The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix docuseries, titled Harry and Meghan, has dropped in part today – unveiling dramatic revelations about their time in the UK.
Here, Sky News highlights the key admissions made by Harry and Meghan, along with a few more surprises.
Episode 1
Harry and Meghan both appear candid from the off and ready to tell their version of events following their 2016 whirlwind romance.
After completing their final stint of royal engagements in March 2020, the 38-year-old prince says it is “really hard to look back on it now and go ‘what on earth happened’? Like, how did we end up here?'”
Prince Harry spoke about women in the Royal Family and said he had learnt “the pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution”.
He said: “I remember thinking how can I ever find someone who is willing and capable to be able to withstand all the baggage that comes with being with me.”
Harassment of Princess Diana
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Prince Harry says his mother, Princess Diana, was “harassed throughout her life”.
He says: “My mum was harassed throughout her life with my dad, but after they separated, the harassment went to new levels.”
Harry goes on to say that the moment his mother divorced, she was “by herself”.
Image: The royal couple had a ‘guarded’ relationship at the beginning. Pic: Netflix
Meeting on Instagram
Meghan reveals she wasn’t looking for a relationship the summer they met.
“I was really intent on being single, and just having fun all the time,” she says. “I had my career, I had my life, I had my path, uh, and then came H – I mean talk about plot twist.”
Then Harry reveals how they actually met…
“Meghan and I met over Instagram,” he says.
“I was just scrolling through my feed and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them, like a Snapchat, with dog ears. That was the first thing – I was like ‘who is THAT?'”.
Archie heard speaking on TV for first time
The couple’s son, Archie, is heard speaking on TV for the first time six minutes into the episode.
As Meghan looks at the sunset, she asks Archie how he would describe it.
“It’s beautiful,” he says.
Image: Archie is heard speaking on TV for the first time. Pic: Netflix
Fitting the mould
Harry reveals there was an urge for members of the Royal Family to marry someone who “fit the mould”.
He says: “I think for so many people in the family, especially the men, there could be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mould as opposed to someone you are destined to be with.
“The difference between making a decision 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.”
Public pressures
How different Prince William and Harry were as children is explored in the first episode, and how the Royal Family reacted to the paparazzi.
Harry describes his childhood as “filled with happiness and laughter”, but added that “the majority of my memories are of being swarmed by paparazzi”.
He also describes how the Royal Family reacted to paparazzi: “Rarely did we have a holiday without someone with a camera jumping out of a bush or something. Within the family, within the system, the advice that’s always given is don’t react.
“Don’t feed into it. There was always public pressure, with its fair share of drama, stress and tears. And witnessing those tears. I could always see it on my mum’s face. And that was when I thought hang on what am I, who am I, what am I part of?”
Meghan ‘similar’ to Princess Diana
Speaking about Meghan, Harry says: “So much of how Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mum.
“She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence – she has this warmth about her.”
He adds that he accepts “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. You know I didn’t want history to repeat itself,” he says.
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2:08
Harry and Meghan: Key takeaways
Episode 2
Falling in love
Meghan reveals in episode 2 that the beginning of her relationship with Harry was “long distance” and “guarded”.
She says: “Everything was just texts and FaceTimes and we’d just talk for hours and it just felt exciting which is so weird because it wasn’t exciting in the way that people would assume that it would be.”
The former Suits actress describes the start of their romance as “relaxed and easy”.
Image: Meghan says her relationship with Harry was ‘easy’ and ‘relaxed’
She says: “We just got to know each other. Truly, like any other couple when you’re figuring out… What do you like to eat, what do you like to cook? What kind of movies do you like?”
Speaking about the relationship, Harry says: “I got to know her more and more, I was like, ‘I’m really falling in love with this girl’. So in spite of my fear, I just opened my heart to see what’s going to happen.”
Meghan meets William and Kate in ripped jeans
Meghan said she found the Royal Family quite formal upon first meeting them, and revealed she first met Prince William and Kate while wearing a ripped pair of jeans.
She says she has always been a hugger and didn’t realise that was jarring for a lot of British people.
“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside,” Meghan says.
“That there is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door and ‘phew I can relax now’ but that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”
Prince Harry says the Queen was the first senior member of the Royal Family who Meghan met.
First death threat
Prince Harry describes the early stages of his relationship as a “combination of car chases, anti-surveillance driving and disguises”.
Meghan describes how she received a death threat while she was in Toronto after the huge surge of media attention she experienced.
She said when she got her first death threat “things changed because I needed to have security”.
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0:33
Prince Harry on ‘race element’
Harry revealed that members of the Royal Family questioned why the Duchess of Sussex should be “protected” when the couple raised newspaper headlines about her.
“The direction from the Palace was don’t say anything,” he says, adding that his family would ask why Meghan should receive “special treatment”.
“I said: ‘The difference here is the race element’.”
Meeting the Queen
In episode two, Meghan says she did not know what meeting the Queen would consist of and describes it as “all a bit of a shock”.
The Duchess of Sussex says: “I didn’t realise I was about to meet Queen, on way to a lunch and Harry asked, ‘You know how to curtsey right?'”
Image: Meghan and Harry with the Queen in 2018
She goes on to say: “Now I’m realising this is a big deal, talks about curtseying and meeting the Queen, it was so intense.”
Speaking about introducing Meghan to his family, Harry says: “I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed, some of them didn’t know quite what to do with themselves.
“I think they were surprised. They were surprised a ginger could land such a beautiful woman, and such an intelligent woman.”
But he says his family’s judgement may have been clouded by the fact Meghan was an American actress, and thought, “this won’t last”.
Episode 3
Engagement interview
In the third episode, Meghan describes her engagement interview as “an orchestrated reality show”.
She said: “It was, you know, rehearsed, so we did the thing out with the press and then we went right inside, took the coat off, sat down and did the interview. So it was all in that same moment.”
The couple announced their engagement in 2017.
Adapting wardrobes
Meghan explains in episode three that she “rarely wore colour” during her time in the UK as she understood you could not wear the same colour as the Queen in a group event.
“But then you also should never be wearing the same colour as one of the other more senior members of the family. So I was like ‘well, what’s a colour that they’ll probably never wear?'”, she says.
Image: Meghan and Harry met in 2016. Pic: Netflix
“Camel, beige, white. So I wore a lot of muted tones, but it also was so I could just blend in.
“Like, I’m not trying to stand out here. So there’s no version of me joining this family and trying to not do everything I could to fit in. I don’t want to embarrass the family.”
Unconscious bias in Royal Family
The Duke of Sussex reveals in episode three there is a “huge level of unconscious bias” in the Royal Family, before the documentary refers to when Princess Michael of Kent wore a Blackamoor-style brooch to an event the Duchess of Sussex attended in 2017.
He says: “In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias.
“The thing with unconscious bias, it is actually no one’s fault. But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself you then need to make it right.
“It is education. It is awareness. It is a constant work in progress for everybody, including me.”
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6:08
Prince Harry takes aim at family
Nazi uniform ‘biggest mistake of my life’
Harry says wearing a Nazi uniform to a private party was “one of the biggest mistakes of my life” and that he felt “so ashamed afterwards”.
In 2005, Harry made headlines when he was pictured wearing a Nazi uniform with a swastika armband to a fancy dress party.
The pictures was published on the front page of The Sun newspaper under the headline: “Harry the Nazi”.
Clarence House later issued a statement which read: “Prince Harry has apologised for any offence or embarrassment he has caused. He realises it was a poor choice of costume.”
Googling the national anthem
Meghan opens up about her experience joining the Royal Family, the protocols and how she came to learn the British national anthem.
She says: “Joining this family, I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done. And do you remember that old movie The Princess Diaries, with Anne Hathaway?
“There’s no class, and some person who goes ‘sit like this, cross your legs like this, use your fork, don’t do this, curtsey then, wear this kind of hat’. It doesn’t happen”.
When asked how she learned the national anthem she says: “I googled it, and I’d sit, there, and I’d practice and I’d practice”.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s star-studded wedding celebrations in Venice have begun, with VIP guests including the Kardashians descending on the Italian city.
The billionaire Amazon founder and his journalist fiancee waved to onlookers as they left a luxury hotel to travel to their pre-wedding reception by water taxi on Thursday evening.
Hollywood star Orlando Bloom was seen flashing a peace sign to fans as he left Venice’s Gritti Palace Hotel and he was soon followed by TV presenter Oprah Winfrey, who smiled and waved.
Image: Orlando Bloom donning all white. Pic: Reuters
Image: Oprah Winfrey is one of the 200-250 guests. Pic: Reuters
Kim and Khloe Kardashian travelled to the reception with their mother Kris Jenner – who snapped a picture of the pair on a water taxi – and other notable figures in town for the nuptials include Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Some 200-250 A-list guests from showbusiness, politics and finance are expected to attend the events, with the wedding and its parts estimated to cost €40m-€48m (£34m-£41m).
Bezos, his soon-to-be wife and their famous guests have taken over numerous locations in the city, with the couple staying in the luxury Aman hotel, where rooms go for at least €4,000 per night.
Image: Kris Jenner snaps a photo of Khloe and Kim Kardashian. Pic: Reuters
Image: The bride and groom leaving their hotel. Pic: AP
The first of the weekend’s many wedding parties is taking place in the cloisters of Madonna dell’Orto, a medieval church that hosts masterpieces by 16th century painter Tintoretto.
While the couple and their A-list guests were all smiles, some in Venice are not happy about the wedding – with protesters seeing it as an example of the city being gift-wrapped for ultra-rich outsiders.
Image: An activist from Extinction Rebellion unfolds a banner in front of St Mark’s Basilica. Pic: AP
An activist climbed one of the poles in the main St Mark’s Square on Thursday, unfurling a banner which said: “The 1% ruins the world.”
Elsewhere, a life-size mannequin of Bezos clutching an Amazon box was dropped into one of the city’s famous canals.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding in numbers
€48m price tag
The wedding and its parts are expected to cost €40m-€48m (£34-£41m), Luca Zaia, the president of Venice’s local government, said on Tuesday.
This includes sizeable charity donations from the Amazon founder, including €1m (£850k) to Corila, a consortium that studies Venice’s lagoon ecosystem, local media has reported.
90 private jets
The first private jets began landing at Venice airport on Tuesday and there will be around 90 in total, Mr Zaia said.
They’re not all arriving in Venice though, as some have landed at the nearby Treviso and Verona airports.
250 guests
Five of the city’s most luxurious hotels have been booked out to host an estimated 200-250 guests.
These include the celeb favourite Cipriani, where George and Amal Clooney married in 2014.
30 water taxis
Attendees of course aren’t hopping on public water buses to get around the city’s many islands.
The wedding’s organisers have booked at least 30 water taxis for them to use instead.
In a bid to keep demonstrators away from Thursday’s party, the city council banned pedestrians and water traffic from the area surrounding the venue, from 4.30pm local time to midnight.
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3:00
Bezos wedding protests explained
The couple will exchange their vows on Friday, on the small island of San Giorgio, opposite St Mark’s Square.
Another party will follow on Saturday – the venue for which was changed at the last-minute earlier this week.
The director of the next James Bond film has been announced.
Denis Villeneuve – a four-time Academy Award nominee who earned critical acclaim for the Dune Franchise and Blade Runner 2049 – said the role is a “massive responsibility”.
The Canadian filmmaker described himself as a “diehard” fan since childhood, adding that it is a “huge honour” to come on board.
“Some of my earliest movie-going memories are connected to 007. I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since Dr No with Sean Connery,” Villeneuve said.
Image: Sean Connery as James Bond. Pic: The Legacy Collection/THA/Shutterstock 1963
Reassuring fans, the director continued: “To me, he’s sacred territory. I intend to honour the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come.”
Image: Daniel Craig as James Bond in Spectre. Pic: Columbia/Eon/Shutterstock
The Broccoli family have long been the force behind the Bond films, and now co-own the intellectual property.
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Two recently appointed producers – Spider-Man’s Amy Pascal and Harry Potter’s David Heyman – said securing a director and developing a screenplay were top priorities before deciding who would succeed Daniel Craig in the role.
The head of Amazon MGM Studios, Mike Hopkins, described Villeneuve as a “cinematic master whose filmography speaks for itself”.
He added: “Denis has delivered compelling worlds, dynamic visuals, complex characters, and – most importantly – the immersive storytelling that global audiences yearn to experience in theatres.
“James Bond is in the hands of one of today’s greatest filmmakers and we cannot wait to get started on 007’s next adventure.”
Richard E Grant has shared an emotional video of his trip to Barry – the town made famous by the hit TV show Gavin And Stacey.
He was joined by the show’s co-creator Ruth Jones, who is best known for playing Nessa.
They are both filming a new drama called The Other Bennet Sister, which delves into a character in Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice.
Grant excitedly said “oh my god” as he stood outside Stacey’s family home – and headed across the road to Uncle Bryn’s.
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