After a hugely successful release of the first three episodes of their documentary series, “Harry & Meghan,” the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are back with the next instalment of episodes. The trailer promised us the inside story on why Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back from royal life and the broken relationship between Harry and Prince William. It delivered just that, and more. Here are the top five takeaways from the last three episodes of the docu-series – if you don’t want spoilers, look away now…
The Australia and New Zealand tour was a turning point
Harry and Meghan think the turning point in their relationship with the press came on their royal tour of Australia and New Zealand. They were hugely popular, attracting large crowds wherever they went, and Meghan was seen as a royal rock star. They believe that this fuelled some jealousy within the Royal Family and there was too much attention on Meghan.
Prince Harry talked about the hierarchy within the Royal Family, and that more senior members are traditionally the most well-loved. But Meghan seemed to be more popular, judging by how she was received by the public, and the Sussexes believed that was problematic for the family.
That’s when the negative stories about Meghan started to come out, particularly in the U.K. She went from being the next best thing in the Royal Family to being the one of the most hated members, and the Firm allowed it to happen in order to make the rest of the Royal Family look better, Harry said. They pointed to the negative and contradictory ways in which U.K. newspapers reported on Meghan and Catherine, Princess of Wales. Harry also compared his tour to that of the then-Prince Charles and Diana. During their first royal tour, Diana was hugely popular and Charles was thought to have been jealous of that.
Doria was heartbroken at hearing Meghan had suicidal thoughts
Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mom, is back in these episodes, and she talked very movingly about hearing that her daughter had suicidal thoughts. With the negative press around Meghan and Harry getting more toxic every day, and the Firm not responding, Meghan’s mental health deteriorated, she said. Friends said she seemed to stay to herself. She even says, “All of this will stop if I’m not here.”
Doria said she was heartbroken at hearing this and she felt she couldn’t protect her daughter. Harry then goes on to admit he was upset hearing that Meghan wanted to die. He said, “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 looking back on it now, I hate myself for it.” Meghan also reiterated what she said in the interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021 – that she wanted to go somewhere and get help, but she was told no, and Harry was advised that she should just deal with it on her own.
There will be no King Charles III vs. the British media
Harry was determined that the Firm should stand up to the British media and the seemingly false narratives that they were creating. He put this to his father, now King Charles III, who Harry says told him, “Darling boy, you can’t take on the media – the media will always be the media.” Harry went on to talk about the communications teams working with himself and his brother, and how they would bury bad press about the Royal Family member they were looking after by trading a story from another family member. This would often involve throwing Meghan and Harry under the bus, he said.
“I've had thirty years' experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how this system works and how it runs,” Harry says. “Just constant briefings about other family members, about favours inviting the press in. It's a dirty game.” Harry and his brother grew up watching their father do the same thing for years and promised they would never be a part of that. But when the Sussexes and the Cambridges split their office, it became the norm, Harry said.
Harry and William are a long way from reconciliation
What becomes apparent in these final three episodes is that the relationship between Harry and William is fractured, to say the least. After their press offices split in March 2019, Harry said he felt that William was happy for negative stories about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to go out to protect himself, leaving the brothers’ relationship frosty at best.
Things got even worse during the Sandringham summit in January 2020, when Harry and William, along with their father and Queen Elizabeth II, sat down to discuss Harry’s future as a working royal. Harry said it was terrifying to have his brother screaming at him while his father said things that "simply weren't true," and the Queen sat quietly, taking it all in. Later, we see Harry get a text from William the day after the Oprah interview aired. We don’t know what he said in the text, but we see the reaction from both Meghan and Harry, and it seems like it was negative. For the moment, at least, the bad blood between them remains.
Harry believes the Daily Mail is responsible for Meghan’s miscarriage
Harry and Meghan sued the Daily Mail newspaper after it printed a private letter that Meghan wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, after months of him talking to the media about his daughter and the Royal Family. It was a long process and Harry said he believes the stress and strain of it caused Meghan to miscarry during their second pregnancy. While he says he can’t prove it, he strongly believes the story was the reason behind this heart-breaking incident.
He recalled the time Meghan said, “I was pregnant, I really wasn’t sleeping and the first morning that we woke up in our new home is when I miscarried.” Harry concluded, “I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did. I watched the whole thing. Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that – of course we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that caused, the lack of sleep and the timing of the pregnancy – how many weeks in she was – I can say from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
