If the first three episodes of Harry and Meghan Netflix documentary released last week, was regarded as a bombshell, the second half - three episodes released today - could, perhaps, be considered as them going fully nuclear.
While the Netflix series, at times, resembles a Hollywood love story montage, in others it is painfully clear the bitterness Harry feels not only towards the British press but also towards his own family. In the documentary he claims newspapers were deliberately fed lies and information about him and his wife because of the jealousy surrounding their popularity.
But the second half of this explosive series also reveals some of the most private moments in their lives, from falling pregnant to making their decision to move to California.
Here's 17 things we learnt in the second half of Harry and Meghan…
1. Meghan was shocked by the crowds on her wedding day.
On the day of the wedding in May 2018 Meghan said she was in a ‘really calm space’. She had a croissant, a glass of Bucks Fizz (which she calls Mimosa) and she played the song Going to the Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups. On the way to Windsor Castle, she was shocked by all the crowds: ‘I didn’t know there would be people lining both sides of the street. I said to my mum, ‘What is going on?’’ she says.
2.Their home in Kensington Palace, Norfolk Cottage, was literally too small for them.
Harry would constantly hit his head. ‘It has very low ceilings, I don’t know who built it but they must have been very short,’ Harry says.
3. Meghan bonded with the Queen as a grandmother figure.
When the Duchess of Sussex accompanied the Queen on the royal train in June 2018, just weeks after her wedding to Harry, she shared a blanket with her. ‘I thought, ‘I recognise and respect that you are the Queen but, in this moment, I am so grateful that there is a grandmother figure because that feels like family’, Megan recalls. 'I was so close with my grandmother and I took care of her in her final years.'
4. Their Australia tour, they believe, inspired jealousy in the family.
The couple believe attitudes within the Palace started to change towards them after their successful tour of Australia in October 2018 which led to some jealousy. ‘The issue is when someone who is the supporting act is then stealing the limelight or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this,’ says Harry. ‘That upsets people. It shifts the balance.’ He adds Meghan felt bad that she was getting all the headlines and he told her: ‘I know, my mum felt the same way.’
5. Meghan recalls first realising she was getting negative press
Meghan says the first time she realised the effect the negative press was having on her image was when she did a walkabout in Liverpool in January 2019. She recalls: ‘There was a group of women and one of them said to me: ‘What you’ve done to your father’s not right.’ It was the first time I thought, ‘Oh my God, people actually believe this stuff.’ My entire centre was rocked to its core.
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6. Meghan's low moments reminded him of his mother.
‘No one sees that what is happening behind closed doors,’ he says. ‘Back in the day, my mum would be in the car going to engagements in floods of tears. And then my dad would say, ‘we are almost there’. Then the door opens. Smile. Everything is fine.’
7. Meghan spoke about feeling suicidal with her mother.
Meghan says she blamed herself for the stress she and Harry felt under and she talked about her mental health and suicide to her mother. ‘I thought all of this will stop if I’m not here,’ she says. Her mother Doria adds: ‘She told me she wanted to take her own life and that broke my heart because I knew that it was bad. Harry regrets not looking after her better. ‘I dealt with it as institutional Harry as opposed to husband Harry,’ he says. ‘I had been trained to worry more about, ‘what if we don’t go to this event, what will people say?’ Looking back now I hate myself for it. What she needed from me was so much more than what I was able to give.’
8. Harry claims the palace press departments brief against each other.
‘It’s a dirty game,’ he says. ‘There is leaking but there is also planting of stories. If the comms team want to remove a story about their principle they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principle.’ He claims he and William agreed to never allow their teams to brief against each other but that pact was broken.
9. Harry believes the stress of legal battle with the media caused their miscarriage
The documentary is overshadowed by legal action the pair started against the Mail on Sunday for publishing extracts a her letter to her father and, in an incendiary claim, they say it may have provoked a miscarriage.
‘I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did," says Harry. “I watched the whole thing.”
Now do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was created caused by that? Of course, we don't," he added.
10. They considered relocating to New Zealand and South Africa
The pair had discussed living in another country for a long time; at first New Zealand and then South Africa were discussed but the plans were dropped once they became a public debate.
11. Harry suspects his father's office of leaking their plans.
Harry believes plans for the pair to move to Canada was leaked by his father’s office because it contained the key information that they were willing to relinquish their titles.
12. William ‘screamed and shouted’ at Harry at the Sandringham Summit
The meeting at Sandringham in January 2020 to discuss the couple's future was fractious. Lifting the lid for the first time about what happened, Harry claims: ‘It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things which just weren’t true. And my grandmother quietly sitting there taking it all in.’ Later on, a statement was put out from both the brothers denying a story that William had bullied his brother out of the family. Harry insists: ‘No one asked me for 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 they were happy to lie to protect my brother but they were never willing to protect us.’
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13. Tyler Perry leant them his $18million home - without ever meeting them.
Writer and actor Tyler and Perry offered them a home and bodyguard in Los Angeles without ever meeting them. He wrote to Meghan just before they married because he felt sorry for her and her problems with her father. One day, in Canada, Meghan phoned him: ‘I was a wreck, I was just crying and crying.’ He is Lilibet’s godfather.
14. Beyonce texted Meghan after the Oprah interview
On the morning after the Oprah interview aired Meghan received a text from Beyonce which she reads to Harry: ‘She said she wants me to feel safe and protected. She admires and respects my bravery and thinks I was selected to break generational curses that need to be healed.’ Harry also got a text from his brother. He tells Meghan: ‘I wish I knew what to do.’
15. Harry has ‘had to make peace’ with not receiving accountability or an apology from his family
When the Duke of Edinburgh died in April 2021, Harry had another fractious conversation with his father and brother. ‘They were focused on having the same misinterpretation of the whole situation,’ he says. ‘I have had to make peace with the fact that we’ll probably never get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.’
16. Lilibet is like her grandmother, Diana.
Harry sees a lot of his mother in Lilibet: ‘She is very Spencer-like. She has the same blue eyes and golden reddish hair.’
17. Harry misses his friends.
Harry says he misses the ‘weird’ family gatherings and his friends, adding, ‘I’ve lost friends in this process but I came here because I’d changed.’
