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The second part of the six-episode Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, which follows Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan as they leave the British royal family, is now available.
The New Netflix Documentary (Volume 1) on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Has 12 of The Most Unexpected Moments
Photo: Getty Images
Episodes 4 through 6 of Volume II detail some of the Firm’s most egregious accusations to date. The previous three episodes of Harry & Meghan have shown the couple’s difficult journey to leaving the royal household, from the dueling communications teams inside the royal family to the purported story leaks by palace insiders.
Here, we analyze all the most important details from Harry & Meghan Volume II.
Harry alleges that Prince William gave the media misleading info.
Since rumors of their differences first surfaced, Prince Harry and Prince William have kept the majority of the specifics of their purportedly separated relationship a secret. But the Duke of Sussex is open and honest about their position in Episode 4 of the documentary series.
When Harry and Meghan moved in with separate residences from William and Kate, the Sussexes had their own distinct communications staff, which is when tensions started to arise. Each team was in charge of maintaining positive press coverage for the assigned royal (or royal couple), and they frequently did this by supplying the media with unfavorable information on another royal.
“I have 30 years’ experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how this system works and how it runs—and it’s just constant briefings about other members of the family, about favors inviting the press in. It’s a dirty game,” Harry says. “There’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories. So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principal. So the offices end up working against each other.”
Harry alleges that he and his brother agreed not to use their positions of authority against one another, but William allegedly broke his word. “William and I both saw what happened in our dad’s office, and we made an agreement that we would never let that happen to our office,” he says. He cadds, “I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or this business of trading. And to see my brother’s office copy the very same thing that we promised the two of us would never, ever do, that was heartbreaking.”
In Episode 5, Harry elaborates on his relationship with William, stating that William was unable to support Harry and Meghan when they made the decision to stand down as senior members of the royal family because of William’s dedication to his royal responsibilities. “The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side. Part of that, I get,” the Duke of Sussex says. “That’s his inheritance. So to some extent, it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and the continuation of this institution.”
Harry feels bad about how he handled Meghan’s issues with mental health.
During the height of her conflicts with the royal family and assaults from the British media, the Duchess of Sussex claims in Episode 4 that she wanted to take her own life in order to escape the misery she was experiencing. “It was like, ‘All of this will stop if I’m not here,'” she recalls thinking. “And that was the scariest thing about it, is it was such clear thinking.”
Harry claims to have been “devastated,” “angry,” and “ashamed” that things had become so terrible for his wife, but he freely confesses that at the time, he was too preoccupied with doing his royal responsibilities to offer her the help she required.
“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,” Harry says. “I’d been trained to worry more about, ‘What are people gonna think if we don’t go to this event? We’re gonna be late.’ And looking back on it now, I hate myself for it.”
Meghan adds, “I wanted to go somewhere to get help, but I wasn’t allowed to. They [Buckingham Palace and the royals] were concerned about how that would look for the institution.” “They knew how bad it was,” Harry says, speaking of the palace. “They thought, Why couldn’t she just deal with it? As if to say, ‘Well, everybody else has dealt with it, why can’t she deal with it?'”
Apparently, William “screamed and shouted” at Harry.
Harry met with then-Prince Charles, William, and Queen Elizabeth II shortly after the couple announced their intention to resign as working senior royals in January 2020 to finalize the specifics of their leave. “It became very clear very quickly that goal was not up for discussion or debate,” he recalls. “It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in.”
Harry denies being part of the joint statement issued under his and William’s names.
Following the Sussexes’ public announcement that they will stand down as senior royals, tabloids started claiming that William’s bullying had forced the couple out. When those rumors surfaced, the institution swiftly issued a rare joint statement from the brothers that refuted those assertions. However, Harry now says he didn’t see the statement until after it had been made public. “Once I got in the car after the meeting, I was told about a joint statement that had been put out in my name and my brother’s name squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it. No one had asked me. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that. And I rang M and I told her, and she burst into floods of tears, because within four hours, they were happy to lie to protect my brother, and yet for three years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”
The godfather of Lilibet Diana is Tyler Perry.
In the documentary’s last episode, the media mogul disclosed that the couple had requested his services as the godfather for their daughter. When the couple chose to move their family permanently to Los Angeles, Perry offered his house and private protection for them. This led to a tight relationship between the couple and Perry. “They said, ‘Well, we’d like for you to be Lili’s godfather.’ I go, ‘Whoa.’ I had to take a minute to take that in,” Perry says. “And I thought, ‘I’d be honored. I’d be absolutely honored.'”
Following the couple’s appearance on Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé encouraged Meghan.
The day after their shocking sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan revealed that pop queen Beyoncé casually texted her to congratulate her for her courage in telling the truth about her experience adjusting to royal life. “She said she wants me to feel safe and protected. She admires and respects my bravery and vulnerability and thinks I was selected to break generational curses that need to be healed,” After reading the singer’s message, Meghan says to Harry in the docuseries.
Meghan’s miscarriage may have been caused by the couple’s public legal battle.
The Sussexes were in the process of moving into their new house in Santa Barbara, California, as they worked on their copyright infringement case against Associated Newspapers (which owns British publications including the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday). According to Harry, the cumulative stress of all those incidents led to Meghan’s miscarriage in the end.
“I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did. I watched the whole thing,” the duke says in Episode 6. “Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? Of course, we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that 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.”
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