Biggest Revelations From Episode 3

After detailing the early days of their romance in episodes one and two of Harry & Meghan, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle opened up about the drama leading up to and shortly after in the third episode, which started streaming on Thursday, December 8.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex wed in May 2018 after meeting during summer 2016. Royal enthusiasts will recall speculation about which members of Meghan’s family would be at the nuptials as her half-sister, Samantha Markle, gave interviews trashing the Suits alum.

“The U.K. media wanted my mom’s side of my family to be the ones that all this drama could be stirred up with. And then you have my mom who’s classy and quiet. And then you had the other side of my family that is just … acting differently,” the 41-year-old former actress said, claiming that she hadn’t seen Samantha in over a decade with the exception of once for “a day and a half” in Meghan’s early 20s. “Suddenly, it felt like she was everywhere. … I don’t know your middle name. I don’t know your birthday. You’re telling these people you raised me, and you coined me Princess Pushy? I don’t remember seeing her when I was a kid at my dad’s house. … I hadn’t had a fallout with her. We didn’t have a closeness to be able to have that. And I wanted a sister!”

While Meghan and Samantha allegedly didn’t hit it off, the duchess did bond with Samantha’s biological daughter, Ashleigh. Meghan’s niece appeared in the docuseries and explained that her parental grandparents adopted her, and she hadn’t seen Samantha since she was 6 years old until they reconnected in 2007.

“There’s a sister element,” Ashleigh said of Meghan. “There’s something maternal, she’s a best friend, she’s kinda all the things.”

Samantha, however, didn’t approve of Ashleigh maintaining a relationship with Meghan after news broke of her relationship with Harry. “Samantha pretty quickly began expressing a lot of angry words about Meg towards me. What was communicated to me was maybe some resentment, and it felt like no matter what I said, you know, her perspective didn’t change and seemed to get angrier and bigger, and we stopped talking. Some people you just can’t reason with,” Ashleigh said.

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While the royal family didn’t comment on the docuseries — with Netflix including a disclaimer that they “declined to comment on the content within this series” – Samantha released a statement that read: “Samantha Markle maintains that she and Meghan had a close relationship until 2018 and that the media fabricated quotes that have been attributed to her.” (A source has since alleged to Us Weekly that the family was not “approached for comment regarding the content of the series.”

Meghan’s dad, Thomas Markle, has also made waves in recent years, notably skipping the wedding after he was caught staging photos with paparazzi.

“I felt sad that the media would run with this, [that] he would capitalize [on it],” Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, said. “Certainly, as a parent. … That’s not what you do. That’s not parenting.”

Meghan added: “The unraveling happened that week when he wouldn’t pick up my call. And instead you’re talking to TMZ.”

For the biggest takeaways from episode one, click here and for the biggest takeaways from episode two, click here. Or keep scrolling for the biggest bombshells from episode three:

Credit: Youtube

Meghan Calls Engagement Interview an ‘Orchestrated Reality Show’

After he popped the question, Harry and Meghan did their first joint interview in November 2017.

“It was, you know, rehearsed. We did the thing out with the press, then we went right inside, took the coat off and did the interview,” Meghan said. “So it’s all in that same moment.” When asked to expand on how it was orchestrated, she responded: “[They said], ‘They’ll be a moment they want to see the ring, so show the ring.’”

“My point is we weren’t allowed to tell our story because they didn’t want …” she continued before Harry interjected, “We’ve never been allowed to tell our story.”

“That’s true,” Meghan said with a laugh.

Harry concluded: “That’s the consistency.”

Credit: Tim Rooke/Shutterstock

Meghan’s Zipper Broke at 1st Walkabout

Meghan recalled not knowing what a “walkabout” was when she did her first engagement as Harry’s fiancée.

“I could talk her through as much as I knew from my own experience of what I’d seen. The piece I really didn’t know about was the style, right, and what a woman needed, how they needed to dress and all that,” Harry said as Meghan recalled stressing out about earrings and wearing U.K. designers. “And then the [zipper] breaks … the whole thing was just ridiculous.”

Despite wardrobe issues, the event actually went well. “I thought to myself ‘What a dream … I’ve found someone that not necessarily finds this easy but is able to do it and make it look easy,’” Harry explained.

Meghan later addressed other clothing issues she faced. “Most of the time that I was in the U.K. I rarely wore color. There was thought in that,” she said. “To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same color as Her Majesty if there’s a group event. But then you also should never be wearing the same color as one of the other more senior members of the family. So I was like, ‘Well, what’s a color that they’ll probably never wear? Camel? Beige? White?’ I’m not trying to stand out here. So there’s no version of me joining this family and trying to not do everything I could to fit in.”

Credit: David Parker/ANL/Shutterstock

The ‘Royal Rota’ Explained

After Meghan inquired about the definition of a royal expert, Archewell’s Tim Burt explained the “royal rota.”

“The royal rota is a system by which certain media are allocated slots to cover members of the family,” Burt said. “However aggressive their previous coverage might have been, they still get the right to be on the rota.”

Harry then explained: “If you’re apart of the royal rota, you have priority over the story over everybody else. All royal news goes through the filter of all the newspapers within the royal rota. It all comes down to control. It’s like, ‘This family is ours to exploit. Their trauma is our story and our narrative to control.’”

Credit: Tim Rooke/Shutterstock

Meghan’s 1st Christmas

“I remember so vividly the first Christmas at Sandringham. Calling my mom, and she’s like, ‘How’s it going?’ and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. It’s just like a big family like I always wanted,’” Meghan explained of Christmas with the queen in 2017. “There was just this constant movement and energy and fun.”

She recalled sitting next to Prince Philip: “At dinner, I was sat next to H’s grandfather and I just thought it was so wonderful. I was like, ‘Oh, we chatted and it was so great and I talked about this and talked about this.’ [Harry] was like, ‘You had [his] bad ear. He couldn’t hear anything you were saying.’ I was like, ‘Oh, well I thought it went really well.’”

Credit: Shutterstock

Princess Michael of Kent’s Blackamoor Brooch Scandal

The couple spoke about racism that Meghan experienced in the U.K. during episodes one and two. In episode three, Harry addressed the queen’s cousin wearing a blackamoor brooch to Christmas in 2017. (Princess Michael of Kent apologized after the piece of jewelry was deemed racist.)

“In this family, sometimes you’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias. The thing with unconscious bias is it’s actually no one’s fault, but once it’s been pointed out or identified within yourself, you then need to make it right,” the prince said. “It’s education, it’s awareness. And it’s a constant work in progress for everybody, including me.”

Harry went on to address his past Halloween costume as a Nazi solider in 2005. “It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I felt so ashamed afterwards. All I wanted to do was make it right,” he said. “We sat down and spoke to the chief rabbi in London which had a profound impact on me. I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor. I could’ve just ignored it and probably made the same mistakes in my life over and over again in my life, but I learnt from that.”

Credit: Netflix

Meghan Was ‘Guided’ Not to Invite Niece to Wedding

“I think we both craved the same thing. I wanted a sister and she was like a little sister,” Meghan said of Samantha’s biological daughter. “Ash was put through quite a bit by the media just through association. I didn’t want her life to be plagued with all that drama.”

According to Meghan, she was “guided” not to invite Ashleigh to the wedding because Samantha wasn’t on the guest list.

“I don’t think anyone understands what that very small comms team was dealing with. They just couldn’t wrap their heads around it. And I have compassion for it. How do we explain that this half-sister isn’t invited to the wedding, but that the half-sister’s daughter is? And so with Ashleigh, the guidance at the time was to not have her come to our wedding,” she explained. “I was in the car with H. I had her on speaker phone and we talked her through what guidance we were being given and why this assessment was made and that’s painful.”

Ashleigh also reacted: “I think I said I was hurt on some level but I understood where it was coming from. To know that it was because of my biological mother that this relationship that’s so important to me was impacted in that way. To feel like because of her, it was taken away. It’s been hard.”

Credit: Tim Rooke/Shutterstock

Meghan Believes Thomas’ Phone Was ‘Compromised’ Amid Wedding Drama

Meghan recalled learning about the photos of Thomas staging shots with paps.

“H and I called my dad. I said, ‘They’re saying you’re taking money from the tabloids to stage photos. Is this true?’ He says, ‘No.’ And on that call, I’d said to him, ‘Look. If they can’t stop it, this story, then it’s going to come out tomorrow so why don’t we send someone right now to your house to get you out of there now because if that’s the case, your house’ll be swarmed by media. We’ll get you out,’” she explained. “I was like, ‘We’ll just come and get you a day early and take you out of Mexico.’ And he said, ‘No. I have things I need to do.’ And it felt really cagey. I was like, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ And when we hung up, I looked at H. I was like, ‘I don’t know why but I don’t believe him.’”

Thomas then claimed to TMZ that he was in the hospital.

“Someone texted back on his phone. It was really weird. You know how people text, right? Like, you know, my dad used a lot of emojis and a lot of, like, ellipses and dot-dot-dot and this was just the opposite,” Meghan continued of trying to contact Thomas when he was allegedly sick. “And it called me Meghan. I was like, ‘He’s never called me Meghan any day I’ve lived on this planet.’ Meg — all my friends call me Meg and my parents call me Meg. And I was like, ‘That’s not my dad.’ So then, we knew that his phone had been compromised. And we said, ‘Pick up the phone. We need to know it’s you.’ [I] never spoke to him.”

Harry added: “Of course, it’s incredibly sad what happened. She had a father before this. And now she doesn’t have a father. And I shouldered that. Because if Meg wasn’t with me, then her dad would still be her dad.”

Credit: Shutterstock

Meghan Referencing #MeToo

Meghan joined Harry, Prince William and Princess Kate’s joint charity — The Royal Foundation — after they got engaged. The only event the foursome had before the charity was split amid alleged tension was in June 2018. At the event, Meghan spoke about the #MeToo movement and Time’s Up — something the royal family had been noticeably quiet about.

“I didn’t know that that would be taboo to talk about. … Joining this family, I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done,” Meghan said. “Do you remember that old movie Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway? There’s no class [where] some person goes, ‘Sit like this, cross your legs like this, use this fork, don’t do this, curtsy then, wear this kind of hat.’ … It doesn’t happen. So I needed to learn a lot, including the national anthem.”

Harry added: ”On top of that, with the press, there were a lot of invented protocols.”

“It was baptism by fire,” Meghan declared.