Meghan says her engagement interview was 'orchestrated reality show'

Meghan Markle said she and Harry were not allowed to tell their story in their "rehearsed" engagement interview, which she compared to an "orchestrated reality show."

The Duchess of Sussex described the moment she and Harry gave an on-camera interview about their romance saying: "We weren't allowed to tell our story because they didn't want..."

Harry replied: "We've never been allowed to tell our story. That's the consistency."

Meghan was asked about the sit-down chat with the BBC in November 2017, which came immediately after the couple posed for pictures at the Sunken Garden, of Kensington Palace.

She said: "Orchestrated reality show, yep. 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's all in that same moment," she added.

As an example, Meghan suggested she was told: "There'll be a moment when they want to see the ring so show the ring."

The show then played clips of the media discussing Meghan's "mixed-race background" before a section of the interview in which the duchess was asked: "Do you have that sense that the combination of the two of you, you're different backgrounds, that you'll represent something new for the royal family?"

The shot then cut to a montage of archive footage including a gold stagecoach, a Black man in traditional dress and Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip when they were young standing up in a car being driven through the streets during a royal tour while parade music played.

The show then cut back to the 2017 engagement interview where Harry answered: "Erm, no, you know, we're a fantastic team, we know we are and we hope to, over time, try and have as much impact for the things that we care about as much as possible."

Meghan said in the interview: "I am very excited about that, yeah."

Netflix hits back at claims royals were not approached over Harry, Meghan's documentary

King Charles III and Prince William's press teams were approached for comment on Netflix show Harry & Meghan, Newsweek has been told—countering earlier claims that the royals had not been contacted.

British news outlets including the Mail Online ran a briefing attributed to a "palace source" alleging that the royal family were denied a right to reply over the show, which was released around the world on December 8.

Episode one begins with a statement reading: "Members of the Royal Family declined to comment on the content within this series."

However, the Mail Online reported the account was untrue and represented a "devastating blow to the credibility" of the series.

A Netflix source doubled down and told Newsweek communications teams for both Charles and William were contacted in advance and given a right to reply. Newsweek understands there is a record of the approach being made.

Candace Owens accuses Meghan of using Harry's childhood trauma to 'mentally abuse him'

With the documentary dominating headlines, it has comfortably sat among Twitter's trending topic in the hours since its release.

Candace Owens weighed in with her opinion, as she accused Meghan of using Harry's "very real childhood trauma to mentally abuse him."

On Thursday, U.K.-based journalist Kirsty McCormack tweeted her sympathy for Harry as she wrote: "If you watch the first episode of #HarryandMeghanNetflix and feel nothing for Harry and his situation, then you have a heart of stone.

"He lost his mother at the age of 12, no wonder he is so protective of Meghan and his kids. Just heartbreaking."

Conservative commentator Owens, who has been critical of Meghan in the past, shared a different take to the post, writing in a quote tweet: "I feel extreme compassion for Harry who is with a woman that is so manipulative that she has convinced him that she is Princess Diana reincarnated.

"It is disturbing to watch this Freudian transfer. Meghan is using Harry's very real childhood trauma to mentally abuse him."

Harry shares how Brexit affected the public's perception of his and Meghan's interracial relationship

Harry shared his viewpoint that the conversation surrounding Brexit—the United Kingdom's vote to withdraw from the European Union—negatively impacted the way his interracial relationship with American Meghan was viewed by Britons.

A swathe of the rhetoric surrounding Brexit focused on immigration leading up to the 2016 proposal, which saw the majority of voters backing the move to leave the EU.

"So the EU commissioned a report in 2016, exactly the same time that our relationship became public," Harry said. "It warned that if the government isn't going to do something or if the media aren't going to sort themselves out, that a culture war that had already existed, was going to become huge and become a real problem."

James Holt, executive director at Harry and Meghan's Archewell Foundation and a former Palace spokesperson, also shared his view of the mood in the U.K. at the time.

"It was a perfect storm that gave credence to jingoism and nationalism and gave people with really horrible views of the world a little bit more strength and confidence to say what they wanted to say, to do whatever they wanted to do," he said.

Harry 'felt so ashamed' of Nazi uniform

During the documentary, Harry revisited a dark moment in his past, when he was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party back in 2005.

"In this family sometimes you're part of the problem rather than part of the solution," he said as he addressed the scandal.

Harry's choice of costume landed him on the front page of U.K. tabloid The Sun. He apologized at the time, but his latest remarks are the first time he has spoken about the incident since it happened.

Harry said: "It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I felt so ashamed afterwards. All I wanted to do was make it right.

"I sat down and spoke to the Chief Rabbi in London, which had a profound impact on me. I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor.

"I could have just ignored it and got on and probably made the same mistakes over and over again in my life. But I learnt from that."

Harry details low-key, romantic proposal

Harry revealed that due to protocol, he was limited on where he could propose to Meghan back in November 2017.

"I wanted to do it earlier," he explained. "Because I had to ask [for] permission from my grandmother, I couldn't do it outside of the U.K."

Recalling the events of the evening in question, Harry said: "I did pop a bottle of champagne while [Meghan] was greasing a chicken—and that kind of slightly gave the game away.

"She was like, 'You don't drink champagne. What's the occasion?' I was like, 'I don't know. Just had it lying around here, whatever.'"

"Wasn't that I knew she'd say yes, but she'd already moved [her dog] Guy over," Harry went on. "So I had Guy as a hostage... He was using stilts, so he couldn't run away."

Meghan was shown video-calling a friend who she excitedly told "it's happening," as she waited for Harry—who told her not to peep—to pop the big question.

"In the North garden, being overlooked by the staff flats, I got 15 of those electric candles," Harry said, adding: "Of course I got down on one knee. Of course I did."

"He's down on one knee and I was just like, 'Yes!'" Meghan recalled. "I was so joyful and excited. I was like, 'Ah, we're doing this.'"

Photos from the night showed the happy couple on a blanket in the gardens. They were joined by Meghan's dog, Guy.

"They were so happy and they were going to keep it quiet, because it was going to be announced a few weeks later," said friend Lucy Frasier.

"We had a little engagement party and everyone was dressed in animal onesies," Fraser added. "And Meghan and Harry were in matching penguin onesies, because penguins mate for life. And they were so sweet. And we had so much fun."

Another friend, Lindsay Jill Roth, said of Meghan: "She felt like they could take on the world."

Harry saw Meghan as 'absolutely perfect' for royal role

As their relationship progressed, Meghan said that the two were bonded by their "parallel interests."

This factor, Harry revealed, led to him seeing her as not only the ideal wife, but also somebody who could take on a role within the royal family.

"From my perspective, I fell head over heels in love with her, because my heart tod me that she was the one that I was going to spend the rest of my life with," Harry said. "And then, once I got her know her even more, my head then told me, 'Well, she's absolutely perfect for the role as well.'"

"When it came to Meghan, that was, I guess, the case of finding a needle in a haystack," he added.

Acting was 'never' Meghan's passion

Although Meghan strove to make it in Hollywood for years before landing her breakout role on Suits, a producer on the show, Silver Tree, said acting wasn't Meghan's destiny.

"I think she liked being part of something, but I don't think acting was actually her true passion," Tree said. "She just seemed like boiling over with ideas. That's how I would describe her at that time. I think she was on a track to do bigger things."

This led Meghan to start her since-shuttered blog, The Tig, and also to pursue volunteering opportunities. During hiatuses from the show, she'd go to India and Rwanda to do "cause-driven work," Meghan says. "That's what I was excited about. I wasn't trying to find like the great indie film that's gonna get me an Oscar. No. I just wanted to go volunteer."

Harry thought his family was 'surprised that a ginger could land such a beautiful woman'

After Harry's family met Meghan, he said, he thought they were impressed by everything but her occupation.

"I remember my family meeting her and being very impressed, some of them didn't quite know what to do with themselves," he says. "So I think they were, 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 in the beginning," he continues. "Oh, she's an American actress, this won't last."

Meghan thought Harry asking her to curtsy to his grandmother 'was a joke'

Meghan met Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September of this year, at a lunch at Royal Lodge, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's residence.

"I didn't know I was going to meet her until moments before," Meghan says. Harry revealed that his grandmother would be there. "We were in the car and driving up and he's like, 'You know how to curtsy, right?' And I just thought it was a joke."

Harry cuts in with his own solo interview, "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? Like, that's weird."

This was the moment Meghan "start[ed] to realize this is a big deal. I mean, Americans will understand that. We have medieval times, dinner and tournament, it was like that. I mean I curtsied as though I was like..."

Now, Meghan and Harry are in a joint interview as she pantomimes a very deep bow while Harry watches. "Pleasure to meet you, your majesty," she says. "Like, is that okay? It was so intense. And when when she left, Eugenie and Jack and Fergie say, 'You did great!' Thanks? I didn't know what I was doing."

Meghan previously described her confusion at having to curtsy to Queen Elizabeth II in the couple's 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Meghan reveals she was 'in ripped jeans' and 'barefoot' when meeting Kate Middleton

Megan says she's glad she didn't "know so much" about the Royal Family when she began dating Harry "because I could just authentically be myself without so much preparedness."

She goes on to describe meeting Prince William and Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, saying she was "in ripped jeans" and "barefoot."

"I was a hugger, always been a hugger," she says. "I didn't realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits. I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through to the inside... that there is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door, and you go 'Oh... okay, we can relax now.' But that formality carries over on both sides and that was surprising to me."

Meghan beefed up her Toronto security after a death threat, she says

As Meghan's profile rose and photographers stayed posted in Toronto to snap pictures of her, she says she approached the police.

"If any other woman in Toronto right now said to you, 'I have six grown men who are sleeping in their cars around my house and following me everywhere that I go and I feel scared,' wouldn't you say that it was stalking?'" she says in the documentary.

Meghan continues, "And they said, 'Yes, but there's really nothing you can do because of who you're dating.' Like, so I'm just supposed to live like this? And then I got a death threat and then things changed because I needed to have security."

The death threats would continue even after Meghan moved to the U.K., former assistant commissioner for specialist operations at the Metropolitan Police Neil Basu revealed in an interview last week.

In the Netflix documentary, Steve Davies, Meghan's former security detail, explains he and a personal driver "had to take different routes to the [Suits] studio to evade paparazzi that were chasing us."

"There were people constantly at her door or trying to get into her house or trying to get around so that they can find her," Chantelle Humphrey, Meghan's former personal assistant, says.

Archie Mountbatten-Windsor's American accent revealed

Throughout the first two episodes of the series, the couple's son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, is heard speaking a few sentences on camera.

"I've got a dirty foot, mama, because I was with you," he can be heard saying in the second episode while Harry bird-watches in the couple's backyard. His accent sounds distinctly American.

Archie was born in London, England, on May 6, 2019. It's unclear how old he is in the footage used, although he's currently three. His younger sister, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, was born in the U.S. on June 4, 2021. The family celebrated her first birthday in London during the Platinum Jubilee earlier this year.

Harry and Meghan had divorced parents in common

Although Meghan and Harry had different upbringings, they point out they were both "the product of divorce," in Meghan's words.

"I think most kids who are the products of divorced parents have a lot in common," Harry says, "no matter what your background is. Being pulled from one place to another or maybe your parents are competitive or you're in one place longer than you wanna be or another place less than you wanna be, there's all sorts of pieces to that."

Meghan says her parents "co-parented well" but she still felt torn. She reveals a poem she wrote in school about having "two houses, two homes, two kitchens, two phones" which concluded, "Life would be easy if there were two of me."

Meghan's media abuse considered 'rite of passage' by other royals

The second episode continues to examine racist commentary surrounding Meghan at the beginning of her relationship with Harry.

Harry says the treatment was dismissed as a "rite of passage" by other royals, whose wives especially also had to deal with high levels of scrutiny when they first joined the family. For more about this, click here.

Meghan recalls first time she heard 'the n-word'

Meghan first heard the n-word when she was a child and her mother, Doria Ragland, honked at someone in a parking lot. "The woman turned around and screamed the n-word at my mom," Meghan says, recalling her mother's grip on the steering wheel tightening. "And she was just silent the rest of the drive home, we never talked about it. I had never in my life heard someone say the n-word."

Meghan adds that most people "didn't treat me like a Black woman" until she went to the U.K. and her race became a topic of discussion in the news, which she also addressed in her podcast, Archetypes.

"Obviously now people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I moved to the U.K," Meghan says in the Netflix documentary. "But before that, most people didn't treat me like a black woman so that talk didn't have to happen for me."

Ragland reflects on bringing Meghan up as a mixed-race child in America.

"As a parent, in hindsight I would absolutely like to go back and have that very real conversation about how the world sees you," she says.

Ragland did warn Meghan as press reports around her race ramped up. "I said to her, I remember this very clearly, that 'this is about race,'" she says. "And Meghan said, 'Mommy, I don't want to hear that.' I said, 'You may not want to hear it but this is what's coming down the pike.'"

Meghan revisits dish soap ad: 'I changed that commercial with my little handwritten letter'

As a tween, Meghan Markle wrote a letter to Ivory complaining about a dish soap commercial that implied only women clean dishes. She was featured on Inside Edition talking about her letter. Later, Ivory's ad was changed to apply to "people across America" washing pots and pans, rather than women.

Meghan has often referenced this letter and the ensuing ad change as the catalyst for her life of activism. "I changed that commercial with my little handwritten letter," she tells Netflix. "And it was a big deal because I was going to middle school after that so I was like, I was a little activist."

Biographer Tom Bower disputed that the ad was changed due to Meghan's letter in his summer 2022 book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors. He wrote that Vanity Fair omitted the story in a profile of Meghan because they found it impossible to verify.

Harry told Meghan not to talk to paparazzi: 'You're smiling, you love it'

Meghan and Harry enjoyed a brief honeymoon period when their relationship went public, but soon Meghan felt overwhelmed by press attention. Meghan encountered photographers while she left a flower shop and waved to them, smiling and saying she hoped they were keeping warm.

The resultant photos showed her grinning, so Harry instructed her not to speak to paparazzi anymore. "I remember H the next day saying, 'you can't talk to them,'" Meghan says. "And I was like, 'I'm just trying to be pleasant, I don't know what to do. I've never dealt with this before.' He's like, 'Right, but the U.K. media are saying you love it. You're smiling, you love it.'"

"It felt like all of the U.K. media descended upon Toronto," Meghan says. "My house was just surrounded. Just men sitting in their cars all the time waiting for me to do anything."

Photographers and journalists were knocking on her neighbors' doors and even paid one neighbor to put a hidden camera in their backyard to watch Meghan, she says.

Adding to the chaos, Harry was learning things about Meghan from the press instead of from her. "There were things that were said and things that were written that I had to go to her to ask," Harry says. "That was the hardest piece."

Meghan's mother Doria Ragland makes her media debut with interview

Meghan Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, features prominently in the first part of episode two. This is the first time she has spoken on the record about her famous daughter's life since meeting Prince Harry.

"My name is Doria and I'm Meghan's mom and the last five years has been challenging, yeah," she says. "I'm ready to have my voice heard, that's for sure. You know a little bit of my experience as her mom."

Read more about the interview here.

Second episode opens with Harry and Meghan NYC paparazzi encounter

The second episode begins with an aide referred to as Brad briefing Meghan and Harry on plans while they drive around New York City.

"Never a dull moment," Meghan says while removing a black surgical mask as the two fasten their seatbelts. Conversation turns to a photographer who they say has been following them.

"Do we have that pap on the scooter again?" Meghan asks, and Brad says yes. "Same guy?"

In a voiceover, Harry says, "There's a lot of people who think, 'They've got such a problem with paparazzi.' Back in my mum's days, it was physical harassment. They had cameras in your face, following you, chasing you.

"Paparazzi still harass people," he continues. "The harassment really exists more online now. Once the photographs are out and the story is then put next to it, then comes the social media harassment."

Tweets are shown onscreen that refer to Meghan in vulgar misogynistic language.

"To see another woman in my life who I love see this feeding frenzy, that's hard. Because it is basically the hunter versus the prey," Harry says.

Back in the SUV, he says, "We'll be with friends in less than ten minutes," as he and Meghan hold each other's hands.

Meghan reiterates that she thought Harry would protect her as their relationship went public

Headlines and vulgar, racist tweets are shown as Meghan and Harry explain their mindset on the day their relationship was made public.

Meghan recalls, "I said, 'Okay, well, then, I'll just treat it like we're in the bush, where like it's all foreign to me but I trust you'll keep me safe and you'll get me through it.'"

Meghan also said she leaned on Harry for help with her increased fame during their interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021.

"Naively, I didn't know what I was walking into," Harry says in the Netflix documentary. "But in October of 2016, then suddenly, everything changed."

The episode stops short of explaining which outlet broke the news. In fact, it was the Sunday Express and longtime royal reporter Camilla Tominey made the revelation. The coverage cited a source allegedly close to the prince saying he was happy with his new relationship.

The premiere episode concludes with the song "You're All I Need to Get By" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell playing over the end credits.

Expert says royals don't have 'freedoms that the rest of us take for granted'

Prince Harry implies that he feared employees at Kensington Palace could be a source of leaks about his budding relationship with Meghan Markle.

"Getting her through the police barrier and onto Kensington Palace was a risk in itself because people talk, right?" he says in an interview. "It's not about who you trust, it's about who they trust. That's literally how it works."

Next, Robert Hazell, author of The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy, debunks the idea that royals live a life of privilege.

"For ordinary members of the public, we like to think that members of the royal family live extraordinarily privileged lives," he says. "There's lots of servants, they live in palaces, and it's very easy. I don't envy them for one moment. They live, for me, in a gilded cage."

Hazell continues, "They lack most of the freedoms that the rest of us take for granted. They have very little autonomy in choosing their own futures. Formally, they lack freedom to choose their own religion. the first half dozen in the line of succession have to get the queen's permission before they get married."

At this point, footage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, on a trip to Ireland is shown onscreen.

"They don't really have any free choice over their career and the modern media are very very intrusive," Hazell concludes.

Harry and Meghan then describe going out for Halloween on the eve of their relationship being made public due to a tabloid leak. "Pull the pin on the fun grenade," Harry says, "which we did."

'Suits' co-star Abigail Spencer recounts moment Meghan told her she was dating Prince Harry

After a package depicting Prince Harry's conservation work in Africa and Meghan's decision to join him for five days in Botswana, Abigail Spencer, Meghan's co-star from Suits, describes learning Meghan was dating Harry.

"It was 2016," Spencer says. "Meghan and I met up in New York. We really enjoyed going to have tea and champagne at Bergdorf Goodman ... she was like, 'Um, yeah, I uh... I think I met someone and I'm in love. It's Prince Harry.' And I..." Spencer, who attended the couple's 2018 wedding, dissolves into laughter.

"I mean I could just feel everything in her body vibrating. We have a photo from the moment," she says. "And I was screaming because I could tell it was different."

A photo onscreen shows Spencer and Markle grinning open-mouthed together, both in sunglasses.

"It was very clear from the moment that she told me about him that they were in love and that they were gonna go to the ends of the earth to be together," Spencer concludes.

Harry says Meghan is 'so similar' to Princess Diana

"So much of what Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mum," Harry says, while footage of Meghan with Archie is interspersed with footage of Diana with Harry and William as children. "She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her."

A cell phone video is shown where Meghan shows Archie a framed photo of Princess Diana, saying, "Who is that? Yeah. That's your Grandma Diana. Yeah."

"I didn't want history to repeat itself," Harry says in a voiceover before the show's focus switches to coverage of Princess Diana's death in a car accident in 1997.

In the couple's March 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry had expressed frustration with mourners crying over his mother even though they were complete strangers. "I couldn't understand why everyone wanted to cry as loud as they did and show such emotion as they did when they didn't really know our mother," he told Winfrey.

"I did feel a bit protective at times about that," he went on. "You didn't even know her – why and how are you so upset? Now looking back, I have learnt to understand what it was she gave the world and what she gave a lot of people."

In the new Netflix series, he echoes these conflicting feelings. He implies he did appreciate the emotional outpouring, while acknowledging the pressure he felt.

"The U.K. literally swept William and me up as their children," Harry says over footage of himself and his brother shaking hands with mourners. "An expectation to see myself and William out and about, it was really hard for the two of us.

Harry says Princess Diana spoke the 'truth' in infamous 'Panorama' interview

"My mom was harassed throughout her life with my dad," Harry says, "but after they separated the harassment went to new levels."

Diana is seen in the infamous Panorama interview, which Harry acknowledges was secured through deceit and manipulation. Still, he says she spoke the "truth" in that talk with Martin Bashir.

"She felt compelled to talk about it," he tells Netflix cameras. "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."

This flies in the face of Prince William's previous assertion that the interview should be thrown out and disregarded.

In a statement released in May 2021, the elder prince slammed his late mother's chat with Bashir.

"It is my firm view that this Panorama program holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again. It effectively established a false narrative which, for over a quarter of a century, has been commercialized by the BBC and others," William said. "This settled narrative now needs to be addressed by the BBC and anyone else who has written or intends to write about these events."

The Netflix documentary goes on to use footage from the interview in which Diana explains that after her divorce, things became much harder for her.

Harry calls out photographers who followed royal family around on ski trips

The documentary shows extensive archival footage of the royals on a ski trip while Harry explains why he found the photographers intrusive. On trips such as these, Harry says, the family would pose for photos in hopes that photographers would then leave them alone. But not all of them would.

"It was never fair, it never worked," he says.

"My mom did such a good job in trying to protect us," Harry says, as footage is shown of Diana, Princess of Wales, confronting a videographer during a ski trip. "She took it upon herself to try to confront these people."

The documentary shows Diana approaching a videographer and putting her hand in front of his camera, seemingly using his own footage.

"As a parent, could I ask you to respect my children's space?" she asks. "Because I brought the children out here for a holiday and we'd really appreciate the space."

The videographer acquiesces but asks if he can get a photograph of the family first. "No," Diana says. "We've had 15 cameras following us today. As a parent, I want to protect the children."

Harry says his childhood was 'filled with happiness'

After Meghan and Harry recount their first few meetings, focus switches to Harry's childhood.

Old footage shows the announcement of Prince Harry's birth and the news that he was a boy, which elicits cheers from gathered fans, along with some more archival footage of him as a baby.

Harry's childhood was "filled with laughter, filled with happiness, filled with imagination," he says.

Critics might say this contradicts his previous description of his childhood in the couple's infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021. He told Winfrey at the time that as a new parent, "I guess the highlight for me is sticking [son Archie] on the back of a bicycle in his little baby seat and taking him on bike rides which is something I was never able to do when I was young."

Some took issue with Harry's assertion that his childhood was hampered by his family's status, pointing to photos of the prince with his father riding a bicycle. Shortly after the Oprah interview, Prince William made sure to describe his own happy childhood during a speech in Scotland.

Harry adds that no one ever told him what it meant to be part of the British Royal Family, and his family's international importance dawned on him gradually.

Meghan worried Harry had too 'much of an ego' when he was late for first date

The couple's first date was at 76 Dean Street, Meghan says in an interview, referring to a branch of the members-only club Soho House.

"You were late," Meghan says to Harry, "And I couldn't understand why he would be late."

"I was panicking. I was freaking out. I was sweating," Harry says. Meghan adds that he continually texted her with the explanation that he was in traffic.

"So I was like, 'Oh, is this what he does? Got it. Like, this I'm not doing,'" Meghan says.

"What? What is that supposed to mean?" Harry asks with a laugh.

"Like one of those guys with so much of an ego that any girl would sit around and wait for a half hour for you," she responds, then turns to the camera. "I was just not interested in that."

"Then I walked in a hot, sweaty, red ball of mess, she's like 'oh, that's not...'" Harry says.

Meghan laughs and agrees he was "not" the egotistic guy she feared. She adds that he was "so fun" and they were "childlike" together.

"I left after an hour, and um, I told him that I had other plans," Meghan says in a solo interview with a smile. She told him she was leaving in a few days and asked if he'd like to have dinner again. "I'm sure he told me I was so forward and American," she says, adding that they had dinner at the same branch of Soho House.

Back in a joint interview, Harry whispers that this time, Meghan was the tardy one. They show a selfie they snapped on their second day to "capture the feeling," Meghan says, that "oh my gosh, we're gonna give it a go."

Meghan was 'intent on being single' summer she met Harry

The doc shows snaps from Meghan's long-deleted personal Instagram account as her college friend, Lindsay Jill Roth, explains that

"I was really intent on being single and just have fun girl-time," Meghan tells the Netflix crew as more snaps of her with friends appear.

"She had planned her single-girl summer," friend Lucy Fraser says. "And she had a lot of plans of going around Europe."

Meghan is seen with Jessica Mulroney in some of the shots. She and Mulroney have not been seen together publicly since the Canadian stylist was embroiled in a racism scandal during the summer of 2020. Mulroney's husband, Ben Mulroney, previously denied there was a rift between the two.

Instagram photos of Harry, who was rumored to use a secret account during his single days, are also shown. Meghan and Harry then explain their origin story as a couple.

"I had a career, I had my life, I had my path," Meghan says, then sighs. "And then came H. I mean he literally, talk about a plot twist."

Harry first saw Meghan in a cell phone photo in which she had puppy dog ears and a dog nose, using a popular phone filter. Meghan received an email from their mutual friend who asked if she'd like to meet "Prince Haz." She responded, "Who's that???"

She was then given the chance to look through his "feed," presumably his secret Instagram account.

"So that's the thing when people say did you Google him, no," Meghan says. "But I... that's your homework. You're like, hmmm, let me see what they're about, in their feed, not what someone else says about them but what they're putting out about themselves. That to me was the barometer."

She found "beautiful photography" and "environmental shots" of "time he was spending in Africa." Harry then says, "phew," and mimes wiping sweat from his brow.

Harry clarifies position on featuring his kids in media: 'Consent is a really key piece'

Harry and Meghan seem to anticipate that critics will question their decision to feature footage of their children in the documentary, after years of drip-feeding a small smattering of photos of the tots. They address this head-on, explaining their position on featuring Archie and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor in the project.

"We've been really conscious of protecting our kids as best we can and also understanding the role that they play in this really historical family," Meghan says in a talking-head interview which cuts to footage of Harry pushing a baby Archie across a room on a rolling suitcase.

"As a dad, and as parents, I think consent is a really key piece to this," Harry says in his own solo interview with the crew. "That if you have children, it should be your consent as to what you share."

Next, there's a shot of Archie laying on a pregnant Meghan's belly, followed by footage of the couple in their garden.

Archie speaks in first ten minutes of premiere episode of "Harry & Meghan"

After a teary cold open, the opening credits roll on Harry & Meghan. The show takes a more light-hearted turn as the couple looks back at an October 2015 interview of Meghan from before her royal days, in which she's asked whether she'd prefer to day Prince Harry or his brother, Prince William.

"I don't know," she says to the interviewer, laughing. "Harry. Sure."

Harry points out that interview aired "less than a year" before they met. "It just, again, shows how little you knew," he tells Meghan and the Netflix cameras. "And look at how far we've come."

From there, we see a sweeping vista stamped "Montecito, California, 2021."

"Look at that," Meghan says in voiceover. "How would you describe that, Archie?"

"Well, it's all done beautiful," Archie's voice pipes up. The couple's son turned two in 2021.

The boy is then seen from the back walking down a path while Meghan appears to film on a phone and Harry pushes a pram, likely containing their daughter Lilibet.

Doc opens with phone footage of Harry and Meghan amid royal exit: 'They are destroying us'

Meghan and Harry's Netflix series, Harry & Meghan, opens with footage that appears to have been shot on personal phones. Harry is sitting in London Heathrow Airport's Windsor Suite and Harry reveals he and Meghan have just finished their final few engagements as working members of the royal family in March 2020.

"It's really hard to look back on it now and go, 'what on earth happened?'" he says. "Like, how did we end up here?"

Next, Meghan is seen makeup-free in Vancouver, Canada, with a towel on her head. "H is in London and I'm here," she says into the camera. "I don't even know where to begin."

"I just really want to get to the other side of all this," Meghan continues. "I don't know what to say anymore." She then appears to tear up. "Unfortunately, in not standing for something, they are destroying us."

Harry jumps back in, still from Heathrow Airport, "I think anyone else in my position would have done the exact same thing." From there, the opening credits roll.

Harry and Meghan accused of using stock photos in teasers

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have already faced an onslaught of criticism for using photos in their Netflix series' teaser trailers that depict photographers shooting events the couple didn't attend.

Fans argue that the photos are fair game, saying it isn't unusual for documentarians to use stock images to illustrate a story. Critics, meanwhile, say the use of images from Harry Potter film premieres and a Katie Price court appearance is misleading.

Robert Jobson, royal editor of the Evening Standard, took issue with the inclusion of a shot that seemed to "suggest intrusion by the press." The photo shows a photographer's hands around a camera, shooting Harry, Meghan and their son Archie from above. Jobson argued that the implication was "a complete travesty" because the photographer had been accredited and Harry and Meghan had agreed to the lensman's positioning.