The biggest moments explained from Prince Harry, Meghan’s Netflix docuseries
Netflix releases the first three episodes of "Harry & Meghan."
Prince Harry and Meghan's docuseries is here.
The highly anticipated first three episodes of the six-part series, titled "Harry & Meghan," were released Thursday on Netflix.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex open up in the docuseries about everything from their love story to their decision two years ago to step down from their senior royal roles.
The docuseries, directed by Oscar-nominated Liz Garbus, is billed as a "first-hand account of Harry and Meghan's story, told with never before seen personal archive." It opens by noting that interviews for the docuseries were completed by August, one month before the death of Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Here is a look at the docuseries' biggest moments so far.
Harry and Meghan take on tabloids, media coverage
From the first episode of the docuseries on, Harry and Meghan offer harsh criticisms of the media and its coverage of their relationship and the royal family.
Harry describes a childhood of being followed by paparazzi, leading up to the death of his mother Princess Diana, who died following a car crash in 1997 after being pursued by paparazzi in Paris.
"I accept that there will be people around the world who fundamentally disagree with what I've done and how I've done it, but I knew that I had to do everything I could to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mom," Harry said, referring to his decision with Meghan to leave their senior royal roles. "I didn't want history to repeat itself."
Harry also said he was afraid the media pressure would scare off Meghan, as it had done with girlfriends before her. "I was terrified of her being driven away by the media -- the same media who'd driven so many people away from me," he said.
Meghan described how her life was turned upside down after meeting Harry. She was followed by paparazzi in Toronto, where she said neighbors were paid to position a camera on her backyard.
Harry, who has taken U.K. tabloids to court in the past, also spoke about the royal rota system, where different press outlets are given access to cover the royal family.
"If you're part of the royal rota, you have priority over the story over everybody else. All royal news goes through the filter of all newspapers within the royal rota, most of which, apart from the Telegraph, happen to be tabloids," Harry said. "It all comes down to control. It's like, 'This family is ours to exploit. Their trauma is our story and our story and our narrative to control.' "
Harry's family members absent from docuseries
In the opening seconds of the docuseries, Netflix states that members of Britain's royal family "declined to comment on the content within this series."
After the docuseries aired, royal sources countered that claim, telling ABC News that "neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace nor any members of the royal family were approached for comment on the content of the series."
According to royal sources, Kensington Palace, the household of Harry's brother Prince William and his wife Kate, the Princess of Wales, received an email purporting to be from a third-party production company, via a different, unknown organization's email address.
The palace contacted Harry and Meghan's production company, Archewell Productions, and Netflix to attempt to verify the authenticity of the email, but received no response, sources claimed.
According to the sources, without being able to verify the email's authenticity, the palace was "unable" to provide any response.
A source at Netflix told ABC News Thursday that communications offices for Harry's father King Charles III and William were contacted in advance and given the right to reply to claims within the series.
Both Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace, the household of King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort, declined Thursday to comment on the docuseries.
Meghan's race put in the spotlight
Harry and Meghan speak out in the first episodes about what Harry calls the "race element" of the media coverage of their relationship.
Meghan was born to a white father and a Black mother and grew up biracial in Los Angeles. In the docuseries, she said her mother was asked by neighbors if she was the nanny and described witnessing her mother being called the N-word over a parking spot.
Harry says he believes the "race element" made their situation different than what other members of the royal family had experienced with the press.
"What people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well, so it was almost like a rite of passage, and some of the members of the family were like, 'My wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?,' " he said. "I said 'The difference here is the race element.' "
Meghan's mom Doria Ragland said in the series that she told Meghan the negative treatment she received in the British press was due to her race.
"I said to her -- I remember this very clearly -- that 'This is about race,' " Ragland said, recalling that Meghan reacted by saying she didn't want to hear that, prompting her to respond, "You may not want to hear it, but this is what's coming down the pike."
Sussexes reveal details of their love story
For the first time, Harry and Meghan share extensive details of the start of their relationship in 2016, when Meghan was an actress on the TV show "Suits."
Harry revealed he saw Meghan on a mutual friend's Instagram page and asked to be connected. The friend is not named by the couple.
They had their first date in July 2016 at Soho House in London, followed by a second dinner date at the same location.
After two dates, Harry and Meghan went on a five-day trip to Botswana.
"We had to get to know each other before the rest of the world and the media sort of joined in," Harry said.
He later added of their romance, "When I got to know Meghan more and more, I'm like, 'Now, I'm really falling in love with this girl,' so despite my fear, I just opened my heart to see what's going to happen."
The couple also shared details of their engagement, which Harry said had to take place in the U.K. and with the queen's permission.
Meghan is heard on a phone call telling a friend the engagement is happening as Harry sets it up in a garden outside Nottingham Cottage, their home on the grounds of Kensington Palace.
"It's happening, it's happening, it's happening. He told me not to peek," Meghan is heard saying, later adding that she said yes immediately when Harry finally proposed.
Harry says Meghan reminds him of Princess Diana
In one clip, Meghan, who has two children with Harry, is seen holding a baby and showing them a framed picture on the wall of Harry's mom Diana, whom she calls "Grandma Diana."
Later, Harry described the similarities he sees between his wife and his mom.
"So much of what Meghan is and how she is, is so similar to my mom," Harry said. "She has the same compassion. She has the same empathy. She has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her."
Harry also said that he sees Diana in himself too.
"I think for so many people in the family, especially obviously the men, there can be a temptation, or an urge, to marry someone who would fit in the mold as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with, the difference between making decisions with your head or your heart," he said. "And my mom certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart. I am my mother's son."
Harry gives a glimpse into pressures of royal life
The docuseries is also a rare look into Britain's royal family from Harry and Meghan's perspective.
Harry is the fifth in line to the British throne. His father Charles is currently king and his older brother William is the heir to the throne.
Harry said his childhood memories are mostly "of being swarmed by paparazzi."
"Rarely did we have a holiday without someone with a camera jumping out of a bush or something," he said. "Within the family, the system, the advice that's always given is don't react. Don't feed into it."
"There was always pressure, with its fair share of drama, stress and also tears," he continued. "And witnessing those tears, I could always see it on my mom's face, I thought, 'Who am I? What am I a part of?' "
Charles, William and other members of the royal family have not commented publicly on the Sussexes' docuseries.
Meghan's mom, friends speak out for the first time
Ragland, Meghan's mom and the only member of Meghan's family to attend her wedding to Harry in 2018, spoke out in the docuseries for the first time about her daughter being thrust into the spotlight after meeting Harry.
"I am Meghan's mom," Ragland sad, introducing herself. "And, um, the last five years have been challenging. I'm ready to have my voice heard, that's for sure, a little bit of my experience as her mom."
Ragland described her first time meeting Harry. "He's like 6'1, handsome man with red hair," she said. "Really great manners. He was just really nice and they looked really happy together. Yeah, like he was the one."
She also described raising Meghan on her own after she and Meghan's father Thomas Markle divorced when Meghan, their only child, was young. Meghan said later in the docuseries that she would spend weekdays with her mom and weekends with her father, from whom she is now estranged.
"We had a nice network of women who really helped me raise Meg," Ragland said, saying she was helped by her mother, sister and friends.
"She was always so easy to get along with, very congenial, making friends. She a very empathic child, very mature," Ragland said of Meghan.
Meghan's friends also spoke out in the docuseries, including her "Suits" co-star Abigail Spencer, "Suits" producer Silver Tree and tennis star Serena Williams.
One friend, Lucy Fraser, said she warned Meghan about the intensity of the British press in the early days of her relationship with Harry.
"I remember saying to her, 'When this goes public it is not going to be easy," Fraser said. "The U.K. media are notorious for doing whatever they can to get a story and that they will go through rubbish bins, they will try and break into accounts. They will do whatever they can to get an exclusive and make money. I remember she was quite shocked and she was like, 'Really? They would do that?' And I said, 'Well, yeah, when it's going to make them millions.' "
Meghan addresses her family challenges
Meghan, her mom and Harry all spoke about the challenges that being thrust into the royal spotlight brought on Meghan's family.
Ragland spoke about being followed by paparazzi near her Los Angeles-area home.
"I felt unsafe a lot," she said. "I couldn't just walk my dog, I couldn't just go to work. There was always someone there waiting for me, following me to work. I felt I was being stalked by the paparazzi."
She also spoke about the disappointment she said she felt when Meghan's father was accused of staging paparazzi photos shortly before the Sussexes' wedding.
"I was absolutely stunned that Tom would become part of this circus," said Ragland. "I felt sad that the media would run with this, that he would capitalize. Certainly, as a parent, no that's not what you do. That's not parenting."
Thomas Markle did not attend Harry and Meghan's wedding, and is now estranged from the couple.
Meghan alleged that her dad would not call her or Harry and said she found out through a tabloid that he would not attend her wedding.
Harry said he carries the blame for their estrangement.
"Of course it's incredibly sad what happened. She had a father before this, and now she doesn't have a father," said Harry. "I shoulder that, because if Meg wasn't with me, then her dad would still be her dad."
More to come
The final three episodes of the docuseries will be released on Netflix on Dec. 15, and appear to cover Harry and Meghan's wedding and their exit from their royal roles.
The series is part of a deal the couple inked in 2020 with Netflix shortly after they stepped down from their royal roles. The Sussexes now helm a California-based production company, Archewell Productions.
Next month, Harry will release his memoir titled, "Spare."
The publisher said the book contains "raw, unflinching honesty" and described it as a "landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief."
When the book was first announced last year, Harry said it would be a "firsthand account of my life that's accurate and wholly truthful."
Prince Harry and Meghan's love story
ABC News' Anastasia William and Zoe Magee contributed to this report.
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