What did we learn from Volume II of the Harry & Meghan Netflix documentary

 

15m ago

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/live/2022/dec/15/harry-meghan-netflix-documentary-royal-family-william-kate-charles-live-reaction#top-of-blog

What did we learn from Volume II of the Harry & Meghan Netflix documentary

Netflix have released the final three episodes of the Harry & Meghan documentary. Here is what we learned:

 

• The Duchess of Sussex spoke of having a miscarriage while living in the US after the birth of the couple’s first child, which Prince Harry says he blames on the actions of Associated Newspapers – publisher of the Mail On Sunday and Mail Online.
• The couple were engaged in legal action over the paper reproducing in February 2019 a letter that Meghan had sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle. Harry says: “I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did. I watched the whole thing. Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? Of course we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that caused, the lack of sleep and the timing of the pregnancy – how many weeks in she was – I can say from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
• Harry claimed his brother, the Prince of Wales, screamed and shouted at him at a crisis summit in January 2020 at Sandringham in front of the Queen. His wife, Meghan, had “deliberately not been invited, Harry said, to the gathering at which the couple’s plans to step back from royal duties was to be discussed. Harry says he went to that Sandringham meeting with five options ranging from option one “all in”, to option five “all out”, and that in the meeting he chose option three – for them to have their own jobs, but continue to support the Queen’s work in the Commonwealth, while living abroad in Canada. “It became very clear,” Harry said, “that the option was not up for debate. It was very terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father says things that were just simply untrue, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in.”
• Harry said a joint statement that was issued on the day of the Sandringham meeting declaring a front page story about the brothers’ relationship as false, offensive and potentially harmful was done without his knowledge.
• The Duke of Sussex accused his father’s office of leaking private correspondence between Harry and Charles to the media over his plans to move to Canada. “The key piece of that story that made me aware that the contents of the letter between me and my father had been leaked was that we were willing to relinquish our Sussex titles. That was the giveaway”. Harry maintains this possibility was only mentioned in written communications with his father up to that point.
• The Duchess of Sussex described feeling suicidal after her treatment by the British media. In a clip Meghan said she just wanted to not be there, and Harry said that he did not handle the situation well and “I hate myself now” for the way he reacted as “institutional Harry” rather than “husband Harry”. “I wanted to go somewhere to get help,” Meghan says. “But I wasn’t allowed to. They were concerned how that would look for the institution.”
• Meghan said they did the interview with Oprah Winfrey because “people just didn’t really understand why we left” and that without their side of the story being put, there was a vacuum. “It was less about setting the record straight as filling in the blanks that other people were filling in for us.”
• Meghan said she thought the main takeaway from the Oprah interview would be about her struggles with mental health, not race. The couple were seen reacting to the statement from the Queen released in the wake of the interview being shown, in which the late Elizabeth II said “The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan. The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”
• Harry described one of the first things he saw on social media after the birth of his son Archie was the tweet by BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Danny Baker which depicted a black and white photo of a well-dressed couple next to a suited chimpanzee with the caption: “Royal baby leaves hospital”. Baker departed the BBC over the tweet, which he had subsequently deleted.
• Meghan spoke of her disquiet over death threats, saying of the media coverage of her “You are making people want to kill me. It’s not just some tabloid. It’s not just some story. You are making me scared. Are we safe? Are the doors locked? That’s real. Are my babies safe? And you’ve created it for what? Because you’re bored? It sells your papers?”
• Harry said returning to the UK for the funeral of his grandfather, Prince Philip was hard because of the attitude of his brother and father towards him. “It was hard. Especially spending a time having chats with my brother and father who were just, you know, very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation. None of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s funeral, but we did. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I’m probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.
• Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace have declined to comment the documentary.