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.
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.’