In their new Netflix documentary, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry shareintimate details about their lives, love story and treatment in the royalfamily.
“These are two people who really love each other and who have respectivelygiven up everything at different points to be together,” says a source closeto them. “There’s a lot of beauty in that.”
But sweet family moments — from their first date selfie to Harry’s gardenproposal — are only one aspect of the documentary, which largely focuses onwhat Harry calls the “dirty game” between the press and the palace.
“There’s a hierarchy of the family,” Harry, 38, says. “You know, there’sleaking, but there’s also planting of stories.”
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Such allegations, shared with a global audience by a senior member of thefamily, come as Harry’s relationship with his father, King Charles, 74, andbrother Prince William, 40, remains strained.
“It will take a long time before there is harmony between the brothers. Thereis a lot of anger there,” says a source close to the royal household.
Harry & Megan. A Netflix Global Event
Netflix Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
A palace source confides that William and his wife, Princess Kate, 40, areavoiding the series and having aides watch instead.
As for Charles, the royal household source adds, “The door [to reconciliation]is always open where the King is concerned, and he would certainly rescue thesituation if he could. He would love this to stop.”
Palace officials had braced for the worst, still burned by Harry and Meghan’sdeparture from royal duty and move to California in 2020, and then, a yearlater, their explosive allegations in an Oprah Winfrey interview of racismwithin the royal family, which Charles and William vehemently deny.
Harry and Meghan rollout
As evident in the new trailers that have been released this week, the finalthree episodes, premiering Dec. 15, will turn directly to Harry and Meghan’sissues with the relationship between courtiers in the palace and the UK media.
Story continues
“They were happy to lie to protect my brother,” Harry says. “They were neverwilling to tell the truth to protect us.”
Addressing racist headlines in the UK media and the couple’s concerns fortheir own safety— all of which, Harry says, were overlooked by thepalace—amounted to “institutional gaslighting,” he says.
The documentary places the couple “in the wider [conversation] around racismand the culture wars that they’ve become inextricably bound up with,” saysroyal biographer Catherine Mayer, author of Charles: The Heart of a King.”There are people in communities of color and young people who are going totake from this the message of institutional failure. And that is reallypowerful.”
Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex
Courtesy of Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex PrinceHarry and Meghan Markle
Given all that has transpired during the tumultuous past few years, “thecollateral damage to the institution is not insignificant,” says anothersource close to the royal household, who also acknowledges, “It’s anorganization that’s behind the times in terms of corporate responsibility andstructures.”
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Adds royal biographer Ingrid Seward, “There is always a way for reconciliationif both sides want it.
As for Charles, who as head of the family and the institution is tasked withprotecting both—a challenging duality that his mother, Queen Elizabeth,previously wrestled with—”the King can’t do anything more than play a waitinggame,” says Seward, “and let it ride.”