with the series that declares a fresh war on the Royal Family and the media.

The highly-anticipated series is being put out in two parts, with the first three episodes of the six-part docu-series now available to stream.

The series contains tears from Meghan, who Harry repeatedly compares to Princess Diana claiming that both his mother and wife were being hunted by the press. 

There are also a series of jibes at his father, King Charles III, and brother Prince William as well as speaking about alleged racism and ‘unconscious bias’ in the Royal Family.

During the second episode, Meghan speaks about the ‘formality’ of the royals behind closed doors, saying she was ‘surprised’ by this.

‘I was a hugger always being a hugger I didn’t realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits,’ she added.

‘I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside. 

‘That there is a forward-facing way of being. And then you close the door and you are like (sighs) ‘Oh great. Okay, we can relax now’. But that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.’

The Duchess of Sussex (pictured in 2017 with Harry, Prince Philip and the Princess of Wales, then the Duchess of Cambridge), talks about her first festive season with the Royal Family in her and Prince Harry’s new documentary

Happy couple: Prince Harry pictured with Meghan in 2017. The pair have released the first three episodes of their six-part docu-series on Netflix

Meghan, Prince Harry and Prince Philip at the Christmas Day church service at Sandringham, Norfolk, in 2017

Recalling her first Christmas at Sandringham, Meghan said she found it ‘amazing’ as she was ‘with a big family like I always wanted.’ 

‘I remember so vividly the first Christmas at Sandringham,’ Meghan said. ‘Calling my mom, and she’s like, ‘How’s it going?’ and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. It’s just like a big family like I always wanted’.’ 

And she recounted a lighter moment with the late-Prince Philip, who she sat next to during the royal festive lunch. 

‘There was just this constant movement, energy and fun,’ she added, ‘and at dinner I was sat next to H’s grandfather and I just thought it was so wonderful and I was like ”we chatted about this and this”… and he [Harry] was like ”you had his bad ear he couldn’t hear anything you were saying” and I was like ”oh… well I though it went really well.’

The Royal Family seemed ‘incredibly impressed’ with Meghan during the early days of their relationship, added Prince Harry,

But the Duke also claimed his family thought the relationship with the former Suits actress would never never last.   

‘I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed. Some of them didn’t quite know what to do with themselves… They were surprised that the ginger could land such a beautiful woman. And such an intelligent woman. 

‘But the fact I was dating an American actress, was probably what clouded their judgment more than anything else in the beginning: ‘Oh, she’s an American actress, this won’t last’.

Meghan added: ‘The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough. 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.’

The first volume of the six-part docuseries dropped on the streaming service

Elsewhere in the third episode, the Duchess of Sussex said she didn’t know what a royal walkabout was – where royals meet members of the public who have gathered on the streets – before going on her first one.

‘I never saw pictures or videos of a walkabout. Like, what’s a walkabout?’ she said.

Harry explained: ‘I could talk her through as much as I knew from my own experience of what I’d seen. The piece I really didn’t know about was the style, right, and what a woman needed to, how they needed to dress and all that.’

Meghan added that before her first walkabout in Nottingham, her zip broke on her ensemble and had to be safety pinned, to which Harry said: ‘The whole thing was just ridiculous.’

The duke recalled: ‘Everybody was just so excited and pleased and happy. And I think people looked at it and went, ‘Wow, what a breath of fresh air’.