It started out as a charming fairytale. The premiere of Netflix’s “Harry & Meghan” provides viewers an inside look into the origins of the couple’s relationship, including when Harry first laid eyes on his wife.
Netflix released the first three episodes of the docuseries centered on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex Thursday. The next and final trio of episodes will stream Dec. 15, as part of a multiyear deal between the couple and the streaming platform.
For those wondering exactly how “H” and “M,” as they affectionately refer to each other, got together, the first hour of “Harry & Meghan” divulges the details.
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‘Meghan and I met over Instagram’
Though a recently single Meghan was set on enjoying a summer with her girlfriends, fate had other plans. Harry caught a glimpse of Meghan in a video a friend posted to Instagram in the summer of 2016.
“Meghan and I met over Instagram,” Harry says. “I was scrolling through my feed, and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them.”
Meghan, sitting beside Harry in the interview, is embarrassed that he saw her using a filter that made her look like a Dalmatian. But Harry didn’t mind at all.
“I was like, ‘Who is that?’” Harry says. “That’s ridiculous!” Meghan says.
The mutual friend emailed Meghan to see if she’d be interested in meeting up with Prince Harry. Like any typical millennial, Meghan checked Harry’s Instagram before saying yes. “I went through, and it was just like beautiful photography and all these environmental shots and this time he was spending in Africa.”
After getting each other’s digits, the two were “constantly in touch,” Harry says.
‘You’re ON!’: Texts setting up their first date
Conveniently, Meghan traveled to London for Wimbledon, and Harry texted her to meet, in an exchange included in the documentary.
“So come on – what u doing tomorrow night?” he texted. “Hope you’re Having fun over there!”
“Heading back to soho,” she replied. “I have a dinner tomorrow at 8 but can do drinks tomorrow night. Would that work? Maybe 6?”
Harry enthusiastically accepted: “You’re ON!”
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Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan’s first date: ‘You were late!’
Harry didn’t make the best impression at their first meeting, at 76 Dean Street.
“You were late!” Meghan tells her husband. She says he repeatedly texted her, apologizing for being stuck in traffic. But she feared Harry had an ego and that leaving girls waiting on him might be a pattern. “I was just not interested in that,” she says. “And then when I walked in a hot, sweaty red ball of mess…” says Harry, Meghan changed her mind. “You genuinely were so embarrassed and late,” she says.
“He was just so fun,” she remembers. “Just so refreshingly fun. That was the thing. We were like childlike together.”
Their first date lasted an hour, and then Meghan asked him for dinner the next night so they could meet again before she left London. “That was when it just hit me,” Harry recalls. “I was like ‘OK, this woman is amazing, is everything that I’ve been looking for.’”
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A trip to Botswana: ‘There’s no mirror, there’s no bathroom’
As Harry had seen the press pounce on romances of his past, he wanted to get to know Meghan in private to protect their budding relationship.
“Everything was just texts and FaceTimes,” says Meghan, “and we just talked for hours. It just felt exciting, which is so weird because it wasn’t exciting in the way that I think people would assume that it would be. It was just relaxed and easy.”
The month after the two met in July 2016, they spent five days in close quarters: a tent in Botswana. Though there was a brief period of awkwardness when the two reunited, it began to feel “totally normal and natural,” Harry says.
“We could both just be completely ourselves,” says Meghan. “There’s no distraction, there was no cell phone reception. There’s no mirror, there’s no bathroom. There was no, ‘How do I look?’ Thankfully we really liked each other.”
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