The first three episodes of “Harry & Megan” are coming to an end: what did they learn about King Charles and the royal family?
The trailers for the series, Harry & Megan, were edited to make them appear as though they were racist and an attempt to find out why the couple moved to Southern California almost three years ago. Over the last 18 months, it has delivered a series of interviews about the royal family and the British media.
The first three episodes of the project, titled “Harry &Meg”, were released on Thursday, after months of speculation that they would star in a series.
They detail the pair’s first kiss, their first exposure to the structures and demands of royal life, the pervasive nature of Britain’s tabloid media and the death of Harry’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
Buckingham Palaces will be bracing for the backlash from the series, after enduring strained relations between prince William and his father, King Charles.
It is hard to look back on it and comprehend what happened. After the pair finished their royal duties in March 2020, Harry said in a video diary that they wondered how they ended up here.
He said he became “genuinely concerned for the safety of my family,” attacking the intrusion of the media, which he has frequently lamented in recent years.
My dad told me I couldn’t take on the media. The palace has a relationship with the news media that is a dirty game, according to Harry.
Buckingham Palace was braced for possible explosive recollections, as was the case when the couple sat down with Oprah Winfrey last year, but in the end there was little to really respond to – perhaps a few awkward moments but nothing truly embarrassing or damaging.
After the death ofQueen Elizabeth II, King Charles III wants to make sure that the monarchy is still important to the public as he tries to paint a picture of his institution’s continued relevance. Charles is trying to convince people that the House of Windsor can unify Britain by using the early days of his rule to meet with various ethnic groups and faiths.
Buckingham Palace reiterated it will not comment on the documentary on Thursday. Royal engagements are meanwhile continuing, with King Charles and Camilla, the Queen Consort, set to visit a community kitchen in London and attend a carol service with the Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the family.
The couple spoke about the constraints placed on them while members of the royal family, but their frustration reappeared in the documentary.
In her engagement announcement, she described it as an orchestrated reality show. And speaking of the media’s initial fascination with the prince’s then-girlfriend, Harry recalled how other members of the royal family struggled to share his concern.
“As far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well. It was almost like a ritual, according to Harry. “My wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get a special treatment? Why should she be protected?,” he said, paraphrasing their arguments.
It was once thought that Harry’s marriage to a woman of mixed race would boost the royal family’s effort to move into the 21st century. But the fairy tale, which began with a star-studded ceremony at Windsor Castle, soon soured amid stories that Meghan was self-centered and bullied her staff.
“These are the skeletons in the closet that frequently make an unwelcome appearance in daily life in this family – sometimes, you know, you’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution and there is a huge level of unconscious bias,” Harry said.
“The thing with unconscious bias is actually no one’s fault, but once it’s been pointed out or identified within yourself, you then need to make it right,” he said.
Meghan and Meghan: Moving to California, and the consequences of her separation from a man and a wife in the Hollywood Scenario for Harry and Meghan
In a telling section on his experience of other royal marriages, Harry said: “I think for so many people in the family, especially the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mold, as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with.
“The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough,” said Meghan. “There was a big idea of what that looks like from the UK standpoint. Hollywood was easy for them to typecast.
Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, stepped back from royal duties and moved to California, alleging racist attacks by Britain’s tabloid media. Harry’s criticism of the media was tinged with anger over the way the press treated his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car accident in 1997 while being followed by photographers. The new life for a couple in America has been funded by lucrative contracts with the two streaming services.
“I remember thinking, how can I ever find someone who is willing and capable to be able to withstand all the baggage that comes with being with me?” He said so.
The breakdown of her relationship with her father was brought to light over allegations that he had staged photos in order to get her to marry him.
“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,” Harry said.
The First Three Seasons of CNN’s Royal News: The Real Princess and the Prince’s Secret Relation to the Queen, Harry, Meghan, and Their Spouse Parents
The first three episodes were released on Thursday, with three more scheduled for next week. Interviews were completed in August, the month before the Queen’s death, according to the series.
Sign up for CNN’s Royal News, a weekly dispatch bringing you the inside track on the royal family, what they are up to in public and what’s happening behind palace walls.
LONDON — Britain’s monarchy is bracing for more bombshells to be lobbed over the palace gates Thursday as Netflix releases the first three episodes of a series that promises to tell the “full truth” about Prince Harry and Meghan’s estrangement from the royal family.
Prince William, the heir to the throne and Harry’s older brother, defended the royal family after the interview, telling reporters, “We’re very much not a racist family.”
Last week, a Black advocate for the survivors of domestic abuse said that a senior member of the royal household had questioned her about her origins during a reception at the palace. The palace had hoped that William’s visit to Boston would highlight their environmental credentials, but British media coverage of the issue overshadowed it.
The U.K. will be aware of the program’s accusations of sexism, racism and unfair media treatment and will watch it carefully.
In a section of the film there are clips of the media and Princess Diana and in a voice-over, Harry points out the pain and suffering of women when they marry into this institution. … I didn’t want history to repeat itself so I was terrified.
Sky News reported that one clip used to illustrate his words appeared to show reporters and photographers waiting for TV starkatie Price outside the court.
“There’s a hierarchy of the family,” Harry says, over an image of the royal family standing on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. There’s also planting of stories, but there’s leaking.
That is followed by a picture of a photographer perched on another balcony as Harry and Meghan walk with their young son Archie down below. While the scene suggests the photographer was covertly snapping pictures of a private moment, the photo actually shows an accredited press photographer who was covering the couple’s meeting with Desmond Tutu in 2019.
The palace hopes that the show will show William and Kate as forward looking royals who are tackling difficult issues such as climate change and early childhood education in a different way than Harry and Markle, who are described by critics as merely celebrities selling their story to the media.
The BBC and the Daily Telegraph, one of Britain’s most influential newspapers, picked up on this theme in their coverage of William and Kate’s three-day trip to Boston, where they handed out environmental prizes, met with anti-violence campaigners and went to a basketball game.
When Harry and Meghan met on the plane: the impact of his mother, Princess Diana, on a family holiday in Botswana, South Africa
Meg and I met through social media. I was looking at my feed. A friend had a video of the two of them with dog ears. Harry said: “I was like, who is that?”
I was terrified, Harry said. I started sweating.” Unaware of this, Meghan began to doubt that the date would go anywhere, thinking he might have an “ego.”
The couple described how their relationship was cemented in Africa, when Meghan traveled to join Harry on a visit to Botswana in August 2016 – having only met him twice before.
He recalled learning as a young child how to handle the attention, saying: “Within the family, within the system, the advice that’s always given is ‘don’t react. Don’t get sucked into it.
The footage of family ski holidays was used to highlight this. In one piece of footage, Harry is seen with his brother Prince William and cousins Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice posing for a group of photographers under an agreement that would allow them to stay out of the news media during the holiday. His mother confronted the photographer after another intrusive clip followed.
Harry brought up the now discredited 1995 Panorama interview with his mother, Princess Diana. He admitted she was deceived, but he said she had spoken the truth.
He witnessed the pain and suffering of women entering the institution as a child. I didn’t want history to repeat itself after my mother’s death, he said.
“The difference between making decisions with your head or your heart. Most of the decisions my mum has made have come from her heart. And I am my mother’s son.”
There will be people around the world who do not agree with how I have done it. But I knew that I had to do everything I could to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mum.”
A man with red hair, and really good manners, was 6’1″. He was very nice. And they looked really happy together. Yeah, like he was the one,” she said.
Discussing her daughter’s early years with her, Ragland said she was asked if she was the nanny as her daughter’s skin was lighter.
She said she was casual at the time and had ripped jeans. She described herself as a “hugger,” but said that this can be “jarring” for some British people.
“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside,” she said. “That formality carries over on both sides, and that was surprising to me.”
Meghan recalled being told that she would have to curtsy, while Harry said: “How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you all need to curtsy. Especially to an American. That is weird.
He talked about how impressed his family was, though they weren’t sure about her background and thought that her being a Hollywood actress meant “this won’t last.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/uk/harry-meghan-netflix-takeaways-scli-intl/index.html
A Conversation Between Harry & Meghan, and Their Half-Sister Samantha Markle: The Phenomenology of Rascism in Britain
Harry even addressed the time when he wore a Nazi uniform to a private party in 2005, saying it was one of the “biggest mistakes” of his life, adding that he felt “so ashamed afterwards.”
Meghan opened up about her half-sister Samantha Markle, who she said she hadn’t seen since her early twenties but who frequently spoke of her in the media.
Meghan said: “I don’t know your middle name. I do not know your birthday. You’re telling these people that you raised me, and you’ve coined me ‘Princess Pushy.’”
These days in Britain, very little unites the right and left. “Harry & Meghan,” the intimate Netflix series released Thursday, is quickly shaping up to be the exception.
The Independent, a more centrist player in british media, was less savage but not exactly admiring, calling the series “self-aggrandizing” and “wildly entertaining.” In her review, Jessie Thompson makes points about racism in Britain, and finds the couple at times endearing and sympathetic.
Piers Morgan, who has been vociferously critical of the couple in the past, wastes no time laying into the series in his scathing review in The Sun, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch:
Why MEG and HARRY? And what are they waiting for? The narcissistic princes of the Real-life soap opera
Who are the world’s biggest victims right now? You may think that it’s the poor people of Ukraine who are being raped by the barbarians. The Covid epidemic causes widespread death and long-term illness and has ruined lives. There are millions of people battling financial hardship in a devastating cost-of-living crisis that has swept the globe.
But no. The world’s biggest victims are, of course, Prince Harry and his fiancée, actress-turned-model-turned-narcissists, known to most simply as MEG and HARRY.
Later in his review, Morgan cautions viewers they may need a “sick bucket.” He was not the only one who experienced distress in the GI tract. The first three episodes were so sickening that Lucy Mangan almost brought up breakfast, according to a headline in the Guardian.
Mangan does point out that the series so far has plenty of sweet moments — particularly of Prince Harry and Meghan “being charming and funny together” — but she ultimately finds the finished product wanting:
What are we left with in the end? The same story has been told to us in the way we would expect it to be told. Those who aren’t paying attention will not watch. Those who do care — which is to say are voyeuristically invested in the real-life soap opera — will still read into it anything they want to and doubtless confirm all their previous ideas. There is plenty here to start another round of tabloid frenzy, particularly in Harry’s mention of members of the royal family who consider the pressure placed on anyone “marrying in” a rite of passage and resist allowing anyone else to avoid what their own spouses went through, and who bow to internal pressure to choose a wife who “fits the mould.” It is hard to tell who the villains of the piece will gain from this.
The King Coal: Taking a Break from the Angry Magic of Harry: A Conversation with a Girl Changing Their Lives
There are two books about gender and family by Dr. Peggy Drexler, both to be published by Simon & Schuster, and the book about women behaving badly will be published in 2024. Her latest film, “King Coal,” will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers. There is more opinion on CNN.
But who’s to say that people haven’t gotten a glimpse of who they are? What makes their version — a heavily produced, edited and controlled version — more honest than any version of their lives that’s come before? It’s striking how much the filtered version of events functions in the series as their version of real life. Meghan recalls how when she first got connected with Harry, she wanted to review his Instagram feed as a way to get to know him, and social media posts comprise a significant portion of the archive that guides their narrative together.
The series content is a lot the same as what we’ve already seen or heard. There are some new aspects, such as friends who haven’t commented or photos we’ve never seen, but they aren’t worth much to people. It’s self-promotional, self-aggrandizing and, frankly, a little boring. They do not come off as more likeable and, in fact, perhaps a lot less so. Notably, it’s perhaps the first time that much of the dislike is directed toward Harry, instead of just Meghan.
Whereas once he may have been viewed by the public as a hapless victim of a cunning attention seeker, or suffering from a form of “repetition compulsion” in which he’s repeating in his adult life a scenario familiar to him from growing up Princess Diana’s son, viewers will surely now have less sympathy. He deliberately chose to see what he wanted to see.
After the trailer shows Harry describing gaslighting, the footage cuts to her saying: “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves, I was being fed to the wolves.”
In the clip, released Monday, the Duke of Sussex discusses stepping back from royal duties and ponders what might have happened to the couple “had we not got out when we did.”
“They were happy to lie to protect my brother (Prince William), they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us,” adds Harry. He stops short of saying who they are in the short clip.
The Next Three Episodes of Netflix: A Realistic Observation of the Duchess and the Duke of Sussex’s Search for a New Home
Similar to the format of the first three episodes, the trailer provides an intimate glimpse into the couple’s lives, with personal footage and pictures interspersed with media coverage.
The trailer features TylerERRY, the film maker who offered his house to the couple after they left their lives in the UK. “They wanted to be free to love and be happy,” he says. “I applauded that.”
Are you up to it for round two? The final three episodes of the eagerly awaited Netflix docuseries from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are releasing on Thursday.
The project became the biggest documentary debut ever on the platform after a long period of rumour and speculation.
The series was touted by the streamer as a “global event” and was teased in punchy trailers as a tell-all of Prince Harry and Meghan’s departure from the royal front lines in 2020.
However, these next three episodes may be a harder watch for the Windsor clan. Signaling what lies ahead, trailers released this week will undoubtedly have raised some red flags within the royal household.
What do royals in the royal family do when they come together, and how they find their way… Harry and Meghan talk to the press, and what will they tell them
A friend of the couple then claims unfavorable stories about the pair were leaked to the press, in an effort to bury stories about other members of the royal family.
You would see it play out. A story about someone in the family would pop up and they would have to make it go away. But there’s real estate on a website homepage, there is real estate there on a newspaper front cover, and something has to be filled in there about someone royal.”
It was terrifying to have William scream at him in the last part of the documentary, according to Prince Harry.
According to Harry, the Queen told him that she was busy all week. “I was like, wow,” Harry said. “This is when a family and a family business are in direct conflict … really what they’re doing is blocking a grandson from seeing his grandmother,” added Meghan.
“But you have to understand that from the family’s perspectives, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things. And her ultimate mission and goal, responsibility, is the institution … she’s going to go on the advice that she’s given,” Harry said.
Prince Harry said that other royals were jealous of the amount of media attention he andMeghan were getting. When someone who is marrying in and then stealing the spotlight or doing the job better than the person born to do this is the issue, he said.
That upsets people. It changes the balance. Because you have been led to believe that the only way that your charities can succeed and your mission can grow is if you are on the front pages of those newspapers.”
The Mental Health and Birth of Meg and Harry in the Netflix Documentary Series II: The Birth of Her Child and Meg’s Baby
The series looks at both the mental health of Meg and the birth of her child. “I was pregnant. I really wasn’t sleeping. When we first moved in, I miscarried on the very first morning, when we woke up.
She described experiencing suicidal ideation, telling the filmmakers she believed “all of this will stop if I’m not here. It was clear thinking and that was the scariest thing about it.
“I just did everything I could to make them proud, and to really be a part of the family,” Meghan said in the fifth episode, speaking of her relationship with the other royals. “And then the bubble burst.”
She knew we were finding things hard. Harry said he had talked to her many times about it. But as the meeting approached, Meghan said they received a message from an aide telling them they were not allowed to see the monarch.
The couple were generally complimentary of the Queen and her associates, though they were critical of some of them. The queen died shortly after the filming finished of the series, but they were still complimentary of her.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/entertainment/harry-meghan-netflix-documentary-second-part-intl/index.html
Contacting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 for a Free Estimator of Suicidal Minds or Mental Health Problems
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 to connect with a trained counselor or visit the NSPL site. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide gives contact info for crisis centers around the world.