The couple shared what happened during the awkward final royal engagement with his family. Photo / Getty Images
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have lifted the lid on their final week of engagements before leaving the UK for good, claiming the royal family were “cold” and “distant” toward them.
The couple shared a jam-packed schedule of final official duties in early March 2020, which culminated in their appearance alongside other royals at the Commonwealth service at Westminster Abbey.
It was their first face-to-face meeting with his family in weeks – and, as Harry revealed in the couple’s explosive new six-part Netflix docu-series, was just as awkward as it looked.
“We were nervous seeing the family because all the TV cameras and everyone watching at home and everyone watching in the audience … it’s like living in a soap opera where everyone else views you as entertainment,” Harry said.
“I felt really distant from the rest of my family – which is 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.”
Meghan also revealed that her bold wardrobe choice for her final royal engagements – including her bright green caped Emilia Wickstead gown for the Commonwealth service – was a deliberate decision, after having spent so much time trying not to “ruffle any feathers” within the royal family.
“Until that last week in the UK, I rarely wore colour. I never wanted to upstage or ruffle any feathers. But I wore a lot of colour that week, I thought, ‘Let’s just look like a rainbow’.”
Harry added: “We weren’t with the family, it was our opportunity to go out with a bang, to be honest.”
In the fifth episode of the docu-series, Meghan shared several never-before-seen pictures from her frenzied goodbye with their Palace staff between the Abbey service and her flight back to Canada, where her son Archie had stayed behind.
“We left Westminster Abbey and then that was it – I had to go to the airport, we were racing to catch my flight, we were cutting it so close,” she said, explaining they rushed back to Buckingham Palace to quickly get changed.
“I unpinned the hat, quickly took this green dress off, threw on some clothes for the plane, I was saying goodbye … of course it was emotional.”
Meghan added that once she finally got on the plane, the head crew member “came and knelt” beside her.
“He took his hat off, and he goes, ‘We appreciate everything you did for our country’. 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,” she said.
“We landed in Canada and one of our security guards, who’s been with (Harry) for so long, I just collapsed in his arms, crying. I was like, ‘I tried so hard’,’ and he said, ‘I know you did, I know you did, ma’am’.”
Wiping away tears, Meghan went on: “And that’s the piece that’s so triggering, it still wasn’t good enough, and you still don’t fit in.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Harry made explosive new claims about his infamous crisis meeting with his family, accusing his brother of “screaming and shouting” at him as the group discussed a plan for his and Meghan’s exit from frontline duties.
In early 2020, just days after he and Meghan sensationally released a statement announcing their intention to seek financial independence and live outside of the UK, an emergency conference was arranged between Harry, the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William, which was dubbed the “Sandringham Summit”.
The whole world was watching on, but the exact details of what went on behind closed doors have never been revealed by the royals who were in the room … until now.
In the bombshell Netflix interview, Harry spoke bluntly of the incredibly tense family meeting, which took place at the royal estate at which he’d once had “such happy memories”.
“I went in with the same proposal that we’d already made publicly, but once we 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. Have our own jobs, but also work in support of the Queen. But it became very clear very quickly that that goal was not up for discussion or debate,” Harry revealed.
“It was very terrifying to have my brother (Prince William) scream and shout at me, and my father (then-Prince Charles) say things that just simply weren’t true – and my grandmother, quietly sit there and sort of take it all in. “But you have to understand that from the family’s perspective, especially hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate mission, goal, slash responsibility, is the institution.”