The highly anticipated Netflix series featuring Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, premiered Thursday on the subscription network with stories of how the couple met, a look at their childhoods and how they were treated by the royal family and the press.
The series, “Harry & Meghan,” which will be released in two parts, dropped on Thursday, with the next set of episodes scheduled for next Thursday, Dec. 15.
The first episodes of the documentary focused on how the couple met through a mutual friend on Instagram. Harry was late for their first date and Meghan was late for the second one, the couple said.
The main theme throughout the first episodes is the intrusion of the press on their lives. The couple describes how it affected them after it became more intense as they were dating and continued when they were married and starting a family.
Meghan said as the press became more of an issue she was “believing what I had been told. It will pass. It will get better. It’s just what they [the press] do at the beginning.”
In one part of the show, Harry says members of the royal family felt that their girlfriends had gone through dealing with the media like it was a rite of initiation.
“So it was almost like a rite of passage, and some of the members of the family were like ‘my wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’”
Harry recounts issuing a statement in which he complained about the racial element of the press treatment and the coverage.
In another part of the series, Harry recalls when he realized he wanted to spend his life with Meghan.
“I fell head over heels in love with her — she’s going to be the one I spend the rest of my life with,” he said, adding “and my head started realizing she was perfect for the role.”
He also compares her to his mother, the late Princess Diana.
“So much of what Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mum. She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence, she has this warmth about her.”
Harry says that his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, was the first member of the royal family that Meghan met.
“It was surreal,” Meghan said.
“You know how to curtsy, right?” Harry said just before meeting they met the queen. “How do you explain that to someone, that you bow to your grandmother?” Harry said.
“I thought he was joking,” Meghan remarked.
Queen Elizabeth died in September. The documentary noted that all of the interviews were concluded by August, 2022.
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