Prince Harry has spoken about the breakdown of his relationship with brother William and blamed the media for Meghan suffering a miscarriage in the final episodes of the couple’s documentary series.
The second volume of Harry & Meghan goes much further than the first, with Harry accusing William of screaming and shouting at him at a summit meeting over “Megxit”, and saying he believes he and his wife lost their baby in 2020 because of coverage in the Mail.
‘She never asked me to leave’, Harry says – live updates as final episodes drop
Other revelations include the duke saying a joint statement was put out without his permission in his and his brother’s name, denying a story that William had “bullied” him out of the Royal Family. He also accuses William’s office of trading stories – something they “promised” they would never do when they were younger.
Palace aides would have been preparing themselves for bombshells in the second volume after a trailer included accusations that the royal household leaked negative stories as part of a “war against Meghan”. However, they are yet to comment on the programme.
Key talking points from the first three episodes:
- Harry says it was “terrifying” to hear William ‘shout and scream’ during Megxit crisis meeting
- He says there is now a “wedge” between them and accuses brother’s office of trading stories
- Duke also blames media for Meghan’s miscarriage in 2020
- Meghan talks about suicidal thoughts
- Harry says he was “trained” to keep stiff upper lip over wife’s struggles
- He also describes how Meghan “stealing the limelight… that upsets people”
- Broadcaster Danny Baker’s tweet following birth of Archie also addressed
‘It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me’
In the fifth episode, Harry recalls a meeting with the Queen, his father and William, now the Prince of Wales, about the couple’s future plans after they had announced they wanted to step back as senior royals.
Recalling what happened behind the scenes after the Queen summoned them to Sandringham in January 2020, he says: “I went in with the same proposal that we’d already made publicly, but once I got there I was given five options – one being all in, no change, five being all out.
“I chose option three in the meeting – half in, half out. Have our own jobs but also work in support of the Queen.
“It became very clear very quickly that goal was not up for discussion or debate. 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, you know, quietly sit there and take it all in.
“But you have to understand that, from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate, sort of, mission, goal/responsibility is the institution.”
Harry says the Queen would act on advice she was given by staff.
“People around her are telling her, ‘by the way, that proposal, or these two doing X,Y, Z is going to be seen as an attack on the institution’,” he says.
“The meeting finished without any solidified action plan. I think from their perspective, they had to believe that it was more about us, and maybe the issues that we had, as opposed to their partner, the media, and that relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what they wanted to see.”
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Key revelations from first three episodes
Harry goes on to say the “saddest part” of what has happened is “this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side”.
The duke continues: “And part of that I get, I understand, right, that’s his inheritance. So to some extent it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and continuation of this institution.”
Harry says a story came out that day saying that “part of the reason that Meghan and I were leaving was because William had bullied us out”.
A joint statement was issued on the day of the Sandringham meeting branding a front page story about the brothers’ relationship as false, offensive and potentially harmful.
Harry says he was told about the statement “squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family” after the meeting. “I couldn’t believe it. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that.
“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.”
Meghan’s mother and Harry speak of devastation hearing she contemplated suicide
In the fourth episode, Harry speaks about “lies” in the Royal Family, and compares Meghan’s treatment in the media to that of his mother, Diana.
“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 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 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.”
Meghan says she wanted to get help but “wasn’t allowed”.
‘To see my brother’s office copy the very same thing… that was heartbreaking’
Speaking about the press interest, Harry says: “No one would have private conversations with the editors saying ‘enough’. My dad said to me, ‘darling boy, you can’t take on the media, the media will always be the media’. And I said I fundamentally disagree.”
Harry then says: “I have 30 years experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how this system works and how it runs and just constant briefings about other members of the family, favours inviting the press in, it’s a dirty game.”
He also speaks about the “leaking” and “planting of stories” – an issue addressed by Meghan in the preview trailer. “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, so it’s kind of a weird understanding, acceptance that this happens,” he says.
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He says he and William “both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made an agreement to never have that happen to our office”.
With images of the brothers as children shown on screen, the duke says: “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.”
Harry also says he believes Meghan suffered a miscarriage “because of what the Mail did”.
He says: “I watched the whole thing. Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was created, caused by that? Course we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that it 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.”
Meghan’s letter to her father
The final three episodes of the series also take a look at a letter written by Meghan to her father, Thomas Markle, about interviews he was giving, which was published in part by the Mail on Sunday.
She says she wrote it after seeking advice from the Queen and Charles, but that she tried to send it discreetly.
“People are scratching their heads going, ‘how would the Mail have either the stupidity, or the whatever you want to call it, to print a letter between a daughter and a father?'” says Harry. “Well the answer is simple: they knew the family would encourage us not to sue.”
In the end, they did sue – with Meghan winning her privacy claim. However, she was awarded just £1 compensation from the Mail On Sunday’s publisher for misuse of private information.
‘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 episode addresses the couple’s initial popularity following their wedding and when they announced they were having their first child, and how this affected the Royal Family.
“The issue is when someone who is marrying in who should be a supporting act is stealing the limelight or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people, it shifts the balance,” says Harry.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s death
The final episode shows Harry watching footage of black cabs in London lining The Mall as a mark of respect following the death of Prince Philip in 2021.
Speaking about his grandfather’s death, Harry says: “I was actually really happy for my grandfather. He went quietly. He went peacefully. He went happily.”
Asked about what it was like returning to the UK for the funeral, he adds: “It was hard, especially spending time having chats with my brother and my father who just were very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation.
“So none of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s funeral, but we did. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I’m probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.
“You know, my wife and I, we’re moving on. We were focused on what’s coming next.”
Danny Baker’s tweet
Harry also speaks in the series about broadcaster Danny Baker’s infamous tweet following the birth of baby Archie.
The radio presenter posted a black and white photo showing a well-dressed man and woman holding hands with a suited chimpanzee, captioning it: “Royal baby leaves hospital.”
“The amount of abuse that we got, especially you (Meghan), but the both of us, for not wanting to serve our child up on a silver platter was incredible,” says Harry.
“Someone in the media posting a photograph of a couple with a chimp, and at the top it said, ‘Royal baby leaves hospital’. So that was one of the first things that I saw.”
Baker later apologised, writing: “Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased.”
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The final episodes of Harry & Meghan come a week after the first three launched, recording 81.55 million viewing hours so far, translating to viewing in 28 million households, according to Netflix.
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”.
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.
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 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.