4:28
- culture
- December 15, 2022
Harry, Meghan detail their exit from royal roles
"Harry & Meghan" shares the details of the couple's exit from royal life.
4:28
Shortly after, Harry and Meghan chose to spend the final months of 2019 in Vancouver Island, Canada, forgoing the tradition of spending Christmas with Harry's family at Sandringham.
The sixth and final episode of the series opens with Harry, Meghan, Archie and Meghan's mother Doria Ragland on what Harry describes as a \"freedom flight\" out of Canada to Los Angeles, where Meghan was born.
The March 2020 flight came as Harry and Meghan's publicly funded security was pulled and the couple said they feared the Canadian border would be closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
\"I wonder what would have happened to us had we not got out when we did,\" said Harry, while Meghan describes their vulnerability in Canada with paparazzi surrounding the home where they were staying.
Ragland describes the \"stress\" the couple faced, saying of the flight, \"It felt like they were running.\"
The Sussexes' ability to move to California came courtesy of actor and director Tyler Perry, whom Harry says the couple had not met at the time.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/harry-megan-netfix-ho-mz-07-221215_1671109902608_hpEmbed_16x9_384.jpg\")
Perry said in the series that he is \"not a royal watcher\" but felt compelled to help the couple after seeing headlines about Meghan's father's interactions with the press, saying he \"immediately empathized\" with the duchess.
\"I couldn't even imagine this woman finding the man that she loved, the man of her dreams, and him being a prince and then to walk into all of that madness and need the security of family and then have your father say horrible things,\" said Perry. \"When my life changed and success started to come, family members became different people and I know how hurtful that can be and how horrible that can be.\"
Perry said he sent a letter to Meghan before the wedding and offered his support and help.
When the couple was in Canada and Meghan called asking for help, Perry said he was ready, explaining, \"For both of them to have the wherewithal to say, 'I don't give a damn if it's the palace, I'm out of here,' I applauded that.\"
Harry said he and Meghan moved to Perry's Los Angeles-area mansion with 13 suitcases, describing it as \"bliss\" because \"no one knew we were there,\" including his family.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/harry-megan-ho-mz-01-221208_1670495235909_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
\"My family still thought I was in Canada,\" Harry said of the first six weeks they spent at Perry's mansion, before their location was revealed by a U.K. tabloid.
One year later, after the June 2021 birth of their daughter Lili, Harry and Meghan asked Perry to be her godfather.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/harry-megan-netfix-ho-mz-08-221215_1671110375832_hpEmbed_9x5_384.jpg\")
\"They said, 'Well, we'd like for you to be Lili's godfather,'\" Perry recalled of the phone call. \"I go, 'Whoa.' I had to take a minute to take that in, and I thought, I'd be honored. I'd absolutely be honored.\"
Perry continued, \"I got off the phone, took it all in, and then I called them back, I go, 'Uh, hold on a second. Does this mean we have to go over there [to the U.K.] and do all of that in the church with them and figure all that out, because I don't want to do that. Maybe we can do a little private ceremony here and let that be that, and if you have to do it there, then it's okay.\"
Harry revealed that he and Meghan had discussed moving to New Zealand in 2018 or relocating to South Africa in 2019.
The South Africa move was approved by the palace, according to Harry, who said the \"whole plan was scrapped\" when it leaked to the press.
Meghan said she thought moving to a Commonwealth country would have been an \"asset\" for the royal family.
\"The job is a lot of cause-driven work, so I thought, 'This is great,'\" she said. \"There's an asset in having a woman of color when you have 50-plus Commonwealth countries, the majority of which are people of color.\"
In early 2020, while the couple spent time away from the U.K. on Vancouver Island, Harry said he emailed a plan to his father requesting that he and Meghan \"find a different way of working\" and relocate to Canada for at least two years.
\"I was speaking to my father, 'This is the plan,' and he says, can you put it in writing? And I said, 'I'd rather not, because of what happened last time,'\" Harry recalled, referencing the South African plan that was made public. \"He says, 'I can't do anything unless you put it in writing,' so I put it in writing, sent him emails on the 1st and the 2nd and 3rd of January. And in one of those, I'd mentioned in one of those, if this wasn't going to work out, then we would be willing to relinquish our Sussex titles if need be, so that was the plan.\"
Harry and Meghan then recalled seeing details of the plan in the U.K. tabloids.
\"His dad said, 'Put it in writing,' and he did and five days later it was on the front page of the newspaper,\" said Meghan.
\"It became clear that the institution leaked the fact that we were going to move back to Canada and 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 said. \"I was like, wow, like our story, our life literally got taken from underneath us.\"
Just days later, on Jan. 8, 2020, Harry and Meghan publicly shared in an Instagram post their plans to \"step back as senior members of the royal family.\"
Lucy Fraser, identified in the docuseries as a friend of Meghan, alleges that stories about Meghan were fed to the press on purpose.
\"Meg became this scapegoat for the palace,\" Fraser said. \"So they would feed stories on her, whether they were true or not, to avoid other less favorable stories being printed.\"
The docuseries does not give additional context on Fraser's allegation, nor does it make clear to whom she was referring: Buckingham Palace; the household of Charles and Camilla, the Queen Consort; or Kensington Palace, the household of William and Kate, the Princess of Wales.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/prince-harry-memoir--meghan-markle-02-gty-llr-221026_1666818459047_hpEmbed_16x9_384.jpg\")
The series points to the popularity Harry and Meghan experienced during their two-week tour of Australia and New Zealand in 2018 as a turning point in the tone of the press coverage they received, particularly for Meghan.
Harry and others say the press coverage of Meghan became more negative as she rose in popularity compared to other royal family members. Meghan said the intense press scrutiny subsequently contributed to her serious mental health struggles.
\"When someone who is marrying in, who should be a 'supporting act' is then stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people,\" Harry said. \"That shifts the balance.\"
Harry & Meghan. All episodes are now streaming. Only on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/ERElENiFPC
— Netflix (@netflix) December 15, 2022
Harry also alleged the \"planting\" of stories against him and Meghan from inside the royal institution.
\"There is leaking but there is also planting of stories, so if the [communications] team wants to be able to remove a negative story about their principal, they will trade and give you something about someone else's principal,\" he said. \"So the offices end up working against each other.\"
Alisa Anderson, a former press secretary for the queen, told ABC News that Harry and Meghan's account does not ring true to her experience of working for the royal family.
\"In the 13 years that I worked for the royal household, there was not one occasion I ever briefed against another member of the royal family,\" Anderson said. \" It would be completely counterproductive. It would damage the institution and it would be wrong and the queen would not sanction it.\"
The fifth episode of the series documents Harry and Meghan's final five engagements as senior working royals, completed over a span of five days in March 2020.
\"It never needed to be this way,\" Harry said. \"We talked about this over and over again, sitting up late in the kitchen after these late-night engagements, saying, 'We would have carried on doing this for the rest of our lives.\"
Meghan described the reaction they received in the U.K., that week, saying, \"The people were just so embracing. They were sad that we were leaving. We were sad that we were leaving.\"
The couple says the first time they saw members of the royal family that week was at their final engagement, on March 9, when the attended the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey.
\"I felt really distant from the rest of my family,\" Harry said. \"Which was interesting because so much of how they operate is about what it looks like rather than what it feels like, and it looked cold, but it also felt cold.\"
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/harry-megan-netflix-ap-mz-02-221215_1671102476852_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
Looking back on her time as a working royal, Meghan says, \"I tried so hard. And that's the piece that's so triggering, because you go, 'And it still wasn't good enough. And you still don't fit in.'\"
Later in the series, Harry reflects on returning to the U.K. over one year later, in April 2021, to join his family at the funeral of his grandfather, Prince Philip.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/prince-philip-funeral-william-harry-nc-jt-210417_1618676748580_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
\"It was hard, especially spending time having chats with my brother and my father who just, you know, were very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation,\" Harry said. \"None of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s funeral, but we did.\"
He continued, \"I’ve had to make peace with the fact that we’re probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology. My wife and I, we’re moving on. We’re focused on what’s coming next.\"
Members of the royal family have not commented on Harry and Meghan's docuseries.
On Thursday, Buckingham Palace said it had no comment on the docuseries' final three episodes.
In the opening seconds of the first episode of \"Harry & Meghan,\" Netflix states that members of Britain's royal family \"declined to comment on the content within this series.\"
Royal sources told ABC News last week \"that neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace nor any members of the royal family were approached for comment on the content of the series.\"
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/royals-file-gty-ml-210312_1615552709102_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
According to royal sources, Kensington Palace, the household of Harry's brother Prince William and his wife Kate, the Princess of Wales, received an email purporting to be from a third-party production company, via a different, unknown organization's email address.
The palace contacted Harry and Meghan's production company, Archewell Productions, and Netflix to attempt to verify the authenticity of the email but received no response, sources said.
According to the sources, without being able to verify the email's authenticity, the palace was \"unable\" to provide any response.
A source at Netflix, meanwhile, told ABC News that communications offices for Charles and William were contacted in advance and given the right to reply to claims within the series.
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