Biggest Revelations From Episode 5

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix Show ‘Harry & Meghan’: Biggest Revelations From Episode 5

Getting into the thick of it. Volume two of Harry & Meghan dove into Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal exit — and they didn’t mince words about how they felt they were treated differently than other senior members of the family.

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Episode five picked up in fall 2018, months after Harry and Meghan’s wedding.

“I just wanted all these cousins and these people. I just wanted all of that. And I didn’t have that big family. I was just so excited that we were going to be able to create for him that thing that I had always wanted So I just did everything I could to make them proud. And to really be a part of the family. And then the bubble burst,” Meghan recalled.

After Harry alleged that things were getting worse in the U.K. media because “it was already clear to the media that the palace wasn’t gonna protect her,” Meghan added: “Once that happens, the floodgates open. And I realized that I wasn’t just being thrown to the wolves, I was being fed to the wolves.”

Harry and Meghan announced their plans to no longer work as senior members of The Firm in January 2020. “After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said in a statement at the time. “We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family, and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.”

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After spending time in Canada, the couple moved to California and completed their last official royal engagement in March 2020. The queen made their exit permanent in February 2021, with the palace noting at the time that “in stepping away from the work of the royal family it is not possible [for Harry and Meghan] to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service.”

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Harry, who shares son Archie, 3, and daughter Lilibet, 18 months, with Meghan, shared footage of their “freedom flight” in the docuseries.

King Charles III, Prince William, Princess Kate and other members of the royal family have yet to publicly comment on the six-part show. Earlier this month, however, a palace source denied Netflix’s claims that the royals declined to comment. The streaming service subsequently doubled down on their statement, per royal reporter Omid Scobie.

Following the release of volume one of Harry & Meghan on December 8, the pair’s spokesperson fired back at the “entirely untrue narrative” that the twosome stepped away from royal life for privacy amid criticism from some viewers. “Their statement announcing their decision to step back mentions nothing of privacy and reiterates their desire to continue their roles and public duties,” Ashley Hansen said in a statement to The New York Times on the same day the first three episodes started streaming. “Any suggestion otherwise speaks to a key point of this series. They are choosing to share their story, on their terms.”

Us Weekly is breaking down every episode of Harry & Meghan. Click here for the biggest takeaways from episode one, episode two, episode three and episode four. Scroll through for the biggest revelations from episode five:

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Meghan Reached Out to the Queen for Advice About Her Dad After Wedding Drama

“He started criticizing the royal family [in interviews] … it was very embarrassing for the family. It was a problem that needed to be solved, and they wanted me to make it stop,” Meghan said, noting she reached out to the queen. “[I said], ‘This is what’s going on. What do you want me to do? … Whatever advice you have.’ But ultimately, it was suggested by the queen, the Prince of Wales, that I write my dad a letter. And I had gone to great lengths to get that letter to my dad discreetly. Because I can’t put this letter in the mail with the return address being Kensington Palace, and send it to Tom Markle and assume it’s gonna get there. So I send it to my business manager in L.A. I was like, ‘He’ll recognize that name.’ Then I get the picture of the signature confirmation that it’s been delivered, and it’s not his signature. That’s not my dad’s handwriting. It just says ‘Thomas.’”

Harry and Meghan went on to detail the Daily Mail publishing parts of the letter. “They knew the family would encourage us not to sue,” he claimed. 

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Negative Stories About Meghan Were Allegedly Planted

“A story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute, and they’d go, ‘We gotta make that 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,” Meghan claimed, adding that “everything changed” after she and Harry wanted to take legal action against the Daily Mail. “That litigation was the catalyst probably for all of the unraveling.”

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Scrapped Plans to Move to South Africa

According to Harry, he and Meghan got plans approved by his family to relocate to South Africa prior to their 2020 exit.

“My father’s office knew about it, my brother’s office knew about it, and my grandmother’s office knew about it. No one else knew. It was very much an internal document. Then it was leaked,” Harry recalled. “Then that whole plan was then scrapped. Because it’s now become a public debate. Once plans like that become public debates, nine times out of 10, it’s gonna fail.”

Harry worried history would repeat itself in late 2019 when they wanted to move to Canada.

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Harry Accuses Charles’ Team of Leaking Canada Plans

“I was speaking to my father. ‘This is the plan.’ He says, ‘Can you put that in writing?’ And I said ‘I’d rather not.’ He says, ‘I can’t do anything unless you put it in writing.’ Sent him emails on 1st, 2nd and 3rd January. And in one of those, I’d mentioned that, you know, if this wasn’t gonna work out, then we would be willing to relinquish our Sussex titles, if need be,” Harry explained. “It became clear that the institution leaked the fact that we were going to be moving 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. And I was like, ‘Wow.’  Our story, our life, literally got taken from underneath us.”

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Not Being Able to See the Queen

Harry alleged that when he returned to the U.K. in January 2020, he had plans to see his grandmother as plans for him and Meghan to move were in motion.

“Before we left, I spoke to my grandmother as well, and told her that we’re coming back on the 6th, and I would love to come and drive up and come and see you. She knew that we were finding things hard. I’d spoken to her many times about it. She told me she had no plans for the week. She said, ‘Well, why don’t you come up? You can have tea, but why don’t you stay the night, you and Meghan?’” Harry said.

Meghan then revealed that they got a message that the monarch was busy. “So we were flying back from Vancouver straight to Heathrow and right as we’re getting on the plane, this urgent, urgent message comes through to H saying, ‘You are not allowed to see Her Majesty. Make sure that your principle is aware he cannot go and see her. She’s busy. She has plans all week,’” she explained. 

Harry replied that that was “the opposite to what she had told me,” adding: “Once we were back in the U.K., I rang her and said, ‘I’m now told that you’re busy.’ She goes, ‘Yes, I didn’t know I was busy. I’ve been told that I’m busy. I’ve been told that I’m busy all week.’ I was like, ‘Wow.’”

“And I remember looking at H. I mean, my gosh, this is when a family and a family business are in direct conflict,” Meghan concluded. “Because they’re blocking you from seeing the Queen. But really what they’re doing is blocking a grandson from seeing his grandmother.”

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The Tense Meeting With William and Charles — and Not Meghan

In early January, Meghan returned to Canada to get back to Archie while Harry stayed to try to work out the exit.

“I’d sent an email to the three most senior private secretaries saying, ‘Let’s get together and have a meeting. Let’s talk about this.’ Because what was happening, what was playing out in public, was crazy. That meeting was rejected,” Harry alleged. “And it was only once Meg had left and gone back to Canada that it was then arranged that there was going to be a meeting at Sandringham on the following Monday. … It was clear to me that they’d planned it so that you weren’t in the room.”

Meghan added, “Imagine a conversation, a round-table discussion, about the future of your life, when the stakes are this high, and you as the mom and the wife — and the target in many regards — aren’t invited to have a seat at the table.”

When Harry did see his dad, brother and grandmother, it was heated. 

“I went in with the same proposal that we’d already, you know, made publicly. But once I got there, I was given five options. One being — all in, no change. Five being — all out. I chose option three in the meeting — half in, half out,” he explained. “Have our own jobs, but also work in support of the queen. It became very clear very quickly, that goal was not up for discussion or debate. It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother, you know, quietly sit there, and sort of take it all in.” 

Harry didn’t seem upset with the queen, however. “You have to understand that, from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things, and her ultimate sort of mission, goal/responsibility is the institution. People around her are telling her, ‘By the way, that proposal, or these two doing X, Y, Z, is going to be seen as an attack on the institution.’ Then she’s gonna go on the advice that she’s given,” he said. “It was really hard. That meeting finished without any, like, solidified action plan. I think, from their perspective, they had to believe that it was more about us, and maybe the issues that we had, as opposed to their partner, the media, and themselves, and that relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what they wanted.”

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Harry’s Falling Out With William

“I mean, the saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side,” Harry said. “Part of that, I get. I understand, right? That’s his inheritance. So to some extent it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and the continuation of this institution.”

After the meeting at Sandringham in January 2020, Harry recalled a story in the U.K. about their royal exit being linked to William bullying them.

“And once I got in the car after the meeting, I was told about a joint statement that had been put out in my name and my brother’s name squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family. I couldn’t believe it,” he claimed. “No one had asked me. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that. And I rang M and I told her, and she burst into floods of tears, because within four hours, they were happy to lie to protect my brother, and yet for three years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us. … So there was no other option at this point. I said, ‘We need to get out of here.’”

Meghan recalled her reaction: “Suddenly what clicked in my head was, ‘It’s never gonna stop.’ Every rumor, every negative thing, every lie, everything that I knew wasn’t true, and that the palace knew wasn’t true and internally they knew wasn’t true that was just being allowed to fester.”

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Social Media Trolls

It was explained by CEO of Bot Sentinel Christopher Bouzy that “70 percent of the hateful content” about Meghan “came from just 83 accounts” that were determined to slander her.

“They had a reach of 17 million people, so this is not your every day trolling. They were coordinating and talking about what they would discuss for that particular day or week, what pictures they should disseminate,” Bouzy said. “They were actively recruiting people, telling people how to create multiple accounts. How to use VPNs, you know, virtual private networks, to hide the IP, so they don’t get suspended. It’s insane.” 

Bouzy further claimed that Meghan’s estranged half-sister, Samantha Markle, was involved. (Allegations she denied via a statement in the doc.) “Samantha Markle was part of the group that was putting out a lot of this disinformation. Samantha had her account suspended. And then we actually sent Twitter a list because she had, like, 11 additional accounts. And yeah, we were baffled by this. How can the half-sister of Meghan be part of a hate group?” he asked.

Meghan got visibly emotional while discussing the hate.

“I think for people to really understand, you know, when you plant a seed that is so hateful, what it can grow into. I mean, just a couple of days ago, I was going through the manual for our security team at home, and on one of the pages that I happened to flip to, it was about online monitoring, and they’re like, ‘If you see a tweet like this, please report it to the head of security immediately.’ It just said, ‘Meghan just needs to die. Someone needs to kill her. Maybe it should be me,’” Meghan said. “I’m a mom. That’s my real life. And that’s the piece when you see it and you go, ‘You are making people want to kill me.’ … It’s not just some story. You are making me scared. … Looking down my hallway, like, ‘Are we safe? Are the doors locked? Is security on?’ That’s real. ‘Are my babies safe?’”

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Meghan Taking the Blame

Harry noted that it’s “misogyny at its best” to imply that Meghan is solely to blame for their royal departure and she agreed. 

“In any relationship, oftentimes, when a guy falls in love with a girl, his buddies are like, ‘Oh my God, he changed. I don’t see him anymore. He’s always with her.’ And you blame the girl. They’re angry with her because she’s the thing that took him away. And that’s whether you’re in a small town or a big city or in the royal family,” Meghan said. “[Harry] wouldn’t have ever been attracted to or interested in me if he hadn’t already been on his own path. Most people need to find someone to blame. To try to, like, reconcile how you’re feeling, ’cause something’s changed, and you don’t like it, and what’s the thing that’s different? But you need to blame me. Also if you can blame me, then you have no fault.”

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That ‘Cold’ Westminster Abbey Appearance

Harry and Meghan completed their final five royal engagements in five days in March 2020. ”Until that last week in the U.K., I rarely wore color. I never wanted to upstage or ruffle any feathers. So I just tried to blend in. But I wore a lot of color that week. I just felt like, ‘Let’s just look like a rainbow,’” she recalled as Harry noted it was their opportunity to “go out with a bang.”

The twosome agreed that they were going to miss the people of the U.K. — but tensions were still high with Harry’s family.

“The first time that we saw the other members of the family was in public at Westminster Abbey,” she recalled.

“We were nervous seeing the family, because all the TV cameras and everybody watching at home and everybody watching in the audience, it’s like living through a soap opera … everybody else views you as entertainment,” he said. “I felt really distant from my family, 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.”

The duo left the church, change their clothes and hopped on a flight back to Canada. 

“Of course it was emotional. We get on the plane. And it’s not the pilot, but whoever is sort of overseeing the crew, and he came and he knelt next to my seat and he took his hat off, and I just remember looking at him, and he goes, ‘We appreciate everything you did for our country,’” Meghan recalled. “And it was the first time that I felt like someone saw the sacrifice — not for my own country, for this country, that’s not mine. We landed in Canada and one of our security guards, who had been with H for so long, and these guys were so wonderful, I just collapsed in his arms, crying. I was like, ‘I tried so hard.’ He goes, ‘I know you did. I know you did, ma’am, I know you did.’ Like, 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.’”

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Harry Never Thought He and Meghan Would Lose Security

After their departure, Harry claimed he was informed that he and his wife were losing their security. 

“M asked me, ‘Would they remove our security?’ I said, ‘They’ll never do that.’ Meghan’s background, her heritage, the well-documented hate campaigns against us, suspicious packages being sent to the palaces, specifically with her name on or my name on. She said, ‘Do you think they’ll do it?’ I said, ‘No, they would never do that.’ And they did it,” he explained.

The COVID-19 crisis began that same month. “And at that moment, our location was exposed. We knew our security was being pulled. Everyone in the world knew where we were, so we weren’t gonna be safe there,” Meghan said, noting that they were going to close the Canadian border. 

“There comes a point when you’re worried about what, what could happen next, and therefore, you’ve got to do what I guess any husband and father would do, which is get the hell out of there,” Harry said.