All language subtitles for Harry.and.Meghan.S01E04.1080p.WEB.h264-KOGi_track4_[eng]

["Wedding March" by Mendelssohn playing]

[male presenter] Elizabeth and Philip
take their places on history's pages.

To the stirring strains of Mendelssohn,

they march as man and wife
toward the west door

amidst nearly 3,000 invited spectators.

[crowd cheering, clamoring]

-[poignant music playing]
-[crowd cheering]

[Meghan] There was this moment
where our private secretary,

she had worked for the queen for almost,

I think 20 years,

and what she said to me was,

it's like this fish.
It's, like, swimming perfectly.

Powerful, it's on the right current.

[crowd cheering]

[Meghan] And one day
this little organism comes in.

[woman 1] She's independent,
she's quite feisty.

-[woman 2] She's a controlling woman.
-[woman 1] Ooh!

This foreign organism.
And the entire thing goes…

[squeals]

"What is that? What is it doing here?"

"It doesn't look like us.
It doesn't move like us."

"We don't like it. Get it off of us."

[calm music plays]

-[woman 1] There's polarized opinions--
-[woman 2] I say it's doomed.

[woman 3] People are so cynical
before the people are even married.

Give the couple a chance for
goodness sake. They're obviously in love.

[woman 4] I agree.

[Meghan] And she
just explained that, you know,

they'll soon see
that it's stronger, faster,

even better,
with this organism as part of it.

It will be hard at the beginning
for them to adjust to this new thing…

but then it'll be amazing.

[woman 5] Times are changing.
She's the first ever global princess.

[woman 6] I think what she and Harry
are going to be capable of

is going to be quite impressive.

[woman 7] This couple is the one
that is gonna change

the face of the royal family for me.

And I was really hopeful
that that was true.

[emotive theme music playing]

[emotive theme music finishes]

[Meghan] On the day of our wedding,

it's like I went into a really calm space.

I don't know how I was so calm.

I look back and, "How was I so calm?"

And all I wanted was a mimosa, a croissant

and, uh, to play
the song, "Going to the Chapel."

And that's what I did. And it was great.

♪ Going to the chapel ♪

♪ And we're gonna get married ♪

♪ Going to the chapel of love… ♪

[bell jingling]

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

It's Harry and Meghan's big day.
God save the Queen.

[bell jingling]

[female presenter 1] We can
take you now to Windsor town center

where the streets are packed.

Everybody's going crazy.
Yeah, everybody's wedding mad.

[crowd cheering]

The crowd. It was just literally like
you were in the biggest football stadium.

This massive, massive roar.

[crowd cheering]

It's estimated that 115,000 people
will be here in Windsor.

[speaking Korean]

[speaking Spanish]

[speaking Arabic]

[Heather Dorak] Everything was
big and spectacular.

I mean it was just,
like, hard to even comprehend

that I'm actually a part of this event.

♪ Going to the chapel… ♪

It's like… this is crazy,
like absolutely crazy.

["Going to the Chapel" continues]

♪ Bells will ring ♪

♪ Ah ah ah, sun will shine ♪

♪ Whoa oh oh, I'll be his… ♪

[Meghan] So I knew
that when I got to the actual castle…

How funny is that to say?
"When I got to the castle for my wedding."

Um, that there'd be tons of people.
What I didn't know was

people would be lining
both sides of the street.

I mean, this was a 15-minute drive.

Me and my mom were like,

"What is going on?
Look at all these people!"

Everyone's got their phones out.
There we go. Wow! Look at that.

♪ Married ♪

♪ Going to the chapel… ♪

[Harry] 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 actually go, 'Job done.'"

[crowd cheering]

-[female presenter] Here she comes.
-[male presenter] Here comes the bride.

♪ Going to the chapel of love ♪

♪Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

[male presenter] This is when you
finally get to see that dress.

[crowd cheering]

[Clare Waight Keller] Looking
at the design of the dress…

there were many conversations we had

over how you want to present yourself
to the world.

I mean, most of us have a wedding
with, you know, 70 to 200 people.

This was billions of people
watching this wedding. [laughing]

It has to be flawless,
it has to be perfect.

[stately intro music plays]

[Meghan] I just remember thinking,
"Just take a deep breath and keep going."

[female voice vocalizing]

[Meghan] And you chose the song
I walked down the aisle to.

[Harry] Yep.

[Meghan] Which was stunning.
That was so beautiful.

[Harry] My father helped us
choose an orchestra,

which made all the difference.

[vocalizing]

[Meghan] 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.

The whole thing was surreal.

It was at that moment, I could also see H.

[interviewer] What was going through
your head when you saw her coming?

Look at… Look at me, look what I got.

-[Meghan laughing] Oh my gosh.
-Look what I… look what I found.

[inaudible]

[Harry] The world was watching us,
but when we were actually at the altar,

as far as I was concerned,
it was just the two of us.

[inaudible conversation]

[Meghan] H and I are really, really good
at finding each other in the chaos.

When we find each other, we reconnect
to, like, "Oh it's you. It's you."

It's not that the rest of it
doesn't matter, but…

The rest of it feels temporary.

It felt like a moment where the world
paused and celebrated love.

I remember watching him look at her,

and I almost started to cry,

and I was like, "No Vicky, don't cry!"

♪ I won't cry, I won't cry ♪

♪ No, I won't shed a tear… ♪

[Clare Waight Keller] The whole ceremony
was something quite unique.

A gospel choir. That had never been
part of a royal wedding before.

♪ So darling, darling stand… ♪

[Harry] There wasn't
too much pushback on that.

No.

Everyone was like, "Gospel choir.
Wonderful idea. That's great."

And again, more help from,
from, uh, from my dad on that one.

[Meghan] Yeah, said that they could just

take the best people
from certain gospel choirs

and put them together.

And that's how Kingdom Choir
came to be, and they're great.

♪ Trouble, won't you stand by me… ♪

[Serena Williams] To have her culture
represented in that wedding,

amazing, I loved it.

And I thought it was really courageous
and breaking boundaries but not trying to.

-♪ Stand by me ♪
-♪ So darling, darling ♪

We had this massive moment where
myself, Oprah, Idris Elba and his partner,

we all looked at each other for a brief
moment and had a little bit of a chuckle.

And nobody needed to say anything,

because everybody knew exactly
the layers of symbolism

that were taking place that day.

[Gospel music playing]

♪ This little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Oh, this little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ I say, this little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine ♪

♪ Oh, in my home ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ You know, oh, in my home ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ I say, oh, in my home ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine ♪

[crowd cheering]

♪ This little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ Oh, this little light of mine ♪

♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪

♪ I said, this little light of mine ♪

[crowd cheering]

[bell jingling]

And then we had the reception
at St. George's Hall.

[stately music playing]

-We cut cake. With a sword.
-With a sword. [laughing]

With a sword.

[Meghan] It was great.
It was all so over the top.

I think most people were just like, "What
is happening?" Elton John's performing.

I couldn't find my mom because she had
beelined to the stage to watch Elton sing.

I just really wanted the music to be fun.

Even our first dance.

-Song of a thousand, uh, dances?
-Thousands…

A thousand… Help, I always get it wrong.

["Land of a Thousand Dances"
by Wilson Pickett playing]

♪ One two three ♪

♪ Ow, uh, all right, uh! ♪

♪ Got to know how to pony ♪

♪ Like Bony Maronie ♪

-♪ Mash potato ♪
-There you go.

♪ Do the alligator ♪

That was our first dance. It was so fun.

I was just spinning like a whirlwind.
It was so great.

It was just brilliant.
It was how every wedding should be.

[woman] Meg was madly in love.

♪ Na na na na na na na na na na… ♪

Meg and I would always
sign off on our texts, "Love wins."

♪ Na na na na na na na na na na ♪

[Silver] Love won.

[soft music playing]

[James Holt] Someone said to me,

"If you were writing
the royal family story as a novel,

it's almost at this point in its history

that you would want to be
writing in a new character like Meghan."

It needed a boost of energy.

A modernization that would
speak to a new generation of people.

[indistinct conversation]

[Harry] Oh my God.

It's my favorite video.

Thursday afternoon. Someone's happy.

As far as people were concerned, we were
living in a palace. We were. In a cottage.

We were living on palace grounds.

[Meghan] Yeah. Kensington Palace
sounds very regal. Of course it does.

It says "palace" in the name,
but Nottingham Cottage was so small.

The whole thing's on a slight lean.

Really low ceilings, I don't know who
it was for. They must have been short.

[Meghan] He would hit his head constantly
in that place 'cause he's so tall.

Me with a hoe, and H varnishing.

It was just a chapter in our lives
where I don't think anyone could believe

what it was actually like
behind the scenes.

[Harry] Well, Oprah came over
for tea, didn't she?

-She did.
-When she came in,

she sat down, she goes,
"No one would ever believe it."

"No one would ever believe it." [laughing]

[Harry laughing]

[Meghan] My first official engagement
with Her Majesty

was very early on after we got married.

We took the royal train together
and we had breakfast that morning.

[man] Your Majesty, thank you so much
for coming back to Cheshire.

And, um… I had
a really great time with her.

[soft classical music playing]

[interviewer] What do you talk about
with the Queen of England?

[Meghan] 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're sitting in the car
with this blanket and I thought,

"I recognize 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."

And because I was so, so close
with my grandmother

and I took care of her in her final years.

Yeah. It was really… It was such a…
Such a good day. We laughed.

[female presenter] Meghan had the Queen
in stitches of laughter.

You don't often see the Queen in giggles.

[Meghan] That day happened to be the
one-year anniversary of the Grenfell fire.

[male presenter] The Queen and the Duchess
of Sussex remembering Grenfell in Chester.

[female presenter] Seventy-two seconds
of silence. One for every life lost.

[Meghan] It was really important to me
because I had become so close

with so many
of the women who had survived that,

even though no one knew that at the time.

[melancholic music playing]

[female presenter] Beneath a still moon,
a blaze of such ferocity

it is almost filmic.

[Meghan] The Grenfell fire was horrendous.

We were watching it on the news.

[female reporter 1]
Residents have complained for years

that their concerns about safety
at the flats were simply being ignored.

[female reporter 2] One key question
was whether council budget cuts

were in any way to blame.

Grenfell has a very high
immigrant population

and is a deprived area of London.

And it is a direct neighbor to Kensington,

one of the richest boroughs in the UK.

The Grenfell fire left
so many families displaced,

outside of how many deaths it caused.

And, I remember saying,
"Well, can we do something?"

"We need to go down there
and do something."

And so, I connected
with the women at Al-Manaar,

which is a mosque in Grenfell.

They were living in these hotels and
just given meal vouchers for fast food.

I started cooking at age of seven,

for at least 30 to 50 every day.

But after the fire happened,
we stayed in the hotel for 19 months.

Eating takeaway, like day and night.

So I walked into the local mosque and I
asked if I could use the kitchen to cook.

[indistinct conversation]

[Munira] The whole idea was
just to try and feel normal again.

For a few hours,
forget that something happened.

The first few months, it was twice a week,

up until…

the Duchess came.

[soft music playing]

[crowd cheering]

When the Duchess came in,
you know, we like to kiss.

Three kisses on the cheek
and there's about 50 of us there.

She couldn't finish. She was like,
"Oh my God, oh my God." [laughing]

She asked if she could help.
I was like, "Really?"

She goes, "Yeah."
Sleeves up, I gave her apron,

and she washed, like,
five kilos basmati rice.

Uh, okay. Mmm.

[Meghan] Over the course
of eight or nine months,

I just kept going back and visiting them,
and I loved these women so much.

When I watched these women
laughing together and grieving together,

I said, "Why can't you do this
every day of the week?"

They said, "Well,
we don't have the funds for it."

I just looked around, I said,
"We should make a cookbook."

[applause]

[Meghan] Thank you for coming
for the launch of Together,

to celebrate this and the women
of the Hubb Community Kitchen.

Actually, the first speech I made
as a member of the royal family

was launching this cookbook.

Working on this project
for the past nine months has been

a tremendous labor of love.

[Meghan] We did it on the grounds
of Kensington Palace.

And did your mom make these, um…

[Meghan] I feel so proud to live in a city
that can have so much diversity.

It's 12 countries represented
in this one group of women.

It's pretty outstanding. Thank you.

[audience applause]

[Natalie] Sales, we're doing brilliantly.

We've knocked JK Rowling off the top spot,

and the book's not even out yet.

[Meghan] It just… Just kept growing.

[indistinct conversation]

On behalf of all the ladies, thank you.

[woman] Thank you!

[reporter] If you needed an image
of how the Duchess of Sussex

is changing the way
the royal family is perceived,

this one would probably do it.

[woman] Thank you! Thank you!

[Afua] She talked about wanting
to bring new life to the monarchy,

and more honesty and humanity
to those spaces. What's not to like?

[woman] Oi, royalty.

[man] There they are.

Prince Harry and Meghan
on the first day of their Australian tour.

[crowd cheering]

They seem to speak so effortlessly
for a different generation.

[crowd cheering]

[female presenter] She and Harry are
the superstars of the British family.

Yeah, I shook her hand too.

[women squeal]

[Harry] Looking back on it now,

amazed we managed to do what we did.

Well, also even harder
when I was pregnant.

[Meghan] One of the things
that we connected on really early

is you always had wanted to be a dad.

-[Harry] Mm.
-And I'd always wanted to be a mom.

We started journaling right
when we found out we were pregnant.

It was just, "Dear baby,
we're so excited to meet you one day."

And take little snapshots
and stick them in the journal.

"Here's an announcement
that went out about you today."

[female presenter] Breaking baby news.

The Duchess of Sussex is pregnant
and we now know officially.

[keyboard clicking]

[Meghan] We announced we were pregnant
in Australia.

Because we had to.

-You were starting to show.
-[Meghan] Yeah.

And then New Zealand
started referring to it as the bump.

-As the bump. Le bump. Yeah.
-Le bump, yeah.

[female presenter] They'll be busy,
which is not easy early in a pregnancy.

They have 76 engagements scheduled.

That was a really
rigorous tour to do, pregnant.

[female presenter] A 16-day trip.
Australia and New Zealand and Fiji.

Let's hope she hasn't got
bad morning sickness.

She's so lovely and just so engaged.

Really all about women's empowerment.

[poignant music playing]

[Harry] Giving 100%,
every single person that you meet--

That's their moment.

[male presenter] The Duchess of Sussex
arrived hand-in-hand with her husband.

It went so well.

Because when girls are given
the right tools to succeed,

they can create incredible futures.

[woman] The work they were doing,
the speeches,

the people they were meeting,
it seemed to be amazing.

And then I don't understand
what happened after that.

I think Australia was a real turning point
because they were so popular.

So popular with the public.

[crowd chanting] Meghan!

[woman] The internals at the palace
were incredibly threatened by that.

[women squeal in crowd]

[male presenter] Putting aside
what I think,

she's becoming a royal rock star.

Bigger, I would argue,
as a couple, than William and Kate.

That's probably not a good thing
in the long term.

[soft music playing]

The issue is when someone who's
marrying in, who should be a supporting,

a supporting act,

is then stealing the limelight,
or is doing the job better

than the person who is born to do this.

That upsets people. It shifts the balance.

Because you've been led to believe

that the only way
that your charities can succeed

and the only way that your reputation
can be grown or improved

is if you're on the front page
of those newspapers.

But the media are the ones who choose
who to put on the front page.

First time that the penny dropped for her,

M and I spent the night in a room
in Buckingham Palace after an event where

every single member of the family
had been, including the queen.

[Meghan] The next morning,
they'd set up breakfast for Harry and I.

And on the front page
of The Telegraph, Meghan.

I went, "Oh my God."

[melancholic music playing]

[Harry] She was like,
"But it's not my fault."

And I said, "I know.
And my mum felt the same way."

We'd be going round Australia for instance

and you… All you could hear was,
"Oh, she's on the other side."

[male interviewer] What do you mean?

Well, they weren't on the right side
to wave at me or to touch me.

[male interviewer] They were expressing
a preference, even then, for you.

[Princess Diana] Yes.

Now if you're a man,
or my husband, a proud man,

you mind about that
if you hear it every day for four weeks.

And you feel low about it.

[male interviewer] But were you flattered
by the media attention?

[Diana] No, not particularly.

Because with the media attention
came a lot of jealousy.

A great deal of… complicated situations
arose because of that.

[tense music playing]

[James] When some people
in the institution around the family

started to see that this new couple

could destabilize the power dynamics,

whether actively talked about or not,

the aim was to put them in a box
or make them irrelevant.

[Abigail] It was almost like,
from the wedding and everything,

I saw that they were building her up

and then there was a shift
and they started to tear her down.

[male presenter] The Duchess of Sussex is
at war with her sister-in-law.

All of a sudden, these tabloid stories

started to appear,

criticizing Meghan for every little thing.

What's interesting is that
you could see side by side, two articles.

One in which Kate was praised,
and Meghan was condemned.

-[Harry] You had the bump.
-[Meghan] The bump.

[Harry] The avocados.

It's bizarre. And there were
maybe like 25 examples.

It's literally the same thing.

It's the off-the-shoulder dress.

It's the same fruit.

-If avocado is a fruit?
-Mm-hmm, it is, yeah.

This is how it's covered for her.
This is how it's covered for her.

If you don't see
the difference and understand

why it's being reported that way, why…

then, I can't help you.

-[Meghan chuckles]
-[Harry laughs]

I can't. I'm sorry. I just can't.

At the time, I mean we laughed about it
because it's so ridiculous.

But an attack can be preposterous
but it's still an attack

and that drip feed of constant attack
on someone who is an individual,

a real person, has an impact.

[man] The fairy tale has fractured
and one person is copping all the blame.

[male presenter] Meghan
seems to be a version of the Antichrist.

[female presenter 1]
Is Meghan Markle "Duchess Difficult"?

[female presenter 2]
"Duchess Difficult." "Monster Markle."

[James] A lot of the stories
had a connotation and a tone

that were incredibly demeaning.

[tense music playing]

So many people expect racism
really just to be the N-word.

"None of that's racist."
It's like, "You don't understand."

[male presenter] Where is that racism?
I haven't seen it.

So the UK's perfect at doing this, right?
Nobody wants to be openly racist.

That wouldn't be civilized.
That wouldn't be British.

Uh, but it's perfectly fine
to kind of dog whistle. Give a nod to it.

She's a diva. She's making people cry.

This kind of angry black woman trope.

It just really came to the fore,
uh, really quite suddenly.

Like even the stereotyping
and the association to drugs or terrorism…

[Munira] There's a time
they put my picture and Meghan's picture,

saying that the mosque is related to ISIS.

Why?

[David] Anger sells.

That hysteria elicits clicks,

which elicits an engagement,
which elicits money.

I call it the outrage industrial complex.

And racialized anger is just
another step down the same pathway.

[Meghan] I had still
been under the delusion

that if it was in a tabloid,
no one believed it.

Like, it's a tabloid.

And then we had a walkabout in Liverpool

and there was a group of women,
and one of them said to me,

"What you're doing
to your father's not right."

It was the first time that I went,

"Oh my God.
People actually believe this stuff."

And then my entire center
was rocked to its core.

-[melancholic music playing]
-[indistinct conversation]

[camera shutters clicking]

[Harry] The lies, that's one thing.

You kind of get used to that
when you live within this family.

But what they were doing to her
and the effect that it was having on her…

Like, enough.
Enough of the pain, enough of the…

The suffering.

[melancholic music continues]

[Harry] No one sees
what's happening behind closed doors.

Back in the day,
my mum was in the back of the car,

going to engagements in floods of tears.

And then my dad's saying, "Almost there."

And 30 seconds to wipe the tears away,
slap on some makeup,

and then the door opens
and smile, everything's fine.

And flash, flash, flash,
flash, flash, flash.

[melancholic music resumes]

It was just gloomy. Like she was
just kind of disappearing inside herself.

I'd never seen her like that. It was hard.
It's very hard to talk about. [chuckles]

Um, I was really scared.

It was like,
all of this will stop if I'm not here.

And that was the scariest thing about it.
It was such clear thinking.

I remember her telling me that…

That she had wanted to take her own life.

And, um…

And that really broke my heart.

Because I knew…

Well, I knew that it was bad.

But to just constantly be, um,

picked at by these vultures…

Uh, just picking away at her spirit.

That she would actually think
of not wanting to be here.

That, uh…

It's… That's not an easy one
for a mom to hear.

You know, uh…

And, uh…

[sniffling]

And I can't protect her.

H can't protect her.

She's…

[sniffling]

[melancholic music resumes]

[Harry] I was devastated.

I knew that she was struggling.
We were both struggling.

But I never thought
that 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.

And what took over my feelings

was my royal role.

I had been trained

to worry more about,

what are people gonna think
if we don't go to this event?

We're gonna be late.

And looking back on it now, I…

I hate myself for it. [scoffs]

What she needed from me was
so much more than I was able to give.

I wanted to go somewhere to get help,
but I wasn't allowed to.

They were concerned about
how that would look for the institution.

They knew how bad it was.

[camera shutters clicking]

[Harry] They thought,
"Why couldn't she deal with it?"

As if to say, "Well, you know,
everybody else has dealt with it,

why can't she deal with it?"

But this was different.
It was really different.

But actually, if you strip all that away

and say, "Okay fine,
it was exactly the same,"

so do we still believe
that she should have just sucked it up

like other members of the family?

Or does one think that maybe
it's about time that we stopped?

No one would have private conversations
with the editors saying, "Enough."

My dad said to me, "Darling boy,
you can't take on the media."

"The media will always be the media."
I said, "I disagree."

I have 30 years' experience
of looking behind the curtain

and seeing how this system works
and how it runs.

I mean, just constant briefings
about other members of the family,

about favors, inviting the press in.

It's a dirty game.

You know, there's leaking,
but there's also planting of stories.

So if the comms team
want to be able to remove

a negative story about their principle,

they will trade and give you something
about someone else's principle.

So the offices end up
working against each other.

It's a kind of a, this weird understanding
or acceptance that happens.

And you can always say,
"I didn't know about this,"

or, "This would never happen.
Are you suggesting that I condone this?"

It's like, "No. But what I am asking is
have you done anything to stop it?"

And the answer is no.

[man] Pretend like
you know each other, come on.

[all laughing]

[Harry] William and I both saw
what happened in our dad's office…

and we made an agreement that we would
never let that happen to our office.

[James] Every year,
Kensington Palace hosts a Christmas party

for the principles and the staff.

And so we were gearing up
for one big party.

and very shortly…

Very shortly before the party,

it became two parties.

[poignant music playing]

That was the point that you realized
that these offices are separating.

[female presenter 1] It could be the end
of an era for the "Royal Fab Four."

[female presenter 2]
The "Fabulous Four" no more?

Meghan and Harry officially cutting ties
with William and Kate.

[female presenter 3] The split
fueling speculation of further strains

in the once-close relationship
between Harry and William,

and growing tensions between their wives.

[wistful music playing]

[Harry] I would far rather
get destroyed in the Press

than play along with this game
or this business of trading.

[camera shutters click]

[Harry] And to see my brother's
office copy the very same thing

that we promised
the two of us would never ever do,

that was heartbreaking.

[Meghan] Ready.

-[Harry] Yay!
-[Meghan] Yay! Merry Christmas!

[Meghan] We were in this bubble
where everything is controlled by them.

I couldn't even text my friends a photo.

"You can't do this, you can't…"

Okay. And you do as you're told,

but your world just becomes
more and more like this.

[Abigail] That was a really dark…
That was really a dark time.

And I didn't know what to do.

Like, that's the thing is, like,
they are in this complex organism

that I don't know anything about,
or how to help,

or what to do,
and I'm not allowed to say anything.

Like, I was not allowed to say anything.

[sniffling]

Anything that anybody was printing
wasn't coming from anybody that knew her.

There's all this untruth.

There's all these lies,
and it just seemed to be getting worse.

Abby came to me
and said we should do something.

I called one of my closest friends,

who just so happened at the time
to be the editor of People magazine.

[wistful music playing]

I said, "We have
to turn this narrative around."

You know, it will
just be her closest friends

coming together to talk about the person,

who she really is,
in the middle of this shit storm.

[Silver] It was born out of
just wanting to remind the world

that she's a person
and not a headline and…

That she is loved
and, and stick up for her.

[Abigail] The story comes out.

Like, "Okay." Like,
there was a little bit of an exhale.

[poignant music playing]

[Meghan] My girlfriends surprised me

with a really beautiful
baby shower in New York.

They're like,
"We're gonna shower her with love,

and shower her baby,
and she's gonna survive this."

"We're gonna get through it with her."

This like, really magical time
of just, like, us just celebrating her.

It was just so cool and so fun to just,
like, try to have an intimate moment.

I don't think I understood that there was
no intimate moment that one could have.

[woman in crowd] Jessica!

[indistinct shouting]

[man] Ladies, ladies, come on!

-[woman 1] That turned into a thing…
-[woman 2] Criticized the extravagance.

-[woman 3] Ostentatious.
-[woman 4] The world's biggest stars.

-[woman 5] A show-off moment.
-[woman 6] Traveling home in style.

[woman 6] Clooney's private jet.
Not too shabby.

[Meghan] It was so wrong.

These independent,
strong, successful women

choose to use their own money,

and it's not taxpayer money,

to throw a party for their friend
from a place of love.

Why are you taking such a beautiful moment
and trying to ruin it?

[Lucy] They knew that they didn't
want to bring Archie up

in this frenzy that they lived in.

So then to suddenly
have my grandmother go, "There's a house."

"Frogmore Cottage.
It's available. Are you interested?""

-"Yes, please."
-[Meghan] Yes.

-[wistful music playing]
-[dog barking]

It was a place
where we had so many memories.

From our courtship,
our engagement, our wedding, our walks.

And then where we ended up,
you know, having our baby.

-[triumphant music playing]
-[woman squeals]

Oyez, oyez.

Buckingham Palace proudly announces
the birth of a royal baby boy.

[Whoopi Goldberg]
We wanna start off by congratulating

Duchess Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

[female presenter 1]
Very happy news. It is a boy!

[Whoopi Goldberg] Just a few hours ago…

Meghan and myself
had a baby boy, um, early this morning.

It's been the most amazing experience
I could ever have, um, possibly imagined.

One of those babies is
gonna pop out looking like me.

[audience laughing]

As a Black man who's just been
born to royalty, the Black prince,

Archie has changed the game!

[cannons fire]

[male presenter] Her Royal Highness is
the proud and happy mother of a prince.

The whole country knew
that the baby would soon be born.

All day on Sunday,
people waited outside the palace…

Things have been done
in a certain type of way for many years.

[crowd cheering]

[crowd cheering]

[James] The big photo call on the steps
as soon as you've given birth.

[crowd cheering]

That's the way that it was expected to go.

And so, in the run-up to Archie's birth,

reporters were constantly phoning like,

"What are the plans?
We know that it's close."

[Meghan] There was already, like,
the pressure of, like, the picture

with Archie on the steps,

and "are they gonna do that,
are they not?"

We are very familiar with this brown door.

[Meghan] But I had been
really worried going into that labor

because I'm older and I didn't know
if I'd have to have a C-section.

And I had a very long-standing
relationship with my doctor.

And that's who I trusted
with my pregnancy.

And they said, "Right.
But she's at Portland Hospital."

"And the steps are at this hospital."

[poignant music plays]

I said, "Okay, we could do a photo call
in front of Portland Hospital."

And they said it's impossible.

"We couldn't barricade these streets off,

and it would create a threat
for the emergency room entrance,

because that's where
you would have to do this picture."

We said, "Okay, what's the hybrid?
Can we give them more time at the castle?"

And everything in turn was like,
"Yes. Yes, great. Oh, yes."

At no point did someone go,
"Absolutely not."

[camera shutters clicking]

[man] Meghan, tell us
what it's like becoming a new mum?

And tell us a little about
"Baby Sussex", as we're calling him.

[laughing] Um, it's magic.
It's pretty amazing and…

I mean, I have the two best guys
in the world, so I'm really happy.

[man] And how are you
finding parenting, generally?

[Harry] Yeah, it's great.
Parenting is amazing.

It's only been, what,
two and a half days, three days.

[Meghan] Yep.

But we're just… We're just so thrilled
to have our own little bundle of joy.

He's already got a little bit
of facial hair as well. Wonderful.

-Guys, thank you.
-Thank you all so much.

-[man] Thanks for your time.
-Thank you.

And thank you, everybody,
for all the well wishes and the kindness.

It's really… It just means so much.

-Thank you.
-Thanks. Bye.

[wistful music playing]

[James] Now, I think, if you ask
most average members of society,

they would say, "We would love
to be able to see him."

"Take all the time you need.
We'll see him when you're ready."

But even though it was
just two days after Archie was born,

it turned into a narrative
of Harry and Meghan being selfish.

[female presenter 1] A sharp departure
from Charles and Diana,

and William and Kate,

all more public with their kids.

[female presenter 2] There has been
some controversy,

some comment in the newspapers saying,

"Look, we fund them.
We wish to see the baby."

The amount of abuse that we got,
especially you, but both of us,

for not wanting to serve our child up
on a silver platter, was incredible.

[female presenter] This is
an unprecedented slap in the face.

If anyone needed evidence
as to why Meghan and Harry

felt it necessary to protect
their newborn baby from the media glare,

they couldn't have asked for

a better case to be made

than the way in which the narrative
played out after the birth.

Archie's just been born.

Media, social media starts
to take on a life of its own.

Someone in the media
posting a photograph of a couple with

a chimp.

And at the top it said,
"Royal baby leaves hospital."

[tense music playing]

So that was
one of the first things that I saw.

It was a metaphor for the way
this family were being treated.

That their dignity

and their right to be treated equally

and have their humanity
respected and acknowledged

was secondary to
a white, patriarchal media establishment.

[female interviewer] Were you aware
of the pressure on them

to go pose for the media at that time?

Mm-hmm. I was with her. I mean,
I was there. I'd been there a month. Yeah.

Yeah. And that, um…

Well they had already,

you know, just stripped
both of them of any kind of privacy.

It was almost like it's not your child,
it's the institution's child.

She's saying, "No, this is my baby."

[wistful music playing]

[Doria] I was there when
she brought him home from the hospital.

Little tiny little thing. Mm-hmm.

I'd never been a grandmother… I mean…
You know, I'm new to being a grandma.

My mom stayed with us for a month solid.

And it was great to have her there.

But then after that, we didn't
have someone to help us with Archie.

[Lorren] I had this phone call
and they were like,

"Prince Harry and Meghan
would like to see you

and speak to you
about looking after Archie."

I was like, "Hang on a minute,
I need to sit down."

I remember just driving so far. I think
I did get a ticket. Actually, yes, I did.

[Meghan laughing]

[Lorren] When I arrived
at Frogmore Cottage,

I see this guy, he's tall, he's ginger,

and he's walking barefoot.

And I have gone
and bought a new pair of shoes in Clarks.

And suddenly, whatever I thought or felt,

the formality just sort of slid
and I felt so at ease.

They were really hands-on parents.

In the morning when he woke up,
first thing, mum and dad would come in.

They would be with their baby.
She would feed him.

And then after that, I'll take over
and normally we'd go for a morning walk.

And she said, "Is it okay if I, like,
tie him on my back with a mud cloth

like we do in Zimbabwe?"
Yes! Let's do that!

Archie's legs like this.
Hugging Lorren like this, fast asleep.

-It's true.
-It was brilliant.

She just took care of,
not just Archie, but she took care of us.

She definitely took care of me.

Early into the job,
we have to prepare for a tour.

I'm like,
"What do I pack for a small prince?"

[woman over PA] Please place items
in the locker carefully…

[Harry] It's always been
a bit of a royal thing

to go on a tour with your child.

The South Africa tour,

Archie being four months old,
off we went and we took him with us.

And it was the first time that
we traveled as a family for official work.

It was a real strange experience.

[traditional music playing]

[female reporter] Far from
traditional start to their royal tour.

Arriving in the Nyanga township known
as the murder capital of South Africa.

[male reporter] Symbolic place
for the world's

most talked-about mixed-race couple
to make their entrance.

-[traditional music playing]
-[dancers chant]

You have to see the royal family
as diplomats representing the UK.

And so there was, um, great nervousness

about how far Meghan could go

in doing or saying
anything that wouldn't cause…

Hello.

…national geopolitical rows
between the two countries.

[Meghan] Maya Angelou once said,

"Each time a woman stands up for herself,

without knowing it,
possibly without claiming it,

she stands up for all women."

[crowd cheering]

While I'm here, with my husband,
as a member of the royal family,

I want you to know that, for me,
I am here with you as a mother,

as a wife, as a woman,
as a woman of color, and as your sister.

[crowd cheering]

[traditional music playing]

[Meghan] Just from a cultural standpoint,

you do feel connected,
you feel welcome, you feel a part of.

And as an African American,
that is our lineage.

[presenter 1] Baby Archie all smiles

in his first official appearance
on a royal tour.

[presenter 2] Of course, everyone

was looking forward
to meeting Archie Mountbatten Windsor.

[lively music playing]

[James] And there were just
some perfectly wonderful light moments

that, um, she was
just such an enthusiastic new mum.

[woman] It must be exciting to be a mom.

[Meghan] Oh, it's the best.

But it was also the first time that I…
I really got to see,

uh, how low she'd got.

[wistful music playing]

[Lorren] It was a lot
of pressure on everybody

because the tour was full-on
and you're thinking, "Oh my God,

how are you managing this? And yet
you can still put a smile on your face."

Because she did have a smile.

-[Meghan] Hi.
-[man] Hello.

-How are you? You okay?
-I'm good.

-Yes.
-Okay.

[Meghan] Tom, the journalist,
who was on that trip with us--

[Harry] Yes, the Africa documentary.

[Meghan] This was a royal documentary
that the palace was green-lighting.

I guess I just assumed
this was just gonna be a…

Like a glossy version of a happy tour.

[Tom] This has been quite a journey,
really, one way and another.

Perhaps you could just give us an idea
of what the last year's been like.

Um…

[inhales and sighs]

[Meghan] I didn't know
what he was gonna ask me.

I hadn't touched up my makeup.
I hadn't… I was just fried.

[Tom] I don't know what the impact
on your physical and mental health,

of all the pressure
that you clearly feel under.

Um…

I would say, look, any woman when they're…
especially when they're pregnant,

you're really vulnerable and

you add this on top
of just trying to be a new mom

or trying to be a newlywed, it's um…

Yeah, well, I guess…
And also thank you for asking,

because not many people
have asked if I'm okay. But it's, uh…

It's a very real thing
to be going through behind the scenes.

[Tom] And the answer is,
would it be fair to say, not really okay?

As in it's really been a struggle?

Yes.

[Tom inhales]

[Meghan] And I guess
because I was so exhausted,

I was just really grateful

that someone seemed to ask me something
like I was a human being.

I mean, in… I guess I just never thought
they'd even use it in the documentary.

I remember just saying,
"Bye, we'll see you on our flight."

Went and gave Archie a bath.

And then we got in the car,

got on the flight with everybody and…

[poignant music playing]

[Meghan] I had no idea that was gonna be
the thing that traveled around the world.

You suddenly go, "Oh, wow, that…
What I said was… Has gone…

Like… It's like, yes, it's global.

[tweet sound]

[Meghan] That's, I think, what spawned
that hashtag, #WeLoveYouMeghan.

[poignant music continues]

[Meghan] It hit a chord for everyone
for something specific to them.

Moms thought, "Oh my God, just like me.
No one asked me as a mom if I'm okay."

Someone of color would be like,
"No one's asked me if I'm okay

when I'm in a situation like this."

[Harry] I think someone in your position
speaking so openly about it

made so many other women feel seen.

[James] People have asked me
what the causes were.

My view is it doesn't matter.

I think that when we start down

a path of trying to get someone to justify

why they feel depressed,

that's a dangerous place for us to be.

What you had was
someone that was struggling

and she needed more help.

No one in the family speaks that openly.

No one had done, apart from one person.

My mum.

In a space of a year,
my whole life changed,

turned upside down.

I never had had a depression in my life.

But then when I analyzed it,

I could see that the changes
I've made in the last year

had all caught up with me.

I was at the end of my tether.
I was desperate.

Because I am a very strong person

and I know that causes complications
in the system that I live in.

From an Institutional perspective,
there was something wrong with her,

as opposed to the environment
or the system which we were part of.

[soft music playing]

[woman on TV] All this candor
has won Harry and Meghan

some sympathy among the British public,

but rumblings from the palace suggest
it hasn't gone down quite so well.

[tense music playing]

The fallout was bonkers.

Every single front page in the UK was like

very different to what
the general public's reaction was.

When you would expect support
from the people closest,

we got the opposite.

[Meghan] There's only so much
you can take on your own.

So you end up saying,
"Something has to change."

It was a huge turning point.

It's when we started
having harder conversations

about what needs to happen for us
to be able to continue to make this work.

["You Don't Own Me"
by Lesley Gore playing]

♪ You don't own me ♪

♪ I'm not just one of your many toys ♪

♪ You don't own me ♪

♪ Don't say I can't go with other boys ♪

♪ And don't tell me what to do ♪

♪ Don't tell me what to say ♪

♪ And please, when I go out with you ♪

♪ Don't put me on display, 'cause ♪

♪ You don't own me ♪

♪ Don't try to change me in any way ♪

♪ You don't own me ♪

♪ Don't tie me down
'Cause I'd never stay ♪

♪ I don't tell you what to say ♪

♪ I don't tell you what to do ♪

♪ So just let me be myself ♪

♪ That's all I ask of you ♪

♪ I'm young and I love to be young ♪

♪ I'm free and I love to be free ♪

♪ To live my life the way I want ♪

♪ To say and do whatever I please ♪