The Duchess of Sussex has given viewers access to some of her biggest bombshell moments. Following her decision to leave the UK and move to Montecito in 2020, with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle has hit back against the rumour mill, sharing her side of the story. After joining Oprah Winfrey for a tell-all interview, Meghan and Harry expanded on the royal feud in a six-part docuseries released on Netflix.
Secret Text from Prince William
In episode six of Harry & Meghan, the Suits star was seen on the phone with her friend, Tyler Perry, when her husband entered the room. As he held his phone at her, Meghan asked, "What am I looking at?" before adding, "Wow." Before exiting her call with the Hollywood director, Meghan explained that Harry had just received a text from his brother, Prince William, following their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey. "I wish I knew what to do," Harry said, prompting Meghan to give him a long and emotional hug.
First Meeting with Princess Kate and Prince William
During episode two of the docu-series, Meghan revealed what happened when she met Prince William and Princess Kate for the first time at Nottingham Cottage. "Even when Will and Kate came over, and I met her for the first time, they came over for dinner, I remember I was in ripped jeans, and I was barefoot," Meghan said. "Like I was a hugger, I've always been a hugger. I didn't realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits. I guess I started to understand really quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside."
Heartbreak Over Niece Ashleigh
Meghan has frequently spoken about her close relationship with her niece, Ashleigh Hale, but she's also revealed that due to the behaviour of Ashleigh's mum - aka her estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle - Meghan couldn't invite Ashleigh to her 2018 wedding. "How do we explain that this half-sister isn't invited to the wedding but the half-sister's daughter is?" Meghan said in episode three. "So with Ashleigh, the guidance at the time was to not have her come to our wedding. I was in the car with H, and I called her, and we had her on speakerphone, and we talked her through what guidance we were being given and why this assessment was being made and..., and that's painful." Ashleigh, who also took part in the Netflix series, recalled: "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, has been hard."
Thomas Markle's 'Betrayal'
During a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan was asked if she felt betrayed after learning that her father, Thomas Markle, had been working with the tabloids. "If we're going to use the word betrayal, it’s because when I asked him, when the comms team told us this the story was coming out [...] we called my dad and I asked him and he said, ‘No, absolutely not,’” Meghan explained. "I said, you know, the institution has never intervened for anything for us, but they can try to go in and kill this story," she continued, noting that if the Palace did intervene, then she and Harry wouldn't be able to use the same leverage to protect their children in the future. Adding that she had asked her father to tell her the truth, Meghan concluded that he "wasn't able to do that."
Meghan Says She Doesn't 'Really Know' Half-Sister Samantha
Meghan has also shed some light on her relationship with her estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle, who has famously worked with the press and released a scathing memoir about Meghan. "I don't feel comfortable talking about people that I really don't know," the duchess told Oprah in 2021. "I grew up as an only child, which everyone who grew up around me knows, and I wished I had siblings. I would have loved to have had siblings."
