Summary

  • A second - and final - batch of three episodes of Netflix docuseries Harry and Meghan have been released

  • In episode five, Prince Harry describes a tense 2020 summit at Sandringham where senior royals met to discuss his and Meghan's royal roles

  • "It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me," says Harry

  • Remarking on his relationship with his family, he says: "It looked cold, but it also felt cold"

  • The Prince and Princess of Wales and Buckingham Palace have not responded to any claims made in the series

  • Elsewhere, Meghan says she tried to make the family "proud"

  • But she claims that ultimately she was "fed to the wolves" of the tabloid media

  • Her mother, Doria Ragland, says Meghan at one point wanted to take her own life to escape the "vultures"

  1. Harry speaks of 'dirty game' and 'constant briefings'published at 09:25 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Prince Harry speaks during his Netflix documentaryImage source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

    Episode four features one of the series' most heavily-trailed lines - with Prince Harry talking of a "dirty game" within the royal press setup, which engages in "constant briefings".

    "You know there's leaking, but there's also planting of stories," Harry says. "So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal, they will trade and give you something about someone else's principal.

    "So the offices end up working against each other.

    "There's this kind of weird understanding or acceptance this happens."

    He says he and his brother had a shared unease over this. "William and I both saw what happened in our dad's office, and we made an agreement we would never let that happen to our office."

  2. Harry and Meghan recall pregnancy announcementpublished at 09:23 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Steven McIntosh
    Entertainment Reporter

    Harry and Meghan in Australia in 2018Image source, Getty Images

    Episode four continues as Harry and Meghan recall the early days of their pregnancy.

    If you are friends with literally any new parent on Facebook, you will be familiar with what follows: sonogram pictures, photos of a bump growing over nine months, and talk of keeping a baby journal.

    "One thing we connected on really early is [Harry] had always wanted to be a dad," Meghan says.

    "Mmm," Harry agrees.

    "We started journaling right when we found out we were pregnant. It was 'Dear baby, we're so excited to meet you some day. We'd take little snapshots and stick them in the journal."

    She continues: "We announced we were pregnant while we were in Australia."

    Harry, looking considerably grumpier about this, adds: "Because we had to. Meghan was starting to show already."

  3. Meghan recalls royal engagements with the Queenpublished at 09:22 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Steven McIntosh
    Entertainment Reporter

    Meghan and Queen Elizabeth IIImage source, Getty Images

    Meghan is out taking part in royal engagements with the Queen as we continue live blogging episode four.

    "I had a really great time with her," Meghan says. "I treated her as my husband's grandma.

    "And knowing that of course there has to be a completely different sense of propriety in public. When you're sitting in, having breakfast, to just be able to talk."

    There is footage of Meghan and Queen Elizabeth II walking together at various public events.

    Off-camera voices of royal correspondents can be heard talking about how great it is that Meghan was able to make the Queen laugh.

    But things take a sombre turn, as Meghan recalls visiting Grenfell Tower in West London in the aftermath of a horrific fire in the block in 2017 which killed 72 people.

  4. WATCH: Harry: 'I was devastated and I knew she was struggling'published at 09:21 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Media caption,

    WATCH: Harry: 'I felt angry and ashamed, I didn't deal with it particularly well'

  5. Harry: It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at mepublished at 09:05 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Prince Harry speaks on his Netflix documentaryImage source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

    More from episode five. In January 2020, the Queen called "an urgent meeting of senior royals at Sandringham to discuss a new role for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex".

    It was known as the Sandringham summit, and included Harry, along with - using their former titles - the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge.

    The plan was to weigh up what Buckingham Palace called "complicated issues".

    Recalling how it went, Harry said: "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 quietly sit there and sort of take it all in."

  6. Press 'vultures' and suggestions they were undermined by other Royalspublished at 08:58 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Sean Coughlan
    Royal correspondent

    This is much more emotionally raw.

    After the fairytale castle wedding, there is the sudden plunging into a much darker place for Harry and Meghan. Meghan talks of the moment when she thought: “All of this will stop if I’m not here.”

    Her mother Doria describes Meghan telling her that she wanted to “take her own life”.

    “That’s not an easy one for a mom to hear,” she says. Prince Harry says it made him feel “angry and ashamed”.

    The blame for this is put at the door of the tabloid press, who are seen as pecking away at her like “vultures”.

    The positive headlines of the royal wedding had become relentlessly negative and Meghan described her shock at the new tone of hostility.

    At the root of this, the couple suggest, is that they were stealing the limelight from the rest of the Royal Family, and that their popularity was being deliberately undermined.

  7. Meghan recalls future King walking her down the aislepublished at 08:56 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Charles walks Meghan down the aisle at her weddingImage source, Getty Images

    Another line about Harry and Meghan's wedding which has emerged from episode four.

    The programme find Meghan reflecting on her experience of being walked down the aisle by now-King Charles.

    She says: "Harry's dad is very charming and I said to him like 'I've lost my dad in this'.

    "So him as my father-in-law was really important to me, so I asked him to walk me down the aisle, and he said yes."

  8. We offered to relinquish Sussex titles - Harrypublished at 08:54 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    More from episode five, where Harry says he wrote an email to his father Charles telling him the couple would relinquish their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles if they could not make a move abroad work.

    Harry says he had been planning for at least two years a way out from the UK. He says he considered moves to New Zealand in 2018 and South Africa in 2019.

    In 2020 the couple eventually moved to Canada.

    Explaining his reasoning for wanting to move at the time, he said: "It would be good to give ourselves some breathing space, but also we were really passionate about continuing our work throughout the Commonwealth to support the Queen."

    He adds receiving no public money would also have removed the public interest argument the press had to report on them.

  9. Harry: I was 'angry and ashamed' about my reaction to Meghanpublished at 08:51 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Harry is speaking in episode four about how he felt when Meghan told him she had thought about taking her own life.

    "I was devastated. I knew that she was struggling," he said.

    "We were both struggling.

    "But I never thought it would get to that stage.

    "And the fact that it got to that stage I felt angry and ashamed.

    "I didn’t deal with it particularly well. I dealt with it as Institutional Harry as opposed to Husband Harry."

  10. A glimpse of Archie's first birthday celebrationpublished at 08:50 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Meghan, Harry and Meghan's mother Doria Ragland with ArchieImage source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix
    Image caption,

    Meghan, Harry and Meghan's mother Doria Ragland are pictured celebrating Archie's first birthday at their California hideaway

    More from episode six, where the couple describe how they spent six weeks in March 2020 at Tyler Perry's home in California without the world - or the Royal Family - knowing where they were.

    Meghan says the time period included Archie's first steps and his first birthday. Her mother, Doria Ragland, is filmed pushing Archie in a toy car and the couple bake a cake and make a balloon arch.

    In mobile phone footage, the couple look at a California sunset and Meghan says: "Our sun turned one today and it’s beautiful out. It’s not our home and we’re grateful."

    Harry says: "There's a world in which it could be our home."

  11. 'Our location was exposed, our security was pulled'published at 08:48 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Flight out of CanadaImage source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

    Skipping ahead to episode six, it opens with mobile phone footage of Harry and Meghan on their flight out of Canada on 14 March 2020 - "We are on the freedom flight and we are heading to Los Angeles," says Harry.

    In an interview, Harry says: "I wonder what would have happened to us had we not got out when we did."

    Meghan adds: "Our location was exposed, we knew our security was being pulled, everyone in the world knew where we were."

    This security situation is currently the subject of a court case, with the Sussexes challenging their loss of full police protection when they stepped back from royal duties in 2020.

    The couple were put up in LA by actor Tyler Perry, who says he was inspired to write to Meghan before her wedding after reading the comments made by her father, sparking a long-distance friendship.

    Meghan says when she called him for help years later: "I was just a wreck, I was crying and crying. Sometimes it’s just easier to open up to someone who knows nothing at all."

    Flight out of CanadaImage source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix
  12. Meghan: Queen put a blanket over my kneespublished at 08:45 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Helen Bushby
    Entertainment reporter

    Meghan is asked by the interviewer in episode four what she spoke about with the "Queen of England".

    In the UK, the monarch is referred to as the UK's Head of State, Nation and Commonwealth.

    Meghan recalled a private moment between them during a royal engagement, and responded: "I treated her as my husband’s Grandma.

    "And knowing that, of course, there has to be a completely different sense of propriety and whatnot in public, when you’re sitting and having breakfast, to just be able to talk.

    "I mean, when we got into the car in between engagements, she had a blanket and she put it over my knees, and we were sitting there in the car with this blanket.

    "I thought, 'I recognise and respect and see that you are the Queen, but in this moment, I’m so grateful that there’s a grandmother figure. Because that feels like family'."

  13. Married life gets under waypublished at 08:43 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Steven McIntosh
    Entertainment Reporter

    Harry and MeghanImage source, Getty Images

    The wedding reception is drawing to a close in our live blogging of episode four.

    There are fireworks, literally. "Meg was madly in love," says Silver Tree (that's the name of one of Meghan's friends).

    The couple's new married life together begins, with a sequence of photos and footage as the pair discuss where they were living at the time.

    "As far as people were concerned, we were living in a palace," says Harry. "And we were, we were living on palace grounds."

    "Kensington Palace sounds very regal, of course it does, but Nottingham Cottage was just small," adds Meghan, referring to the smaller property in the same complex as the palace.

    "The whole thing was on a slight lean. Very low ceilings. Whoever was there before must have been really short," suggests Harry.

    We do hope all of this was made clear on the Rightmove link. You know what estate agents are like.

    There are pictures and footage of the couple cooking, dancing, doing work on the cottage, and cuddling their dogs.

  14. Harry and Meghan discuss their wedding party musicpublished at 08:41 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Steven McIntosh
    Entertainment Reporter

    Harry and MeghanImage source, Getty Images

    Episode four continues in our live blog, and with the wedding firmly out of the way, Meghan recalls: "We had the reception at St George's Hall.

    "We cut a cake, with a sword," adds Harry.

    There is a picture of the sword. And the cake.

    "I mean, it was great, it was all so over-the-top, I think most people were just like 'What is happening?'" Meghan says.

    "Elton John was performing, I couldn't find my mom because she had just beelined to the stage to watch Elton sing."

    We'd have been doing the same.

    Harry and Meghan continue talking about a key element of any wedding party: the playlist.

    "I really wanted the music to be fun," says Meghan. "Even our first dance. Song of a thousand dances? I always get it wrong."

    She means Land of 1000 Dances by Wilson Pickett, which starts playing as photos of Harry and Meghan dancing are shown.

    There's a picture of actor Idris Elba at the DJ booth.

  15. Everything changed after legal action - Meghanpublished at 08:39 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Staying with episode five, Meghan says "everything changed" after she took legal action against the Mail on Sunday for publishing a personal letter to her father.

    She says in episode five: "That litigation was the catalyst probably for all of the unravelling."

    Meghan later won her legal fight against the newspaper.

    She also suggests stories about other Royal Family members "would pop up for a minute" before going away in place of news about her.

    "And something has to be filled in there [front pages and website homepages] about someone royal," she adds.

  16. War against Meghan - lawyerpublished at 08:38 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Jenny Afia speaking in Episode 6Image source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

    Further on in episode five, lawyer Jenny Afia declares "there was a real kind of war against Meghan" referring to negative media stories.

    The lawyer for London firm Schillings claims she has seen evidence that there was negative briefing from the palace against Harry and Meghan "to suit other people's agendas".

    The documentary then shows a witness statement from a tabloid editor who claimed to have gained "high-grade information" from a senior member of the Royal Household.

    Lucy Fraser, friend of Meghan, says: "Meg became this scapegoat for the palace.

    "And so they would feed stories on her whether they were true or not, to avoid other less favourable stories being printed."

  17. Meghan thought issues would stop 'if I'm not here'published at 08:35 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Meghan speaks during a Netflix documentaryImage source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

    Here's more on the context of those comments from Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland.

    Episode four sees Meghan talking about tabloid coverage and press intrusion. She says she couldn't believe people believed what they read in the press about her and Harry.

    "The lies, that's one thing, you kind of get used to that," adds Harry. "But what they were doing to her and the effect that it was having on her... you know, no-one sees what's happening behind closed doors".

    Harry then recalls his mother, Princess Diana, being in floods of tears in the back of cars before turning up at engagements and smiling for the cameras.

    Meghan then says she had thoughts that all of this would stop "if I'm not here".

    She adds: "That was the scariest thing about it... that it was such clear thinking."

    Her mother then says that she remembers being told Meghan had wanted to take her own life.

  18. Meghan 'wanted to take her own life' - motherpublished at 08:31 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Doria Ragland wipes her eyes with a tissueImage source, Harry and Meghan/Archewell Productions/Diamond Docs/Story Syndicate/Netflix

    In episode 4, we hear from Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland.

    Ragland addresses her daughter's mental health.

    "I remember her telling me that she wanted to take her own life," she says.

    "And, um, that really broke my heart."

    She adds: "I knew that it was bad, but to just constantly be picked at by these vultures - just picking away at her spirit - that she would actually think of not wanting to be here... that’s not an easy one for a mum to hear."

    If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in the series, help and support can be found here.

  19. Harry: Royal expectation for public wedding for 'Diana's boy'published at 08:26 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Speaking in episode four about what he felt the Royal Family felt he should do regarding his wedding, Harry said: “There was an expectation right? - ‘Diana’s boy’.

    "There was an expectation to have a public wedding.

    "It was like, 'Mission complete with William. Now let’s see if this goes the distance with Harry and then we can literally go - Job Done’.”

  20. Serena Williams recalls gospel choir at weddingpublished at 08:24 Greenwich Mean Time 15 December 2022

    Steven McIntosh
    Entertainment Reporter

    Harry and MeghanImage source, Getty Images

    The wedding is under way as we continue live blogging episode four.

    Meghan is walking down the aisle. We're watching this bit on 1.5x speed to be completely honest because we all witnessed the wedding in 2018 and know how it goes.

    Friends of the couple appear to tell viewers that the wedding "felt like a moment where the world paused and celebrated love".

    We see gospel singers The Kingdom Choir performing, as Meghan's friend Serena Williams says: "To have Meghan's culture represented in that wedding, amazing, I loved it, I thought it was really courageous and breaking boundaries."

    And after a mercifully short recap of the ceremony, the wedding is over, Harry and Meghan are leaving the church and waving to the thousands of well wishers.