Harry and Meghan Netflix documentary: Duke says you ‘get used to lies’ living in Royal Family as latest episodes air
Prince Harry has said “you get used to lies” living in the Royal Family while Meghan discusses having suicidal thoughts, in the final episodes of their documentary series which have begun streaming across the world.
Palace aides will be preparing themselves for bombshells in the second part of Harry & Meghan, after a trailer included accusations that the royal household leaked negative stories as part of a “war against Meghan”.
In episode four, as shots of a walkabout by the couple in Liverpool are shown, Meghan tells how a group of women spoke to her about her father, following reports of the breakdown of their relationship in the press.
‘She never asked me to leave’, Harry says – live updates as final episodes drop
“It was the first time that I went, ‘Oh my God, people actually believe that stuff’, and then my entire centre was rocked to its core,” she says.
Pic: Netflix
Pic: Netflix
Harry then comes into shot, saying: “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 – like, enough, enough of the pain, enough of the suffering.”
As shots of Diana and Charles are then shown, he continues: “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 saying, ‘we’re almost there’ and 30 seconds to wipe the tears away, slap on some make-up, and the door opens and smile, everything is fine.”
Meghan’s mother and Harry speak of devastation hearing she contemplated suicide
In the same episode, Meghan talks about having suicidal thoughts – something she spoke about previously during the couple’s interview with Oprah in 2021.
“All of this will stop if I’m not here and that was the scariest thing about it, it was such clear thinking,” she says in the documentary.
Her mother, Doria Ragland, recalls finding out how her daughter was feeling: “I remember her telling me that she had wanted to take her own life and that really broke my heart because I knew that it was bad, but to 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 mum to hear. And I can’t protect her.”
Harry says he was “devastated” when he realised just how much his wife was struggling.
“I knew that she was struggling, we were both struggling, but I never thought it would get to that stage and the fact that it got to that stage, I felt angry and ashamed,” he says. “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 think, ‘what are people going to think if we don’t go to this event, we are gonna be late’, and looking back now I hate myself for it.”
‘Then one day this little organism comes in’
Meghan also says the couple’s former private secretary told her about the monarchy: “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 added: “And I was really hopeful that that was true.”
The final episodes of Harry & Meghan come a week after the first three aired, featuring the couple talking about the pressure they felt from press interest in their lives.
Netflix said the first episodes recorded 81.55 million viewing hours, translating to viewing in 28 million households.
The streaming platform has launched the series almost three years after the Sussexes revealed they intended to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent”.
Pic: Netflix
Pic: Netflix
They officially left the monarchy in March 2020 and went on to sign lucrative deals, thought to be worth more than £100m, with Netflix and Spotify, after quitting as senior working royals.
After their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, this Netflix docuseries, directed by Oscar-nominated Liz Garbus, aims to show Harry and Meghan sharing “the other side of their high-profile love story”.
Read more:
Row over whether Royal Family were approached for series
‘I’ve always been a hugger’: Meghan on meeting the royals for first time
Before the first episodes were released, it emerged a photo and footage shown in two preview trailers, apparently to illustrate hounding by the paparazzi, were from events the couple were not associated with.
Neither Kensington Palace, which represents the Prince and Princess of Wales, nor Buckingham Palace have commented on the series.
Sky News understands palace officials are currently focused on the Princess of Wales’s carol service, which is due to be filmed at Westminster Abbey on Thursday.
The event will aim to shine a light on a congregation of almost 2,000 people who have been helping their communities across the UK, as well as remembering the Queen’s legacy.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and his wife have been found dead at their home in the New Mexico city of Santa Fe, police have said.
Hackman, 95, and is wife Betsy Arakawa, 64, were found dead with their dog, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said.
A statement to Sky News said: “We do not believe foul play was a factor in their deaths, however exact cause of death has not been determined at this time.”
Spokesperson Denise Avila said deputies responded to a request to do a welfare check on Wednesday around 1.45pm local time to find the couple and their dog dead at the scene.
Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa in 1991. Pic: Dave Lewis/Shutterstock
Hackman won an Oscar for a leading role in The French Connection, a 1971 action movie by William Friedkin, and another for best supporting actor in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western, Unforgiven.
The French Connection earned him his first Oscar. Pic: 20th Century Fox/D’Antoni Productions/Schine-Moore Prods/Kobal/Shutterstock
He was also known for playing Lex Luthor in the Superman films of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Roles in the Francis Ford Coppola mystery thriller The Conversation and in the historical drama Mississippi Burning, where he starred as an FBI agent alongside Willem Dafoe, helped cement his career as one of Hollywood’s greats.
Playing Lex Luthor alongside Christopher Reeve’s Superman. Pic: THA/Shutterstock
Long career
The former US Marine appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage, during a lengthy career that started in the early 1960s.
He earned his first Oscar nomination for his breakout role as the brother of bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde.
He is also remembered for playing Captain Frank Ramsey alongside Denzel Washington in the 1995 thriller Crimson Tide.
He starred alongside Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide. Pic: Richard Foreman/THA/Shutterstock
In the early 2000s, he starred as an eccentric patriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums by Wes Anderson.
Hackman’s final film appearance was in 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport, after which he retired from acting and began co-writing adventure novels with friend and underwater archaeologist Daniel Lenihan.
“It’s very relaxing for me,” Hackman told Empire Magazine in 2020. “I don’t picture myself as a great writer, but I really enjoy the process.”
Playing the villain in Unforgiven. Pic: Everett/Shutterstock
‘He could play anyone’
Michael Caine revered Hackman as “one of the greatest actors” he had known while presenting him with the Cecil B DeMille Award in 2003.
Arakawa was a classical pianist. The couple married in 1991 and lived outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Hackman had three children, Christopher, Elizabeth Jean and Leslie Anne, with his late ex-wife, Faye Maltese, who died in 2017.
Star Trek star George Takei said: “We have lost one of the true giants of the screen,” in a tribute on X.
“Gene Hackman could play anyone, and you could feel a whole life behind it.
“He could be everyone and no one, a towering presence or an everyday Joe. That’s how powerful an actor he was,” Takei wrote on X.
“He will be missed, but his work will live on forever.”
Read more from arts and entertainment:
Oscars A-Z: From Anora to a (disqualified) Hans Zimmer
Gossip Girl and Buffy The Vampire Slayer actress dies aged 39
Gene Hackman won his second Oscar in 1993. Pic: AP
Irish comedian Dara O Briain called Hackman “the finest screen actor ever”.
“Not a single duff performance, in a long, long career,” he wrote in a post on X.
Hackman was versatile on screen, working with a face that he described to the New York Times in 1989 as that of “your everyday mine worker.”
StudioCanal, the UK arm of the leading European film studio, called Hackman’s death “a colossal loss for cinema” in a tribute posted on X.
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