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
Advertisement
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.”
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.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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”.
Actress Diane Keaton, who starred in films including The Godfather and Annie Hall, has died, reports have said.
People reported her death at the age of 79, citing a family spokesperson.
The magazine said she died in California with loved ones but no other details were immediately available, and representatives for Keaton did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Associated Press news agency.
Keaton’s death was also reported by the New York Times newspaper which said it has spoken to Dori Roth, who produced a number of Keaton’s most recent films, who confirmed she had died but did not provide any details about the circumstances.
With a long career, across a series of movies that are regarded as some of the best ever made, Keaton was widely admired.
She was awarded an Oscar, a BAFTA and two Golden Globe Awards, and was also nominated for two Emmys, and a Tony, as well as picking up a series of other Academy Award and BAFTA nominations.
Image: Diane Keaton, with her best actress Oscar for ‘Annie Hall’ in 1978. Pic: AP
Her best actress Oscar was for the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, which is said to be loosely based on her life.
More from Ents & Arts
She appeared in several other Allen projects, including Manhattan, as well as all three Godfather movies, in which she played Kay, the wife and then ex-wife of Marlon Brando’s son Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, opposite him as he descends into a life of crime and replaces his father in the family’s mafia empire.
‘Brilliant, beautiful’
The unexpected news was met with shock around the world.
Her First Wives Club co-star Bette Midler wrote on Instagram: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me.
“She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was … oh, la, lala!”
Instagram
This content is provided by Instagram, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Instagram cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Instagram cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Instagram cookies for this session only.
Actor Ben Stiller paid tribute on X, writing: “Diane Keaton. One of the greatest film actors ever. An icon of style, humor and comedy. Brilliant. What a person.”
Keaton was the kind of actor who helped make films iconic and timeless, from her “La-dee-da, la-dee-da” phrasing as Annie Hall, bedecked in the iconic necktie, bowler hat, vest and khakis, to her heartbreaking turn as Kay Adams, the woman unfortunate enough to join the Corleone family.
Keaton also frequently worked with Nancy Meyers, starting with 1987’s Baby Boom.
Their other films together included 1991’s Father of the Bride and its 1995 sequel, as well as 2003’s Something’s Gotta Give.
In 1996 she starred opposite Goldie Hawn and Midler in The First Wives Club, about three women whose husbands had left them for younger women.
More recently she collaborated with Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen and Candice Bergen on the Book Club films.
Keaton never married. She adopted a daughter, Dexter, in 1996 and a son, Duke, four years later.
Sky News has contacted Keaton’s agent for a comment.
Tom Hollander says he’s not worried about AI actors replacing real ones and thinks the creation of synthetic performers will only boost the value of authentic, live performance.
The 58-year-old plays entrepreneur Cameron Beck in The Iris Affair, a drama about the world’s most powerful quantum computer.
Dubbed “Charlie Big Potatoes” – it could eat ChatGPT for breakfast.
It’s a timely theme in a world where Artificial Intelligence is advancing at pace, and just last week, the world’s first AI starlet – Tilly Norwood – made her Hollywood debut.
Hollander is not impressed. He suggests rumours that Norwood is in talks with talent agencies are “a lot of old nonsense”, and questions the logistics of working with an AI actor, asking “Would it be, like a blue screen?”
Norwood – a pretty, 20-something brunette – is the creation of Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden and her AI production studio Particle6. It’s planning to launch its own AI talent studio, Xicoia, soon.
Hollander tells Sky News: “I’m perhaps not scared enough about it. I think the reaction against it is quite strong. And I think there’ll be some legal stuff. Also, it needs to be proven to be good. I mean, the little film that they did around her, I didn’t think was terribly interesting.”
More on Artificial Intelligence
Related Topics:
The sketch – shared on social media and titled AI Commissioner – poked fun at the future of TV development in a post-AI world.
Instagram
This content is provided by Instagram, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Instagram cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Instagram cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Instagram cookies for this session only.
Stars including Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne and Whoopi Goldberg have objected to Norwood’s creation too, as has US actors’ union SAG-AFTRA.
Hollander compares watching an AI performer to watching a magic trick: “You know with your brain that you’re watching something that’s bullshit… If they don’t have to tell you, that would be difficult. But if they’ve told you it’s AI, then you’ll watch it with a different part of your brain.”
Image: Pic: Sky Atlantic
Always screen-ready, with no ego and low salary requirements, Norwood is being billed as a studio’s dream hire. In line with Hollywood’s exacting standards for female beauty, she’ll also never age.
Hollander’s Iris Affair co-star Niamh Algar, who plays genius codebreaker Iris Nixon in the show, doesn’t feel threatened by this new kid on the block, poking fun at Norwood’s girl-next-door persona: “She’s a nightmare to work with. She’s always late. Takes ages in her trailer.”
But Algar adds: “I don’t want to work with an AI. No.”
She goes on, “I don’t think you can replicate. She’s a character, she’s not an actor.”
Image: Pic: Sky Atlantic
Algar says the flaw in AI’s performance – scraped from the plethora of real performances that have come before it – is that we, as humans, are “excited by unpredictability”.
She says AI is “too perfect, we like flaws”.
Hollander agrees: “There’ll be a fight for authenticity. People will be going, ‘I refuse makeup. Give me less makeup, I want less makeup because AI can’t possibly mimic the blemishes on my face'”.
He even manages to pull a positive from the AI revolution: “It means that live performance will be more exciting than ever before…
“I think live performance is one antidote, and it’s certainly true in music, isn’t it? I mean, partly because they have to go on tour [to make money], but also because there’s just nothing like it and you can’t replace it.”
Algar enthusiastically adds: “Theatre’s going to kick off. It’s going to be so hot.”
Image: Pic: Sky Atlantic
As for using AI themselves, while Hollander admits he’s used it recently for “a bit of problem solving”, Algar says she tries to avoid it, worrying “part of my brain is going to go dormant”.
Indeed, the impact of technology on our brains is a source of constant inspiration – and torture – for The Iris Affair screenwriter Neil Cross.
Cross, who also created psychological crime thriller Luther, tells Sky News: “We are at a hinge point in history.”
He says: “I’m interested in what technological revolution does to people. I have 3am thoughts about the poor man who invented the like button.
“He came up with a simple invention whose only intention was to increase levels of human happiness. How could something as simple as a like button go wrong? And it went so disastrously wrong.
“It’s caused so much misery and anxiety and unhappiness in the human race entire. If something as simple as a small like button can have such dire, cascading, unexpected consequences, what is this moment of revolution going to lead to?”
Indeed, Cross says he lives in “a perpetual state of terror”.
Image: Supercomputer ‘Charlie Big Potatoes’. Pic: Sky Atlantic
He goes on: “I’m always going to be terrified of something. The world’s going to look very different. I think in 50 or 60 years’ time.
He takes a brief pause, then self-edits: “Probably 15 years’ time”.
With The Iris Affair’s central themes accelerating out of science fiction, and into reality, Cross’s examination of our instinctual fear of the unknown, coupled with our desire for knowledge that might destroy us is a powerful mix.
Cross concludes: “We’re in danger of creating God. And I think that’s the ultimate danger of AI. God doesn’t exist – yet.”
The Iris Affair is available from Thursday 16 October on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW
When John Davidson was 10 years old, he experienced his first symptoms of Tourette syndrome – small facial tics and eye blinking.
By the time he was 13, the neurological condition was causing full-body movements so extreme he compares himself with the young heroine in horror film The Exorcist.
John tells Sky News: “There’s a scene where the girl’s on the bed and her whole body’s twitching about and screaming. That’s almost what it felt like. My tics became so extreme that I was hurting myself. I was pulling muscles. I was tired all the time.
“I would break down and cry so many times in a day because I was totally out of control. Something had completely taken over my mind and my body.”
Image: John Davidson’s life story has been made into a film, with Robert Aramayo in the lead role. Pic: StudioCanal
Growing up in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, John was repeatedly told his symptoms were in his head – or worse, intentional – when a chance meeting with a visiting junior doctor while in hospital led to a diagnosis.
Largely unheard of in the 1980s, today, high-profile figures including Scottish musician Lewis Capaldi and US star Billie Eilish have publicly spoken about living with Tourette’s.
Affecting more than 300,000 people in Britain, it’s more common than many think. One schoolchild in every hundred is estimated to be affected by the syndrome, according to NHS England.
More from Ents & Arts
While severity can range, there is currently no cure.
And while the University of Nottingham is working on a device which uses electrical pulses to suppress tic urges, the wristband – called Neupulse – is currently awaiting full medical approval.
Image: John Davidson MBE, with his black Labrador Suki. Pic: StudioCanal
‘Medication turned me into a zombie’
Treated with drugs as a child, John suffered devastating side-effects: “Anti-psychotic medications turned me into a zombie. I’ve got probably about a two-year period in my teens where I have no real proper memories.”
Frustrated by the lack of support available to him growing up, John is now a Tourette syndrome campaigner, recognised for his work with an MBE.
But even that came with challenges unique to his condition. At the 2019 ceremony at Holyrood Palace, when collecting his award, John shouted “F*** the Queen” at Elizabeth II.
He says: “It was horrific for me. It was like the last thing I ever wanted to have to shout. And I think that’s the nature of the coprolalia, part of the condition, where it’s the worst possible thing you could say in that situation.”
Affecting a minority of the Tourette’s population, coprolalia is the involuntary utterance of socially inappropriate words or phrases.
While less common, it’s the feature of Tourette’s most often portrayed in the media.
John goes on: “It came as much of a shock to me as to everyone else, you know? But I’m the one in the moment having to deal with those emotions and feelings of wanting the ground to swallow me up. [Thinking] I don’t want to be here any more.”
Image: Maxine Peake also stars in the film. Pic: StudioCanal
‘Living with it is absolutely awful’
Now, in a bid to tackle the stereotype, a film is being made about John’s life based on his 2025 memoir, with Game Of Thrones star Robert Aramayo playing the lead role.
No stranger to media exposure himself, John has appeared in numerous documentaries over the years, following on from the groundbreaking 1989 documentary about his life, John’s Not Mad. But it hasn’t always been a positive experience.
John says: “Every time they make a documentary, they make such a thing about the swearing part, which then stigmatises the condition because people are then left to assume that everyone with Tourette’s swears and shouts obscenities.”
In reality, coprolalia is not typical of the condition and only affects around one in 10 people with Tourette’s.
John acknowledges there is a comedic element to this: “When people think of uncontrollably swearing like that, it’s funny. ‘Oh my God’, you know, ‘shock, horror’. But for the one living with it, it’s absolutely awful.”
Image: Scottish actor Peter Mullan with Robert Aramayo. Pic: StudioCanal
‘Let’s have sex!’
It’s a sentiment the film’s director echoes.
Kirk Jones first met John in 2022. Meeting him at his house to discuss the potential of making the film, John opened the door and, after inviting him in, shouted in his face: “Let’s have sex!”
His first introduction to John’s verbal ticks, the director admits it was a “steep learning curve”.
He tells Sky News: “There’s something about Tourette’s, which I don’t think has made it a very friendly or accessible condition. I think that’s down to the fact that people who have coprolalia come across as being aggressive or argumentative or difficult or upsetting people, and I think that’s unfair. They need as much support as anyone else.”
The director says it took him some time to gain John’s trust, showing he wanted to do more than just revisit tired stereotypes.
He says: “The Tourette’s community had been kind of abused in the past. They’ve been invited to appear on TV shows or radio or be in newspaper articles, under the guise of helping people to understand Tourette’s more. But what the TV channel or the radio show really wanted was just a cheap laugh.
“When I first met John and started talking about the idea of the film, he was understandably suspicious.”
Handing over some creative control, John is also an executive producer on the film.
Image: Actor Francesco Piacentini-Smith as Murray. Pic: StudioCanal
‘When you laugh, it breaks the ice’
Now, at 54, and having lived with the condition for over 40 years, John believes people are becoming more tolerant of Tourette’s, but would love to see further acceptance.
“It’s about not being shocked. It’s not about being dead serious with a straight face. Feel free to laugh, because when you laugh, it breaks the ice.
“I wish people had the confidence to approach people with Tourette’s and just deal with it as if it was an everyday thing.”
The director, too, hopes the film will have a real-world impact and open people’s eyes to the reality of the condition.
He says: “I hope this film can play a small part in starting to refocus people’s attention on helping and supporting people rather than just laughing or mocking.”
I Swear is in UK and Irish cinemas from Friday 10 October.
Anyone looking for support or information about Tourette syndrome can access resources at Tourettes Action or Tourette Scotland for those living in Scotland.