# data[].attributes.body
Meghan Markle's initial image was primarily associated with her acting career. She made her name as an actress, campaigner and blogger. However, she started on her path to stardom with her first television appearance in the US in an episode of the medical drama General Hospital in 2002. She was an aspiring actress who worked hard and was focused on her goals which says a lot about her celebrity persona.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle on General Hospital (2001)

# data[].attributes.body
At an early age, Meghan started campaigning for gender equality. At 11, she wrote a letter to the then US First Lady, lamenting a washing-up liquid's TV ad streamline: "Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans". The word "women" changed to "people" within a month. This is when Meghan, the feminist was born. This is one of the key elements of her celebrity image that sticks with her during all the different phases in her life.

# data[].attributes.body
In 2006, Meghan briefly took the role of one of the "Briefcase Models" in season two of the contest Deal or No Deal on NBC. Later, in her own podcast, she mentioned that she hated being on the show. This very much shows that she was still young back then, looking for ways to earn money. It shows that she is just like most of us, a person that needs to pay her bills. This makes her relatable and says much about her persona back then.

# data[].attributes.body
In 2011, Meghan was cast in the USA legal drama television series Suits. This is her biggest and best-known role. She played Rachel Zane, who was a talented paralegal and eventually falls in love with the series lead Mike Ross. Many would say this would have been the beginning of a successful acting career. Rachel Zane was a hard working and focused character which overlaps with the person Meghan was in real life back then.

# data[].attributes.body
After General Hospital in 2002, her work was pretty much characterised by short, one-episode appearances on TV series such as CSI: NY, 90210 and The League. She also appeared in the Sci-fi series Fringe, playing FBI special agent Amy Jessup and she starred in several movies. However, she is most known for the role of Rachel Zane in Suits.

# data[].attributes.headline
Dating Prince Harry and becoming part of the royal family

# data[].attributes.subject
Dating Prince Harry and becoming part of the royal family

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan and Harry met in July 2016. Meghan's celebrity image took a dramatic turn when she became engaged to Prince Harry in November 2017. The engagement and subsequent wedding were widely covered by the media.

# data[].attributes.body
In summer 2022, Meghan launched her podcast Archetypes. This podcast aims to dissect, explore, and subvert the labels that try to hold women back. Guests included Mariah Carey and Serena Williams. This podcast relates to her younger years when she was also already thinking about equal rights for men and women. Additionally, this podcast creates authenticity and intimacy as she openly talks about topics that matter to her.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Archetypes Podcast with Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex

# data[].attributes.body
In 2014, Meghan started sharing her thoughts on food, beauty, fashion and travel, as well as her own story, on her lifestyle website The Tig. She set up the website as an attempt to include think pieces about self-empowerment and featured dynamic and inspirational women. This says a lot about her celebrity persona, as we get to know the open and honest person that she is. It creates a form of authenticity and intimacy as well, because we, the reader, get a glimpse of her life, how she thinks and what she loves and likes. However, unfortunately she shut the website down in 2017, when she started dating Prince Harry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Copyright: Meghan Markle, now The Duchess of Sussex and The Tig.

# data[].attributes.body
Late 2017, everyone's favourite paralegal left Suits. In November 2017, shortly after Meghan met the Queen, the actress was reported to be leaving her role in Suits after seven seasons. She has said she gave up acting to be a full-time royal. Before marrying Harry, Meghan was known and respected as an actress and a feminist. Now we see a change in celebrity image here. It is no longer Meghan the actress - although she is still known for her famous role in Suits - but it is Meghan Duchess of Sussex, wife of Harry the Duke of Sussex.

# data[].attributes.headline
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sit down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey 

# data[].attributes.subject
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sit down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey 

# data[].attributes.body
In 2021, Prince Harry and Meghan dropped numerous bombshells, including revelations about Meghan's struggles with her mental health and a perceived lack of support from "The Firm", as well as being subjected to racism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Biggest Moments From Harry and Meghan's Interview with Oprah Winfrey

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
2016 visit to Rwanda as a global ambassador for Word Vision

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan tackled to issue of the stigma around menstrual health in an article for Time magazine in March 2017 and was a global ambassador for World Vision Canada, which campaigns for better eduction, food and healthcare for children around the world. This creates a sense of authenticity. It shows that she cares about other things outside of her work. Additionally, it shows once again how she uses her celebrity image to ensure that action is taken.

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan combined both acting and campaigning for a while. She was both Meghan the actress and Meghan the feminist. Her image was largely associated with her acting talent and her philanthropic efforts.

# data[].attributes.body
"While my life shifts from refugee camps to red carpets, I choose them both because these world can, in fact, co-exist. And for me, they must." (Meghan Markle)

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan was an opportunity to push a more modern face for the royal family, but she was also a challenge because her racial identity itself signaled a transgression and disruption of the 'tradition' of the monarchy. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship was shining a light on inter-racial couples in the UK. Meghan, who is of African-American and white heritage, was set to become the first mixed-race member of the British Royal Family.

# data[].attributes.body
As a successful actress in the series Suits, Meghan was quite present in the public eye. Gossip sources mostly refer to her as 'Meghan, the actress'. She is everything and does everything any other actress would do; doing interviews and going to talk shows. However, on top of being an actress she is still campaigning and striving for equal rights. This is something she often talks about as well. Overall, the public loves Suits star Meghan Markle.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle Rapid Fire Questions | Suits Season 5 | Dave

# data[].attributes.body
To get an idea of the type of feedback and public response Meghan got during her time as Rachel on the show:

"Such an inspiration, strong willed!"

"Wow. I'm really impressed! Incredibly intelligent woman ...and clearly passionate about this cause. And obviously very beautiful too."

"one of the most inspiring woman in recent years! you can see her background education when she talks."

These positive reactions of Meghan are an example of how she was perceived by the public during her time in Suits.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Suits' Star Meghan Markle Discusses Her Advocacy for U.N. Women

# data[].attributes.body
"Meghan as usual, so humble in front of anyone...so talented... so deserving of her new life ! Love u Meghan !"

"Meghan looks and behaves real in this interview"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle & Patrick J. Adams on Suits, On-Screen Chemistry, and Secret Talents | SEASON 2

# data[].attributes.body
In January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan announced they were stepping down as senior royals. This news received various negative reactions from the public.

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan addressed one incident were she supposedly made Kate Middelton cry. On top of that Meghan also said that while the public was told that she and Harry didn't want their children to have royal titles, that that was a lie - they did want them so that their children could have security. She and Harry also claimed that there were concerns and conversations about how dark Archie's, their son, skin might be when he was born. She makes herself extremely vulnerable in this interview by telling all this, knowing that millions of people will see this. We see her in a honest light: a new side of her, one that we have not seen before. We know Meghan the actress, Meghan the feminist, the Meghan that seems to always be doing things for others, but this time it is Meghan we opens up and shows us that she too can experience suicidal thoughts.

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan revealed that life within the royal family was so isolating and lonely, and that she felt so unsupported by the institution, that she contemplated suicide while pregnant with her son Archie. She is open about these problems to the public.

# data[].attributes.body
Over the years, Meghan's style has changed a lot as she went into different phases of her life. At first, it was Meghan the actress: figure-hugging dresser or ab-baring crop tops. Then, when she started dating Harry in public and she became Meghan the girlfriend, there were the more demure, muted looks which were followed by a mixture of Californian chic and bold designer outfits when she eventually moved to Montecito and laid down her duties as a Royal. Her fashion style becomes part of which phase she is in her life.

# data[].attributes.body
We see a young Meghan. This is the actress and the one that is willing to work hard and focus on the things that matter. She is often dressed in designer clothes and outfits to appeal to her audience and the press as she is often invited to events and red carpets.

# data[].attributes.body
Here, we see the royal persona: Meghan who is part of the royal family. As a royal, there are certain expectations when it comes to clothing. Not necessarily a change in celebrity image. However, there are certain things that had to change as she became a royal.

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan doesn't have any royal duties anymore. She is just doing what she loves and with that comes her own wardrobe. She doesn't feel the need to wear tight, un-revealing, royal-like dresses anymore, but she has developed her own style that goes with what she is doing in life right now.

# data[].attributes.body
Where Meghan was once seen as the lovely actress in Suits, this changed quite quickly after the interview with Oprah. However, opinions weren't just one sided. Some became more sympathetic to her situation. Meghan's departure from royal life triggered varied public reactions. Public opinion appeared to be divided, with supporters praising her for seeking autonomy and critics accusing her of destabilizing the royal family.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LONDON - The explosive interview given by Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, gripped millions of viewers in the United States and the United Kingdom alike this month.

Touching on mental health, race, finances and the couple's public family fallout, the blockbuster program has created an ongoing media frenzy of intrigue over what goes on behind palace walls.

But the reactions to the interview have revealed another divide: distinct cultural sensibilities on both sides of the Atlantic.

While the self-exiled royals received mostly favorable press coverage and social media commentary in America, in Britain, the couple's confessions were met with more than a dollop of disapproval.

Some U.K. tabloids branded the pair "selfish," "nauseating" and said the interview was harmful to the queen, as they derided the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for going against the traditional British "stiff upper lip" stance to expose personal family matters to the American media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

In doing so, the argument goes, they reduced the more than 1,000-year-old institution of the monarchy to celebrity talk show fodder.

"This interview has removed all remaining sympathy I had for the couple," Mark Graham, 52, an educational trainer from Cambridgeshire in eastern England told NBC News.

"I thought it was very staged and calculated. Most definitely one-sided and targeted."

Far from damaging the monarchy, Graham said, the "sorry affair" had only reinforced the royal family's standing and popularity in Britain.

For Pauline Farren, 50, originally from London but now living in Ireland, her sympathies also lie with Queen Elizabeth II and other royals.

"I was disgusted with them. I dislike Meghan intensely and feel sorry for Harry," she said. "It was extremely classless to air their dirty linen in public after all the royal family have done for them."

The timing was also provocative, she added.

"Prince Philip is very ill in hospital and the timing couldn't have been worse, we are in the middle of a pandemic," she said. "They look like spoiled, ungrateful millionaires."

Philip, 99, was discharged from a London hospital Tuesday, returning to Windsor Castle after a month of treatment for an unspecified infection and a pre-existing heart condition.

An opinion poll by YouGov published after the interview found it had hurt the popularity of the two royals, with 48 percent of Britons now viewing Harry negatively - a drop of 15 points since the start of March. It also marked the first time approval had dipped into negative territory for the prince.

Meghan fared worse: only 3 in 10 people in the U.K. now hold a positive opinion of her, the poll found.

Across the pond, however, it was seemingly another story.

"The first thought I had, watching Meghan Markle, was that she was so genuine. I was immediately struck by her clarity, and that she was telling the absolute truth about her experiences," said Chris Pluto, 44, a line cook at a restaurant in Pittsburgh.

Pluto said Meghan showed "courage" for speaking about her mental health, an approach that resonated and sparked empathy among many Americans.

"That made me cry. I felt that experience. I felt the honesty of what she was saying," Pluto added.

The Duchess said during the interview that the pressure of royal life had, at times, left her feeling suicidal. "I just didn't want to be alive anymore," she told Winfrey.
Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics
Former first lady Michelle Obama, singer Beyoncé and White House press secretary Jen Psaki were among the Americans to applaud Meghan for speaking openly about race and mental health.

"It seems to me that the U.S. is far more open to discussing important issues relating to mental health and racism. Britain has a tendency to look the other way," British author and Meghan biographer Sean Smith said.

"Over here in the U.K., we spent far too much time discussing the hurt feelings of TV host Piers Morgan," he added.

Morgan said on-air that he doubted some of Meghan's comments and later quit hosting a morning show to "spend more time with my opinions," he tweeted. Britain's broadcasting regulator Ofcom has received more than 57,000 complaints from the public about his comments, so far.

For Brittney Watters, 31, a communications manager for the Fresno Unified School District in California, the royal interview "was so relatable."

"What Meghan Markle was talking about has happened to me. I'm not a celebrity. I'm an everyday, middle class working person," she said.

"I've experienced racism, oppression. I've experienced having thoughts of suicide, feeling exhausted and tired of my efforts as a Black woman - constantly trying to fight against the system."

Meghan said that a royal insider had expressed "concerns" to Harry about how dark the skin of their children might be. The couple declined to name the individual, but Winfrey later said that Harry had made clear it was neither the queen nor Philip.

Reflecting its traditionally stoic attitude, Buckingham Palace issued a 61-word statement in response to the interview.

"The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning," it said. "While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately."

Harry's brother, Prince William, batted away the race allegations, telling reporters in London on March 11: "We're very much not a racist family."

But that only served to fuel the appetite of the press and the public in both countries for more on the family drama.

The queen's standing among Britons, however, remains relatively undented, with 4 in 5 people liking her, according to the YouGov poll. William and his wife, Kate, also remain hugely popular - with about three-quarters of Britons giving them favorable reviews.

Londoner Adie Perkins said that following the royal revelations, he was sure the institution would "find a way of getting over it" as "there's too much love for the monarchy," but added that he found the interview "pretty shocking" and was left with little sympathy for Meghan and Harry.

Not all Britons are royalists.

An #abolishthemonarchy hashtag trended on Twitter after the interview, among those who support a republic.

For biographer Smith, little could or should change about the monarchy while Elizabeth II reigns, and attempts to pit transatlantic family members against one another are unhelpful.

"In my opinion, nothing will change while the queen is on the throne ... she deserves respect," he said.

"For me, that respect includes the media not weaponizing her as a sweet little granny against Meghan. They are both women of substance and deserve to be treated accordingly."
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan and Harry interview fallout reveals U.K., U.S. cultural divides

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The interview given by Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, has split views among audiences in America and Britain, revealing distinct cultural sensibilities.

# data[].attributes.body
"I thought it was very staged and calculated. Most definitely one-sided and targeted".

# data[].attributes.body
"That made me cry. I felt that experience. I felt the honesty of what she was saying".

# data[].attributes.body
From their courtship to their exit from royal life, Harry and Meghan share their complex journey in their own words in this docuseries, which was released in 2022. A documentary in itself creates authenticity and intimacy. Meghan and Harry tell the story from their perspectives. Meghan has been though a lot up to this moment and she wants to tell her side of the story as there have been so many speculations and opinions. She reflects on where she has been and where she is now. This includes her time being a royal and her troubles with the press and eventually why they stepped down as royals.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harry & Meghan | Official Trailer | Netflix

# data[].attributes.body
The first three episodes focus mainly on the romance, engagement and marriage of Meghan and Harry. The opening instalments of the series offer their personal story: an American actress from the TV series Suits meets the youngest son of Princess Diana in 2016. What is particularly interesting, is that we get to see some unseen clips from their daily life. This says a lot about her persona: she is willing to share some very personal moments with us which shows how honest and open she is.

# data[].attributes.body
Having a docuseries once again creates some sort of authenticity and intimacy. However, we, as an audience, don't know what has been left out and what has purposefully left in. However, we get to know the Meghan that is so deeply in love with Harry and we they tell their story.

# data[].attributes.body
The tig was her own personal blog and she used it tell personal stories. On her 33rd birthday, she wrote that her '20's were brutal': she had trouble fitting in as a teenager. She also wrote that, as a biracial, she fell somewhere in between and didn't really fit anywhere. She was open about everything in her blog.

Sometimes talking about personal things, while you are already famous, can backfire and can be used against you. However, in this case people created more empathy for the biracial actress who is a big supporter for equal rights herself as well.

She also made a list of New-Year's resolutions which included running the New York Marathon, stop swearing and stop biting her nails. The fact that she shares this with us, shows us that she is also just a human being like us who has the same stupid and small resolutions which we might have. This way the wall that is between us, between celebrity and fan, becomes a little thinner.

# data[].attributes.body
In the docuseries, Meghan is shown as a loving and supporting mother and wife. She is portrayed as if her long career and past struggles, everything that brought her up to this point, have hardened and wisened her. It made her stronger and in this docuseries she explains the choices that she made.

# data[].attributes.body
Nowadays, Meghan is living her life with Harry and two children in Montecito. She is working on the foundation, together with Harry she creates films for Netflix and she still is a feminist striving for equal rights. She changed a lot over the years and so did her celebrity image. From beloved, working hard actress, to respected royal persona, to focused mother/wife/feminist/activist, she has done it all. However, what began at a young age, feminism, is still with her. She is all there for helping others, equal rights and telling her story which creates more and more authenticity, intimacy and relatedness. Additionally, something that she has always done and can be seen throughout her different phases is the fact that she is so open about everything. It started with her blog, then during her time as royal, after her time as a royal in her podcast, the documentary and even now while doing interviews. She is showing the real her to us and not some perfected version.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle Explains Why She Quit ‘Deal or No Deal’

# data[].attributes.body
This interview with Meghan substantiates the fact that she has been struggling with her skin colour pretty much in every phase she has been. On her blog, in her podcast and in the Oprah interview she talks about a few situations in her life where the colour of her skin mattered. This was during her youth, the time she was an actress, when she was dating Prince Harry. She is open about the things that happened during her youth and why Suits stole her heart as they were precisely looking for someone like her. This is reflective of her celebrity image as it portrays her as a relatable human being that works hard to get what she wants.

# data[].attributes.body
This video is evidence of the celebrity using her celebrity image to inspire others. What is interesting here is that the title of the video 'Suits' star Meghan Markle' shows that she is known, her celebrity persona, as a star from the show Suits while she is also talking about other things that matter to her.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‘Suits’ star Meghan Markle talks International Day of the Girl

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan Markle began to reshape her image by actively participating in philanthropic and humanitarian initiatives. Even when married to Harry, Meghan has continued to focus particular energy on women's empowerment and gender equality, as she has for many years. She has always been a feminist: this already started when she was 11 years old. She has undertaken work with organisations such as the UN with emphasis on women's issues. Nowadays, she focuses on girls education, encouraging young women in fulfilling their potential and female empowerment. This says a lot about her celebrity persona and about the person that she is and always has been. It is one of the key elements that stayed with her during the different phases in her life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Instagram: "[Sound On 🔈] Today is International #DayoftheGirl, a day observed globally and created by the United Nations to acknowledge the gender inequality that exists worldwide. Be it lack of access to education, stigma surrounding MHM, forced child marriage, legal or medical inequality, or gender-based violence, there is a pressing need to support young women in their path to excellence.

It is also a day to celebrate and encourage girls to know their value and to support them in taking action to grow into the women they wish to be.

The Duchess of Sussex has been a long time advocate for women’s and girls rights and at the age of eleven campaigned against a sexist advertisement, which was then changed. No matter what age, or what background you have the power to make an impact.

HRH recently shared a quote during a speech in Cape Town: “Visualize your highest self, and show up as her.”
•
To all of the young girls reading this today on International Day of the Girl, that quote is for you.

Video©️SussexRoyal (Images used are from accounts we have followed and PA images)"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
258K likes, 7,237 comments - sussexroyal on October 11, 2019: "[Sound On 🔈] Today is International #DayoftheGirl, a day observed globally and created by the ..." 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle: How Periods Affect Potential

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Shame surrounding menstruation remains a direct barrier to girls' education and progress, and it's time to change that.

# data[].attributes.body
During her time in Suits, her acting phase, she is seen as a star: she is a star in a famous series. However, I would rather say she becomes more of a celebrity when she marries Prince Harry. She is famous for marrying a Prince and she leaves her acting days behind her.

# data[].attributes.body
Archewell, founded by Meghan and Harry, is a non-profit Organization which uplifts and unites communities - local and global, online and offline. It once again shows how Meghan gives to the community and shows us how she cares. This is a key point in her celebrity persona. She is an activist and works hard for the things she wants to achieve.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Archewell Foundation provides back to school essentials to girls in Nigeria

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle Says She Can Feel The 'Embryonic Kicking Of Feminism' At Women's Day Event | TIME

# data[].attributes.body
Shows how podcasts can lead to more authenticity and intimacy.

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan is looking quite somber during the interview (once in a while a few laughs). It is as if her long career and her past struggles, everything that brought here up to this point, have hardened and wisened her. All the things she had to deal with in the past, the press, the royals and everything about her skin colour, made her stronger and it made her the person that she is today. Opening up about that in this interview with Oprah, one of the most respected woman to do interviews with, creates a lot of authenticity and relatedness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Rigorous Empathy of "Oprah with Meghan and Harry"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Doreen St. Félix writes about the interview special "Oprah with Meghan and Harry," in which Oprah Winfrey spoke to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry about leaving the British Royal Family.

# data[].attributes.body
This study examined how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex linguistically constructed the messages that they wanted to get across. Whereas half feels empathy for Meghan and the things that she had to go through, others feel that she is not speaking the truth and is deliberately slandering the royal family and the press.

# data[].attributes.body
One of the most prominent aspects of Meghan Markle's changing image was her highly publicized conflict with the British tabloid press when she started dating Prince Harry.

The media played a pivotal role in shaping Meghan Markle's image as she became a royal. News outlets covered her fashion choices, charity work, and interactions with the public, contributing to her portrayal as a style icon and a dedicated humanitarian. However, it also had a negative aspect. She was also being terrorised because of her skin colour and the fact that she was 'just' an actress from the United States.

So, I didn't necessarily change her personality, but the press changed her celebrity image for her by writing about her negatively in the news.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LONDON - The epic squabble between Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, and the rest of the British royal family burst back into the open Thursday, in a Netflix series that promised to reveal the "truth" about the rift pitting Hollywood glamor against the centuries-old institution.

Harry and Meghan are clearly keen to tell the story of their relationship from their perspective. But while the the first three of the six episodes do feature some unseen footage of the couple and messages between them, they offer little new information about them and the controversies that have swirled around them.

"This is a great love story," Harry says in the first 10 minutes. "And the crazy thing is, I think this love story is only getting started."

Referring to his mother, Princess Diana, who was 36 when she died in a car crash while being chased by photographers in Paris, Harry describes himself as "my mother's son" when talking about his relationship with Meghan.

"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 the mold, as opposed to someone you are perhaps destined to be with. The difference between making decisions between your head or your heart," he says.

"My mom certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart and I am my mother's son," he adds.

The series is being carefully watched in Britain, with coverage of the documentary dominating publications that Harry has accused of hounding his family.

" Sussexes' war on royals" intones the Daily Mail. " Netfibs: Five times Meg and Harry appeared to change their story in bombshell Netflix doc," The Sun proclaims.

Aside from showing the story of their courtship, the six episodes of "Harry & Meghan" also look set to highlight long-running grievances that have roiled Britain's royal family for years.

Harry's obvious anger at the media surfaces multiple times. He says it is his "duty to uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media," and is "genuinely concerned" for the safety of his family. "No one know the full truth, we know the full truth, the institution knows the full truth and the media knows the full truth because they've been in on it."

"Every relationship that I had within a matter of weeks or months was splattered all over the newspapers and that person's family harassed and their lives turned upside down," he says later.

After their relationship became public, Meghan says in the second episode, members of the media "paid certain neighbors" near her home in Toronto "to put a livestream camera into my backyard."

"My face was everywhere, my life was everywhere, tabloids had taken over everything," she adds.

The episode also touches on Meghan's early life and features her mom, Doria Ragland, who describes the last five years as "challenging."

Meghan, who has described herself as mixed race, also talks about the media's coverage of her race. "It's very different to be a minority but not be treated as a minority right off the bat. Obviously now people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I went to the U.K. But before that, most people didn't treat me like a Black woman," she says.

The third episode serves as a sort of lesson on racism and oppression stemming from Britain's vast empire, and the historical relationship between slavery and the royal family.

'The race element'

The British tabloids have intensely scrutinized Meghan, publishing stories about her estranged family following her engagement and marriage to Harry in May 2018. The couple has won several lawsuits against their publishers in recent years, while some remain unresolved.

Harry says that the media coverage early in their relationship was viewed by a lot of his family "almost like a rite of passage."

"Some of the members of the family were like, 'Right, my wife has been put through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be different?' And I said, 'The difference here is the race element.'"

Later he adds, "The fact that I was dating an American actress was probably what clouded their judgment more than anything else at the beginning. Oh, he's dating an actress, this won't last."

It is awkward timing for the release of the show, coming three months after Queen Elizabeth II's death and the ascension of Harry's father, Charles, as king. It also comes less than a week after his brother, Prince William, and his wife, Catherine, Princess of Wales, made a high-profile trip to the United States.

Before and after leaving Britain for North America, the couple accused the royal household of not defending Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, from the intrusive and sometimes racist coverage by the country's voracious tabloid press. In addition, Harry is challenging in court a decision by the British government to deny him police protection while in Britain.

Directed by Liz Garbus - the Emmy-winning producer of the Netflix documentary "What Happened, Miss Simone?" - the three episodes are being released Thursday and three more Dec. 15. The Sussexes' media company, Archewell Productions, is listed as one of the three producers.

Interest in the couple intensified after they stepped down as senior royals in January 2020 to eventually build new lives in California. Harry was later stripped of his honorary military titles and the British Home Office - the ministry responsible for policing, immigration and security - decided that he would no longer receive personal police security while in Britain even if he were to cover the cost himself.

In a wide-ranging interview with the media mogul Oprah Winfrey last March, the couple described a lack of support for the newlyweds and Meghan's experience with suicidal thoughts. The pair also alleged that in the months leading up to the birth of their son, Archie, a royal insider expressed "concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born."

"That conversation, I'm never going to share. But at the time, it was awkward. I was a bit shocked," Harry told the talk show host. Winfrey later said the conversation was not with the queen or her husband, Prince Philip.

Even before going live, the series elicited a strong response in Britain, where the "feeling amongst the British public is 'enough is enough,'" the author and journalist Katie Nicholl told NBC News on Wednesday.

"We have heard this before. What more can they say?" she added.

Nicholl said that Charles was attempting to put "down his blueprint," but "there seems to be so many distractions, particularly from across the Atlantic and coming out of the Sussex camp."

"It seems to be a case of anything you can do, we're going to do and get more headlines," she added.

However, Nicholl said, Buckingham Palace would take allegations about leaking and planting stories "very, very seriously," because it was "potentially quite damaging."

"This is a centuries-old institution that wants to prove that it's fit for modern purpose," she said, adding that the couple's racism accusations were "damaging" to both the palace and to "Britain as a country."

Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the series.

The trailers for the series have already courted controversy as several seasoned royal commentators have suggested that archival footage and pictures featured in them were taken at events that had nothing to do with the couple.

One clip showing men running with cameras was used to illustrate the paparazzi hounding the couple, but was taken as the British model and reality TV star Katie Price arrived at a courthouse to be sentenced for DUI, analysis by several British media outlets including Sky News has shown. (Sky News is owned by Comcast, the parent company of NBC News.)

Doug Seeburg also told The Sun newspaper that the image featuring him among a throng of other photographers was taken ahead of the premiere for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two," in July 2011, years before the couple met.

"In the Netflix trailer, it's implied the photographers, including me, were trying to get a shot of the royal couple - but that's nonsense," he told the tabloid.

Netflix did not respond to a request for comment on the record.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harry and Meghan renew clash with royals and media in new Netflix series

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The epic squabble between Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, and the rest of the British royal family burst back into the open Thursday, in a Netflix series

# data[].attributes.body
“It’s very different to be a minority but not be treated as a minority right off the bat. Obviously now people are very aware of my race because they made it such an issue when I went to the U.K. But before that, most people didn’t treat me like a Black woman."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harry and Meghan’s Netflix series is a 'declaration of war' on royal family | correspondent review

# data[].attributes.body
This interview with Ellen Degeneres shows a different Meghan than we see in the Oprah interview and the Netflix documentary. She seems more happy and she is just chatting with Ellen about normal things in life. For example, how her daughter is getting teeth. This is all very relatable. In addition, she is now living in Montecito, she has no royal duties anymore, she is doing what she loves. Seems like she has finally found a balance of sorts between her different personas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle's Full Interview on The Ellen Show

# data[].attributes.body
This is in the beginning, when Harry and Meghan are still dating and she is still a successful actress in the serie Suits. We see a star here, not a celebrity yet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Battered by the tabloids-to the point where her boyfriend, Prince Harry, issued a statement defending her-actress and activist Meghan Markle has largely ignored the media storm. And as Markle tells Vanity Fair about her bi-racial background, her romance, and her hit series, Suits, it seems that this 36-year-old American may be just the woman for Britain's iconoclastic royal.

Meghan Markle was going to London. She had a week's hiatus before returning to Toronto to film the 100th episode of Suits, a surprise-hit series on the USA Network, now in its seventh season. On a rainy afternoon in June, Markle came to her front door and welcomed me into her home, on a quiet, tree-lined street in Toronto. Markle was wearing a red, knee-length floral dress ("Erdem, a designer I've been wearing for years"), with her rescue dogs, Bogart and Guy, wagging their tails beside her. A slim brunette with a lightly freckled, glowing complexion and an upturned nose, she looks like the sun-kissed California girl she's always been.

Markle had prepared a lunch of organic greens, a crusty bread to be dipped in olive oil, and pasta tossed with chilies bought from "a little place called Terroni, which they have in L.A. and in Toronto. They're really hot, but if you're good with heat, then I think they're going to be your new favorite thing . . . I'll give you a little jar to take home." Her warmth is genuine. She seems to be the happy genius of her home of seven years. "Seven Canadian winters!" she exclaims about her time filming Suits. "A long time for someone who grew up in Southern California." She has tried to make her Canadian house look like a California bungalow, exposing the hardwood floors and letting in as much light as possible.

For almost a year, rumors have flown about the romance between the 36-year-old actress and Britain's 33-year-old Prince Harry-the redheaded hell-raiser, former army captain who had completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and all-around favorite royal. If Markle and Prince Harry are indeed headed to the altar, she will become the first American to marry into the royal family since Wallis Simpson famously wed King Edward VIII, forcing his abdication from the throne, almost 81 years ago.

Markle is the calm in the center of the media storm inspired by her year-long relationship with the prince. The couple met in London through friends in July 2016, Markle says. Since then, media coverage of their romance has been so intense-and much of it so unpleasant-that Prince Harry was moved to issue a statement asking the press and public, essentially, to back off. They haven't. Even Bogart and Guy have become Instagram stars.

Markle, new to fame, has handled the hoopla with surprising aplomb. "It has its challenges, and it comes in waves-some days it can feel more challenging than others," she says. "And right out of the gate it was surprising the way things changed. But I still have this support system all around me, and, of course, my boyfriend's support."

While arguably the most popular member of the British royal family, Prince Harry is also the most iconoclastic. He's loved for having been the bad boy in his youth and now the regular guy of the family, for his 10 years of army service, including his time in Afghanistan (the only place he ever felt "normal," he's said), and in recent years for his philanthropy on behalf of combat veterans.

V.F. contributing editor Sally Bedell Smith, who wrote a biography of Prince Charles, says, "Harry, who could have been the scapegrace sibling, was that for a while." There was the widely released photo of him looking tipsy at a London nightclub. There was the scuffle with a photographer outside another London nightclub at around three A.M. that resulted in the photographer's cut lip. There was the "Colonials and Natives" costume party of 2005, in Wiltshire, to which Harry came dressed like Nazi general Erwin Rommel, complete with desert uniform, German Wehrmacht badge, and swastika armband. A photo of the prince in this costume landed on page one of the British tabloid The Sun. The public was outraged, and Harry apologized. More recently, cell-phone pictures of Harry carousing with friends in Las Vegas in 2012 went viral. "It was probably a classic case of me being too much army and not enough prince," he later admitted.

After Harry ended his stint in the army, he focused on veterans' issues. In September 2014, he organized the Invictus Games, a charity event for wounded combat veterans named after the 1875 William Ernest Henley poem schoolboys in England once had to memorize, with the famous lines "I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul." When Harry turned 30, he inherited $16 million from the estate of his mother, Princess Diana, and that is when he determined to spend his time and efforts supporting veterans with physical and psychological injuries.

As Diana's younger son, Harry continues to bask in the public's love for "the People's Princess." He has been forgiven his occasional wildness, his drift, the acting out of a broken heart that had sent him into grief counseling in his late 20s. As the royal favorite, there is keen interest in-and much speculation about-the woman he may marry. A rumor floating in cyberspace has that he popped the question last month when they were vacationing in Botswana.

As in the 1957 Marilyn Monroe-Laurence Olivier film, The Prince and the Showgirl, a feeding frenzy surrounds royal-and-nonroyal couplings. Though Markle is extremely pretty and she stars in a TV show, you would never call her a "showgirl." She is too serious, too well brought up. (And outside of Vegas, who's called a "showgirl" anymore?) "Grounded" is the word that is often used to describe her.

"I was born and raised in Los Angeles, a California girl who lives by the ethos that most things can be cured with either yoga, the beach, or a few avocados," she once wrote. Until recently, she maintained a popular lifestyle blog called The Tig. She is a self-described foodie, a passion, incidentally, given to her character on Suits. "I mean, this bread is so good!" she enthuses over the delicious meal she prepared. "It's that perfect crunch and then the softness. They call it the 'crumb,' all of these little holes-oh!"

Suits, in which Markle plays ambitious paralegal turned lawyer Rachel Zane, first brought the actress to wide attention. (Before that she'd appeared briefly in the movies A Lot Like Love and Horrible Bosses and had minor roles on television in the science-fiction drama Fringe and the soap opera General Hospital, among others.) I asked the boyishly attractive, 36-year-old actor Patrick J. Adams, who plays the likable but fraudulent lawyer Mike Ross, Rachel's love interest on Suits, to describe the series and its popularity.

"Getting to 100 episodes is pretty surreal," Adams says. "I never thought that a story about six people working in a law firm in New York City would be something that would capture people's interest all over the globe. I was backpacking through New Zealand a couple of years ago and stopped to help a Swedish guy who had twisted his ankle. He looked up at me, and his eyes went wide, and all he could talk about was how badly he wanted Mike and Rachel to figure things out."

Mike Ross's relationship with Rachel Zane is one of those long, simmering teases that take several episodes to come to a boil, but it was clear from their first meeting that they were meant to be together. "I think Mike and Rachel are a classic Romeo-and-Juliet story," Adams believes. "They come from totally different sides of the tracks. Rachel has taken the path well traveled, worked hard, and followed the rules of the game. Mike is a naturally gifted, brilliant guy but has followed exactly none of the rules."

When it came to casting Rachel Zane, "we needed somebody in the role that was absolutely engaging, relatable, young enough, who is beautiful in a non-traditional way, and who had an authenticity," says Bonnie Hammer, chairman of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group.

Aaron Korsh, the show's creator, recalls that Rachel Zane was particularly challenging to cast because the role required "toughness and attitude while still being likable. . . . We all looked at each other [after Markle's screen test] like, Wow, this is the one! I think it's because Meghan has the ability to be smart and sharp but without losing her sweetness."

When she auditioned for the role, Markle showed up in black jeans, a plum-colored spaghetti-strap top, and heels. It suddenly occurred to her that for the screen test she needed to look less casual and more like a lawyer. She dashed into an H&M and bought a little black dress for $35. Sure enough, she was asked to change into the dress, which she hadn't even tried on. Thank God it fit.

"My parents had been so supportive," she told V.F., "watching me audition, trying to make ends meet, taking all the odds-and-ends jobs to pay my bills. I was doing calligraphy, and I was a hostess at a restaurant-and all those things that actors do. My father knew how hard it is for an actor to get work, so he above all people was so proud that I was able to beat the odds."

One of the strongest bonds Prince Harry and Markle share is their philanthropy. For Markle, it began at an early age. Her mother, Doria Ragland, made sure that her little girl knew about the greater world and its political and economic challenges when she was growing up in Los Angeles.

Meghan's father, Thomas Markle, was a successful lighting director in Hollywood; he lit the popular sitcom Married . . . with Children and, for 35 years, General Hospital. Markle recalled, "Every day after school for 10 years, I was on the set of Married . . . with Children, which was a really funny and perverse place for a little girl in a Catholic-school uniform to grow up."

Markle says, "What's so incredible, you know, is that my parents split up when I was two, [but] I never saw them fight. We would still take vacations together. My dad would come on Sundays to drop me off, and we'd watch Jeopardy! eating dinner on TV trays, the three of us. . . . We were still so close-knit." When she turned 18, she left for Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois-becoming the first person in her family to graduate from college-and double-majored in theater and international relations. In line with her international-relations major, Markle worked at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina her senior year, "so I had been in a completely different world and then suddenly jumped into this one."

Markle thinks her social awareness began during the South-Central riots, in Los Angeles, sparked by the police beating of Rodney King, in 1991, and the subsequent riots in 1992, when she was 11 years old. "They had let us go home [from school] during the riots and there was ash everywhere." As the ash from street fires sifted down on suburban lawns, Markle remembers, she said, "Oh, my God, Mommy, it's snowing!"

"No, Flower, it's not snow," Doria answered. "Get in the house."

Markle's friends, family, and fellow actors on Suits are respectful of her relationship with Prince Harry, which has come under harsh criticism in the U.K. Tabloids report that Queen Elizabeth will be hesitant to sanction such a match for her grandson, following the ancient rule barring Catholics, commoners, and divorcées. Though not raised Catholic, Markle graduated from a Catholic high school and was married for almost two years to producer Trevor Engelson, and she adds a new wrinkle: her mother is black, her father white. Criticism of Markle has been snob-ridden, racist, and uninformed. The trolls have really gone after her.

Last November, the Daily Star Online announced, "Prince Harry could marry into gangster royalty-his new love is from a crime ridden Los Angeles neighborhood"; "the royal's future mother-in-law still lives in Crenshaw, surrounded by bloodbath robberies and drug-induced violence."

"I told her, 'You've got to be who you are, Meghan. You can't hide,' " says Serena Williams.

How does Markle handle the tabloid nonsense about her and Harry? "I can tell you that at the end of the day I think it's really simple," she says. "We're two people who are really happy and in love. We were very quietly dating for about six months before it became news, and I was working during that whole time, and the only thing that changed was people's perception. Nothing about me changed. I'm still the same person that I am, and I've never defined myself by my relationship."

The media frenzy seems to bother the prince more than it does Markle. The official statement issued from Kensington Palace by his communications secretary read, in part, "Meghan Markle has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. . . . Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle's safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her." As for Markle, she prefers what the British call "ostriching." She says, "I don't read any press. I haven't even read press for Suits. The people who are close to me anchor me in knowing who I am. The rest is noise."

Markle's parents "crafted the world around me to make me feel like I wasn't different, but special," as she wrote in a 2015 essay for Elle. As dolls in the 1980s were generally sold in sets of black and white, for Christmas one year her father bought "a black mom doll, a white dad doll, and a child in each color. My dad had taken the sets apart and customized my family."

Problems began in the seventh grade, when she had to complete a mandatory census by checking one of four boxes: "white, black, Hispanic, or Asian." The pale, freckled, curly-haired Markle felt that to choose either white or black would be a rejection of one of her parents. Her teacher told her to check "Caucasian" because she looked white, but she couldn't. She ended up leaving the boxes unchecked. "I left my identity blank-a question mark, an absolute incomplete-much like how I felt," she once said.

Because she is light-skinned and has not made an issue of being bi-racial-though she has embraced it-she has auditioned for white as well as black and Latina roles. There was widespread disbelief among viewers in Season Two of Suits when her black father, a high-powered lawyer played by the charismatic actor Wendell Pierce (of Treme fame), first appeared on the show-most people didn't think her character, or the actress playing her, was bi-racial.

One thing Markle noticed about how she was perceived was that "at almost every photo shoot they would airbrush out" her freckles. "I've always loved my freckles," she now says, so when she was photographed for V.F., she was "thrilled to work with Peter [Lindbergh] because he rarely retouches and he believes in such little makeup. I gave him a big hug and said, 'I am so excited to work with you because I know we will finally be able to see my freckles!' "

More important, what does Queen Elizabeth think of the prospect of a marriage between her grandson and the American divorcée? When asked if she thought the Queen opposed the match, Sally Bedell Smith, who has written biographies of Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, and most recently Prince Charles, said, "The stakes are obviously lower in the case of Harry because he is now fifth in line to the throne [in descending order, the others are Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince George, and Princess Charlotte]. They have to be concerned-William and Harry will always have a special place because, whatever you think of Diana, she has a magical aura that continues. The fact that Harry and William are half Diana . . . that will never go away."

"The Queen is remarkably open-minded and she's very tolerant," Smith observes. William was allowed to cohabit with Kate (Middleton), even though she's the daughter of "a very middle-class family. The Queen just looked at who Kate was and that she was in love with her grandson, and that she knew how to conduct herself with dignity and discretion, and that was the most important thing. I would imagine that the Queen's view of this would be: if they're in love and they're well suited, then they should proceed."

"At the end of the day I think it's really simple," Markle says. "We're two people who are really happy."

Bonnie Hammer expressed her concern about Markle's sudden, international fame. "She isn't somebody who was already a celebrity, who had paparazzi tracking her day and night in Hollywood or New York or Toronto. She's going through something that should be the most glorious and open time in her life, to be able to share, but because of circumstances, that's very hard."

Markle credits the rock-solid support from her close friends for helping to sustain her. The international tennis great Serena Williams ( who recently graced the cover of V.F.) is one of those friends. The two met about seven years ago at the Super Bowl. "Her personality just shines," Serena said about Markle, who asked her advice on how to handle some of the more extreme results of fame, such as paparazzi showing up at her house and chasing her. "I told her, 'You've got to be who you are, Meghan. You can't hide.' "

Another close friend is the Bahrain-born fashion designer Misha Nonoo. They met in Miami through a mutual friend and immediately bonded. "Her greatest strength is her compassion for others," says Nonoo. "Much of the work she does is unseen by the public."

Another close friend is the actress Abigail Spencer, who has been a Suits cast member. When asked why she thinks Harry was drawn to Markle, Spencer says, "She's got warm elegance, though her style is hard to pin down. It's classy and timeless. When you're talking to her, you feel like you're the only person on the planet. And it's just wonderful to see her so in love."

It was raining in Toronto the day we met, and while this sounds corny, it also happens to be true: as she resumed speaking about Prince Harry, the sun came out, ushering in a brilliant, warm day.

Markle suggested that we move outside into the small garden behind the house, where she opened up even more about the object of her affection, her "boyfriend," as she calls the prince.

"We're a couple," she explains. "We're in love. I'm sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time. This is for us. It's part of what makes it so special, that it's just ours. But we're happy. Personally, I love a great love story."

Just before I filed Markle's story, she texted me, "going where the wi-fi is weak," which turned out to be Botswana, a place Harry first visited 20 years ago, shortly after his mother's death-a place of healing where they celebrated Markle's 36th birthday. Whatever the future of their relationship, one suspects that, had she lived long enough to meet Meghan, Diana-beloved for her philanthropy as well as her shy beauty-would have approved.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The sentence regarding the first time Markle met Prince Harry has been amended. Markle told Vanity Fair that the couple met in July 2016.
Behind the Scenes Video by Thomas Lachambre.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cover Story: Meghan Markle, Wild About Harry!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Battered by the tabloids-to the point where her boyfriend, Prince Harry, issued a statement defending her-actress and activist Meghan Markle has largely ignored the media storm. And as Markle tells Vanity Fair about her bi-racial background, her romance, and her hit series, Suits, it seems that this 36-year-old American may be just the woman for Britain's iconoclastic royal.

# data[].attributes.body
Once again shows openness as she talking about this to the press. It says a lot about her persona as we she a pattern throughout the years where she doesn't fear talking about her issues to the public.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meghan Markle on Dealing With Negative Press During Pregnancy | Harry & Meghan: An African Journey

# data[].attributes.body
"I'm sure he's great, but you shouldn't do it, cause the British tabloids will destroy your life." (Meghan's British friends)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article was featured in One Great Story, New York's reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.

The conditions are right for confession. It is a beautiful August day in Montecito, in a beautiful sitting room, in a beautiful home. Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, a lively 3-year-old with a shock of ginger curls identical to his father's, toddles into the room demanding "Momma" listen to his heartbeat with a wooden toy stethoscope. He stands, tummy protruding, while his mother, Meghan, convincingly performs her glee at hearing the thump-thump, thump-thump in his chest. Archie giggles and, satisfied, toddles right back out again.

Meghan, relaxing in a cozy chair, gazes over all that is climate-controlled and high-ceilinged and sun-dappled and perfectly marshmallowy, and hers. An invisible hand has lit a Soho House-branded rose-water candle (the founder, Nick Jones, is a friend from "long before I met Harry," she says), and that scent fills the air, mingling with the gentle tones of a flamenco-inflected guitar floating from a speaker. Then, in the lull in conversation, Meghan turns to me and leans forward to ask in a conspiratorial hush, "Do you want to know a secret?"

Meghan, silen ced no more, looks around, making sure nobody (who would be?) is listening in. Then the top-secret drop: "I'm getting back ... on Instagram," she says, her eyes alight and devilish.

This could have been a troll: Delivering a nothing with such gravitas feels as if Meghan, who has been so trolled by the media, is serving it back, just a little. But, as I quickly realize, it is actually news. Before this chapter in her life, before everything difficult that spun off from marrying the Duke of Sussex and, along with him, the British monarchy, she was just Meghan Markle, a woman with a plum role on a USA procedural and a moderately popular lifestyle blog, The Tig. As herself, she'd amassed 3 million Instagram followers by sharing snippets of a basic life: yoga, food she liked, hikes with friends, her beagle, Guy. Fans watched as she attended events with her Suits castmates and charity galas, nights out at Soho House in London and Toronto. She ran that account for years before she met Harry, but on the heels of their engagement, control over her Instagram was just one of the things (along with The Tig, her passport, and the freedom to open her own mail) she gave up. She'd loved sharing her life with people, she says, but she loved Harry more. "It was a big adjustment - a huge adjustment to go from that kind of autonomy to a different life," says Meghan.

Meghan was permitted to join Harry, Kate, and Will on a preexisting account, @KensingtonRoyal, that she had no control over. "There's literally a structure by which if you want to release photos of your child, as a member of the family, you first have to give them to the Royal Rota," the U.K. media pool, she explains. Usually, the photos would be on media outlets before she could post them herself. That didn't sit right with Meghan, given her strained relationship with the British tabloids ("Harry's girl is [almost] straight outta Compton" is how the Daily Mail introduced her to the British public), and especially since she would soon have a child of her own to protect. "Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?" she asks, still ruffled. "You tell me how that makes sense and then I'll play that game."

In April 2019, one month before Archie was born, Meghan and Harry launched their own Instagram handle, @sussexroyal, which reached 1 million followers within six hours. On their own account, they refused to play the "exchange game": They broke their own news, posting photos that sometimes never even made it to the Royal Rota. Shortly after they officially stepped back from their royal duties, they shut down @sussexroyal. (They could no longer use royal in their branding.) Later, in an interview with , Meghan declared that she wasn't planning on getting back on social media - the constant bullying had been too much. So this divulgence, in addition to being newsworthy, is a symbol of progress: proof that she and Harry have made it to the other side of all the drama that defined their past three years.

"Especially now, with Archetypes coming out," she says, steering the conversation toward the reason she agreed to sit for an interview in the first place. Archetypes, the podcast Meghan hosts, is the first, much-anticipated offering to come from the pair of high-profile deals the couple signed in 2020 with Netflix and Spotify. Each episode features her, in conversation with her famous friends, discussing the ways women are unfairly labeled - an experience, Meghan notes, she has been through herself and is finally ready to talk about. Progress, however, is a series of steps forward and leaps backward. Later, Meghan would relay she was no longer sure she would actually return to Instagram.

Though she has been media trained and then royal-media trained and sometimes converses like she has a tiny Bachelor producer in her brain directing what she says (at one point in our conversation, instead of answering a question, she will suggest how I might transcribe the noises she's making: "She's making these guttural sounds, and I can't quite articulate what it is she's feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she's just moaning"), at this stage, post-royal, there's no need for her to hold back. She's flinging open the proverbial doors to her life; as any millennial woman whose feminism was forged in the girlboss era would understand, she has taken a hardship and turned it into content.

Meghan's journey from Deal or No Deal suitcase girl to princess had the makings of a fairy tale or, at the very least, a stellar romantic comedy, but it took almost no time to turn into an extraction plot from a mid-'90s political thriller. The seemingly storybook wedding in 2018 was followed by a year of clandestine conversations with the 1,200-year-old institution dubbed the Firm, during which the couple asked for help in relieving Meghan's declining mental health. When those talks went nowhere, there were even more clandestine conversations with a network of rich and powerful friends that led to an escape to Vancouver Island for a six-week holiday that turned into something far more permanent. It was from there the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan, made a surprise announcement that they would be stepping back from their roles as senior members of the royal family in an Instagram post so full of hidden context and meaning that MI6 could use it for message-decoding training.

Their accepted exit terms (or " Megxit," to use the term the papers favored, even though Harry declared it misogynistic) stipulated that the couple would no longer make appearances on behalf of the queen, would no longer be permitted to use the HRH designation, and would make their own money (though Prince Charles provided some financial assistance for the first year). They were left sans public funding to bankroll both their lives and the security that protected those lives, and the press had just leaked the location of the coastal home they were staying in. By March 2020, the pandemic was under way, and there was talk of the Canadian-U.S. border closing. They could see men on boats watching them from the water.

Though Meghan had never met Tyler Perry in person, he had reached out when she and Harry got married to tell her that he was praying for her "and that he understood what this meant," Meghan recalls, referring to the symbolic weight of their wedding, "and that he could only imagine what it was like." He also told Meghan to call if she ever needed support or advice. It took her a long time to do so, she admits. But once she did, she found herself telling him every detail of their situation in Canada. "Sometimes, you can tell your life story to a stranger on a plane as opposed to some of the people that are closest to you," she says.

And in a plot twist I may never get over, Perry offered her one of his homes - a literal safe house in Beverly Hills, complete with security detail - and became, in many ways, the reason that Meghan and Harry started their new life in Southern California.

But she already covered all of this in the interview for Oprah, she reminds me with a firm smile and a wave of her hand that signals it is time to move on. In March 2021, a year after they'd left for America, Meghan and Harry put rumors about Megxit to rest. They took part in an interview special with their neighbor and collaborator Oprah Winfrey that attracted 17 million viewers. Over the course of the 85-minute special, she dropped bombshells, baby: about Charles not taking Harry's phone calls, about palace conversations where a (still unnamed) someone kvetched over how dark Archie's skin would be. She clarified that it was Kate Middleton who made her cry over flower-girl dresses, not vice versa, as the tabloids had previously reported. Bombshells and the Firm, leaks and relocations, racism against babies. This was definitely not a fairy tale, but revealing all of it was their way of setting fire to a narrative they didn't control and letting a new one emerge.

My first glimpse of Meghan in this new chapter is her crouched in the entryway, arms wrapped around her black Lab, Pula (Setswana for rain and good fortune and a tribute to an early date during the couple's whirlwind romance in 2016). The front doors are thrown wide open, as are the doors leading out to the backyard. She stands and smiles with the perfect level of warmth, the gleam of her teeth rivaled only by the shininess of her blowout. Backlit by the late-morning light in a scene that looks like a Nancy Meyers cinematic interior, Town & Country, Goop, and Architectural Digest had an orgy and created the perfect moment in California living, she throws her arms wide open, too, and gives me a hug. "Come on through," she says, beckoning me to join her on one of many terraces.

When the media has shaped the story around you, it's really nice to be able to tell your own story.

The Montecito house is the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone's daily reality. It evokes a classic Tuscan villa, a Napa vineyard, and a manicured Beverly Hills country club decorated with careful, considered coastal tones for a casual air - the home equivalent of billionaires dressing down in denim.

Finding a house to start their new life wasn't easy, Meghan tells me. "We were looking in this area" - she's referring to Montecito, the tony beachside hamlet north of Los Angeles - "and this house kept popping up online in searches." At first, they'd resisted going to visit. "We didn't have jobs, so we just were not going to come and see this house. It wasn't possible. It's like when I was younger and you're window shopping - it's like, I don't want to go and look at all the things that I can't afford. That doesn't feel good. " How utterly humbled we all are when confronted with a depressingly aspirational Zillow hunt.

They did eventually tour it and fell almost immediately in love. (And since they have income now, in the form of a reported $25 million Spotify deal and a reported $100 million Netflix deal, it's within their means.) Meghan stops to point out two massive Dr. Seussian palm trees, dead center on a lawn so verdant it's better not to consider the water bill.

"One of the first things my husband saw when we walked around the house was those two palm trees," she coos. "See how they're connected at the bottom? He goes, 'My love, it's us.'  And now every day when Archie goes by us, he says, 'Hi, Momma. Hi, Papa.' " They had toured only the grounds when they told the real-estate agent, "We have to get this house," Meghan says. It didn't matter that they hadn't seen the inside. Meghan gestures to the sweep of the property, from chicken coop to pool house to main house. Eventually, they purchased it for $14.65 million. "We did everything we could to get this house." She leans her head back and lets the sun beam down into her pores. "Because you walk in and go ..." She takes a deep inhale through her nose and breathes out her mouth. "Joy. And exhale. And calm. It's healing. You feel free."

Even if she and Harry have stepped back from their royal duties, Meghan is still very aware that people see her as a princess. "It's important to be thoughtful about it because - even with the Oprah interview, I was conscious of the fact that there are little girls that I meet and they're just like, 'Oh my God, it's a real-life princess.' " But her ambitions for herself (and the little girls who look up to her) are more than to marry into a position. "I just look at all of them and think, You have the power within you to create a life greater than any fairy tale you've ever read. I don't mean that in terms of 'You could marry a prince one day.' I mean you can find love. You can find happiness. You can be up against what could feel like the greatest obstacle and then you can find happiness again."

Meghan's Harry, or "H," as she calls him in anecdotes, or "my love," as she refers to him when he's standing in front of her, as he is now in navy-blue athletic shorts, a T-shirt, and no shoes, has appeared from somewhere in the house to say hello. I stand up, instantly understanding the confusion Meghan must have felt when she first met the royal family. Am I supposed to shake his hand, or bow, or curtsy, or salute? Do I call him Prince Harry, the Royal Formerly Known As Prince, Ex-Prince Harry, the Duke, Sir, Mr. - wait, does he have a last name? As if to preempt any attempts I might make at curtsying, Harry extends his hand to shake mine and welcomes me to their home.

It's very beautiful, I assure him, not calling him anything at all.

"We're fixing all these things, the pipes, but that's a whole story in itself," Harry explains, exasperated.

The day before, while Meghan was on the photo shoot for this issue, Harry had been left to his own devices, he tells me. "You were gone for, like, ten hours yesterday," he marvels to his wife. "Tell her the first thing you said when you got back last night," he says, turning to me. "She said, 'I'm not a model.' "I was like, 'No, you are, of course you can be a model.' And she's like, 'I'm a mom!' And it's like, 'You can be both,' " Harry says, earning himself so many points.

In October 2020, the couple launched Archewell, a catchall company for their post-royal pursuits. Thus far, it has three divisions: the nonprofit ("that puts compassion into action," according to the website); Archewell Productions, which oversees the Netflix deal; and Archewell Audio, which oversees the Spotify deal.

The two run Archewell from their shared home office, specifically from two plush club chairs placed side by side behind a single desk, facing into the room like thrones. "Most people that I know and many of my family, they aren't able to work and live together," Harry says in passing as I take a peek at their command center. He enunciates family with a vocal eye roll. "It's actually really weird because it'd seem like a lot of pressure. But it just feels natural and normal."

The week I visit, things at Archewell are particularly busy. In addition to a trip to Africa for Harry, on behalf of the charity African Parks, Meghan is launching Archetypes, which aired its first episode on Spotify on August 23. There's another trip in the works, on which they'll both speak at a handful of charity events in the U.K. and Germany, including one for the lead-up to the Invictus Games, an athletic tournament for wounded veterans Harry founded in 2014. After all the drama, it looks like they've designed the exact job they wanted to have as royals but were denied.

"I think we always knew the first few years of creating this new life from scratch were going to be the busiest - " says Harry.

"Well, it's a start-up," Meghan interjects. "We were building a business. During lockdown - "

And then Harry interjects, "With everyone weighing in. If you do something, they criticize you. If you don't do anything, they criticize you anyway. It's a lot, but ..."

"Oh, and then having a baby in the middle of it all, casually," Meghan jokes. (Their daughter, Lilibet, was born in June 2021.)

So far, there's been little consumable content out of Archewell. The first announced project was a behind-the-scenes docuseries about the Invictus Games, which has yet to see daylight. Meghan had been working on Pearl, an animated series about a 12-year-old girl who "steps into her own power" by traveling through time to meet important women across history, when Netflix axed it. "There's not much you can do when a company and a division changes their slate," she says. "And there's also not much you can do when, even if they think the project is great, the media will report it as though it was only my project." Meanwhile, Archewell has had a leadership change as the company moves forward.

According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, there's an air of impatience around that Netflix documentary, specifically, and around what the couple is going to produce in general. Attempts to learn what those other projects might be, or what their plans are, are met with an institutional paranoia by a team that responds to press inquiries as if it's protecting nuclear codes. Contact with nonapproved employees invites fear and suspicion, confrontation. Questions about rumored projects - for example, an At Home With Meghan and Harry -type docuseries that reportedly has an attached director, Liz Garbus, and footage shot by teams of cameramen, who have been spotted following the couple around - are met with half-answers shrouded in winks, codes, and redirection. Meghan herself gives off an effortless, arms-wide-open, relatable affectation; she dangles the glimpse behind the curtain while the machine in place around her slams the door.

The couple has directly smashed rumors of a reality show, both in statements made to publications and in conversation with me. But, Meghan explains, there's a difference between a historical documentary and a reality docuseries. "The piece of my life I haven't been able to share, that people haven't been able to see, is our love story," she says, then quotes what she says was the end of a speech she gave at her wedding, in which she took comfort in the "resounding knowing that, above all, love wins." She adds, "I hope that is the sentiment that people feel when they see any of the content or the projects that we are working on."

I ask again if what they are currently filming is a documentary about their love story. "What's so funny is I'm not trying to be cagey," she says. "I don't read any press. So I don't know what's confirmed. I will tell you Liz Garbus is incredible. Liz Garbus also worked on Pearl." Meghan says she's going to leave it to her publicist and Netflix to decide what can be shared. (Not much.) As for the rest of her projects, she explains, "When the media has shaped the story around you, it's really nice to be able to tell your own story."

Your eye contact is good," she says suddenly. "You're, like, looking into my soul."

I stammer out an apology.

"I feel it. It's good. I'm, like, so excited to talk. "

Meghan was born and bred in L.A., and her mother, social worker Doria Ragland, lives close enough that she can visit regularly for active, involved grandma duty. I ask if Harry feels isolated without any family nearby. "Well, look, we're both building community," she responds. "I didn't have friends up here." In addition to being new people in a new place, they moved in during COVID, when everyone was isolated. They are creating a new thing together.

Meghan launches into a little story. Right now, they are trying to teach Archie his manners. ("We always tell him: 'Manners make the man. Manners, manners, manners, manners, manners.' ") In one of those lessons, Meghan remembered something she'd learned at a young age from a friend's mom: Salt and pepper are always passed together. "She said, 'You never move one without the other.' That's me and Harry. We're like salt and pepper. We always move together."

These days, they are getting back out there together. Recently, Meghan says, they took Archie to a birthday party for a classmate; everyone was surprised they showed up. "I was in a bouncy castle, and I saw this 1-year-old inside. I was like, 'Where's your mom?' And this mom on the outside goes, 'Oh, hi! I'm here. I wasn't sure if I should come in.' " She laughs. "I was like, 'Do you need your child? Of course you can come in.' "

Harry plays polo with the Los Padres in Santa Barbara. They spend time with a close-knit group of friends who have lunch and dinner at one another's homes, including former makeup artist and entrepreneur Victoria Jackson, who has become a close friend and "safe harbor." They met through another close friend, Gloria Steinem. Jackson invented "no-makeup makeup," made a fortune selling her products on QVC in the '80s, and has a sprawling ranch near Santa Barbara that she lent to Meghan for the photo shoot. Meghan had celebrated her 41st birthday there in August. The kids have been over to pet Jackson's mini-pigs, Harry once fixed one of her sprinklers, and, of course, Jackson is telling her story on an upcoming episode of Archetypes. "I just want to genuinely show up for them," Jackson says of why she opened her home to Meghan so freely. "To be able to get them out of their house because it's complicated for them to go anywhere. You know what I mean? I want Harry to be able to come up here for their birthday or share a time and people to know that I'm not telling anyone when they're here. So I want to keep it that way. So don't give out my address." She laughs and then sighs. "I hope that people take their foot off the gas a little bit on all the negative spin because they're really good people."

There's nothing that affirms a "right place" contentedness more than a trip back to the place you felt you had to leave. In June, the couple attended some of the events for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in London. It was their first time appearing at a public event alongside the rest of the royal family since they'd left. While there, Meghan had quietly seen to more personal matters, slipping back into their former residence, Frogmore Cottage, to pack up their belongings.

It was bittersweet, you know? Knowing none of it had to be this way.

The cottage is still theirs and has remained mostly untouched since they left. "You go back and you open drawers and you're like, Oh my gosh. This is what I was writing in my journal there? And here's all my socks from this time? " The blue-and-white linen pants she's wearing today were something from the cottage, actually: "They're like $30 pants from Boden, and I brought them back." It was "surreal" to walk right back into the life she'd been building in that cottage. There were all the things she'd had shipped from her old apartment in Toronto and barely gotten to unpack: her sofa, posters of art she'd collected traveling with her girlfriends and thrown into "good old Ikea frames," a past message from a single self she hadn't fully wanted to leave behind.

The home renovations had been a sore point both for the couple and for the British tabloids. They had been criticized for using an exorbitant amount of taxpayer funds, £2.4 million ($3.2 million), for the upgrades on a home they'd been given. (Public funding of the royal family is a conflict as old as the Queen Mary bandeau tiara Meghan wore on her wedding day.) Headline after headline suggested that the renovations were more extravagant than they actually were. There was never, for instance, a yoga studio with a floating floor, never a gold bathtub or a copper bathtub; there wasn't a special wing for her mother. (They've since repaid the renovation costs.)

"It was bittersweet, you know? Knowing none of it had to be this way," Meghan says.

How did it get so hard? She had tried to play royal. "I​​ was an actress," she says. "My entire job was 'Tell me where to stand. Tell me what to say. Tell me how to say it. Tell me what to wear, and I'll do it.' And I'll show up early, and I'll probably bake something for the crew." Every movie about an American woman who ends up becoming a princess has a pivotal scene in which she thinks she's doing the job correctly, just by being herself, but then some older royal gives her a speech about duty and decorum. I cite, specifically, The Prince & Me. She hasn't seen it. "Yeah. That would've been really helpful. That would've been a very key tutorial to have had in advance of all this," she says, not quite sarcastically, but the delivery is a sentence with a steel rod in it. By her own analysis, her problems stemmed from her being an American, not necessarily a Black American, she explains. Her desire to ask lots of questions and to never be involved with something she couldn't totally have her hands on seemed to violate an unspoken social norm.

The reporting of their renovations was just part of the abusive press coverage - the sorts of headlines and "allegedly" true news items that led to the decline in her mental health. The couple figured if the tabloids felt free to attack them "under the guise of public interest" because their lives were taxpayer funded, then they should just remove taxpayer funding from the equation, she explains. They suggested to the Firm that they be allowed to work, still on behalf of the monarchy, and make their own money. "Then maybe all the noise would stop," Meghan says of their reasoning.

They also thought it best to leave the U.K. (and the U.K. press) to do it. They were willing to go to basically any commonwealth, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, anywhere. "Anything to just ... because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, 'Okay, fine, let's get out of here. Happy to,' " she says, putting her hands up in mock defeat. Meghan asserts that what they were asking for wasn't "reinventing the wheel" and lists a handful of princes and princesses and dukes who have the very arrangement they wanted. "That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing."

Why do you think that is? I ask.

"Why do you think that is?" she says right back with a side-eye that suggests I should understand without having to be told.

All right, Meghan, I'll bite. It could be that the very reasons she was considered a breath of fresh air at first and then a supernova (biracial, divorcée, self-made millionaire, clotheshorse) only highlighted the ways in which the monarchy was becoming irrelevant to a younger generation - and worse, the ways that it was deeply flawed (and racist). To that, it could be just because she's Black. Or perhaps it's owed to the fact that Meghan, who jokes that "even my blood type is A-positive," wouldn't relinquish control over her own image and that image had the potential to be too big of a brand. Maybe, as Harry battled on her behalf with the tabloids one stern statement after another, it was all becoming too eerily reminiscent of Princess Diana. Or maybe it's because by the time she met and married Harry, she was already a fully formed American woman: self-made, self-refined. She had desires and goals and a fan base. And while she was a fine actress, the job she is best at is envisioning a life for herself and getting it. That specific type of very American ambition just isn't really compatible with being a princess. Though it is compatible with her current life, which seems to be the best of all worlds: a palace in a better climate, still culturally considered royalty while having freedom from the royal family, a level of celebrity that exceeds what she could have gotten through Suits or the Tig, a neighbor with mini-pigs.

Well, I can't put words in your mouth, I say instead.

And then a pause as she looks down and inspects her hands; The Bachelor producer in her head deliberates how much should be said. "I don't know," she says, casting a knowing gaze out into the middle distance.

Though it wasn't the planned first project, Meghan is happy for the podcast to be her reintroduction. "It's so real," she says. "I feel different. I feel clearer. It's like I'm finding - not finding my voice. I've had my voice for a long time, but being able to use it."

At its heart, Archetypes (slogan: "Don't believe the type") is Meghan's way of grappling with questions that have plagued her, personally: why certain women get saddled with labels, why they stick long after they've been proved untrue. The first episode, which debuted at No. 1 on Spotify, is a chat with her friend Serena Williams about ambition. They talk about Williams's recent retirement announcement and how Meghan never thought being ambitious was a bad thing until she started dating Harry. It's a conversation that hovers between "candid or planned it."

The rest of the episodes, she'll dig into labels like Old Maid, Dragon Lady, Bimbo, Crazy, Angry Black Woman, Bitch (well, "B-word," she clarifies and then squeals, "Oooooh! I don't want to say that word. It makes me so uncomfortable!"), and Slut (Will Meghan say slut? "Oh my gosh. That makes me so uncomfortable.") She has lined up a murderers' row of guests: Constance Wu, Issa Rae, Lisa Ling, Margaret Cho, and Ziwe. (I'll let you guess who aligns with which archetype.)

In her own life, Meghan's response to being typecast seems to be to lean into all the positive things her story symbolizes. She understands what her ascent meant to Black Britons, for whom she's a sign of progress, and to women, for whom she's a working mom and a signal boost to the issues that affect them (paid parental leave, equal pay). Even though she avoids reading her own press, Meghan knows people see her this way. She recalls a moment from the 2019 London premiere of the live-action version of The Lion King. "I just had Archie. It was such a cruel chapter. I was scared to go out." A cast member from South Africa pulled her aside. "He looked at me, and he's just like light. He said, 'I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.' " Of course, she knows she's no Mandela, but perhaps even telling me this story is a mode of defense, because if you are a symbol for all that is good and charitable, how can anybody find you objectionable, how can anybody hate you?

The result of trying always to do and say the right thing is the impression that she's constantly policing herself, and in a meta-twist, I find myself worrying that the words I write about her will be misinterpreted and dissected - rudely, maliciously - too. In October 2021, the company Bot Sentinel released a study that found not only that the press around Meghan was disproportionately negative but that 70 percent of hateful posts about her came from just 83 accounts that reached up to 17 million Twitter users. I wonder if she was relieved by any of this: After being gaslit, she at last had proof that she had been harassed but also that it was just a small group of people. It didn't really matter what she did; she would still have elicited this hatred. There has to be some freedom in that.

Somehow Archie knows his mother is at the gate of his preschool before the teacher even throws it open to set him free. He's so excited to see her, repeating "Momma, Momma, Momma" in his little voice, as he runs toward her that he leaves his lunchbox behind on the ground. She scoops him up in a big hug so full of genuine emotion that both close their eyes.

Meghan grew up very close to her father, Thomas, a retired lighting director who gave Meghan her Hollywood bug, but she has been estranged from him basically since the wedding. ( He was not in attendance.) And every miserable fissure in their former bond has been publicized, often by him. After the wedding, The Mail on Sunday leaked a heartfelt letter Meghan wrote to her father begging him to stop speaking to reporters. Meghan sued for invasion of privacy and won, though the defense mounted against her painted her as calculating and manipulative. When I ask about it, Meghan doesn't stay in her sadness for long; instead, she uses it to discuss how toxic tabloid culture has torn two families apart. "Harry said to me, 'I lost my dad in this process.' It doesn't have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that's his decision."

The car ride back to their house is very busy, dictated by the whims and conversational patterns of a toddler. Archie, munching on a quesadilla, wants to roll the window down himself, but not until we get to a specific huge hedge he mysteriously favors. We assess if he had a good day at school via an update letter from his teacher (he did and is ready for full days) and try to find out if he ate his sandwich at lunch (he did not). We solve the question of the mid-morning shirt change (they played in the water table). "Why are you afraid of heights like an airplane?" Archie asks, and that leads to a conversation about the importance of being brave. If he forgets to say please or thank you, Meghan reminds him of the manners that make the man. At a stoplight, she reaches into the trunk and produces a brand-new black backpack and hands it to her security detail to give to an unhoused man on the corner. They are teaching Archie that some people live in big houses, some in small, and that some are in between homes. They made kits to pass out with water and peanut-butter crackers and granola bars. "I ate one!" Archie contributes.

Earlier in our conversation about her goals for the life she's creating here, she'd remarked upon how, if Archie were in school in the U.K., she'd never be able to do school pickup and drop-off without it being a royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures. "Sorry, I have a problem with that. That doesn't make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child," Meghan says. For now, even though two Montecito moms waiting in front of the school stopped mid-chat to do a double take, Archie is just the cheerful kid who brings a week's worth of freshly picked fruit for his fellow classmates and enjoys playing a "roaring" game at recess.

We pull up to the house, and Archie leaps out. Harry is ending a phone call as Archie throws himself around his legs. Lilibet, unsmiling with watchful bright-blue eyes, is brought out by her nanny. She is small and also ginger, and when there is a small person in the room not smiling, it is a reflex to do anything to entertain them. Harry starts dancing to his own beatboxing, and Meghan bends down and joins in and then I find myself doing it too, until she gives a lopsided smile and we all realize it's a bit strange to be bonding in this way.

We ended the visit in her sitting room, where there's a massive grand piano Tyler Perry gifted her as a housewarming present. "Write the soundtrack for your life," he told them.

"It's interesting, I've never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking," she reveals, as she ushers me toward the door. "I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to." Why doesn't she talk? "Still healing," she responds.

I wonder if, given all she's put behind her now, she thinks there is room for forgiveness between her and her royal in-laws and her own family.

"I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive," she says wisely. "But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I've really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything," she says, her voice full of meaning. And then she is silent. She breathes in and smiles and breathes out and says, "I have a lot to say until I don't. Do you like that? Sometimes, as they say, the silent part is still part of the song."

And then, quickly and decisively, as if it were my idea, the conversation ends. Meghan sets a harvest basket in my arms: a cornucopia of fruit and vegetables from their garden and a jar of jam from the Lili Bunny Garden + Larder (she had the labels made on Etsy). She smiles and waves as I make my way out the door, wondering if somehow I'd missed everything she was trying to say.

Cover: Colorblock Tulle Dress, available at toryburch.com. Brass & Green Strass Melodie Earrings, available at select Lanvin Boutiques. From top: (1) Colorblock Tulle Dress, available at toryburch.com. Brass & Green Strass Melodie Earrings, available at select Lanvin Boutiques. (2) Bottega Veneta dress, available at bottegaveneta.com. 8" Akoya cultured pearl strand featuring 9x8.5mm A+ Akoya cultured pearls with a Mikimoto signature clasp in 18K white gold, available at mikimotoamerica.com. 14k yellow gold Bypass Hoops with diamonds, available at mateonewyork.com. (3) Fantasy Tweed Dress, available at select Chanel boutiques nationwide. Manolo Blahnik BB-Black Suede Pump, available at manoloblahnik.com. Sophie Buhai Everyday Pearl Earrings, available at SophieBuhai.com. (4) Proenza Schouler Off-White Bi-Stretch Crepe Cinched Jacket and Crepe Pant, similar styles available at proenzaschouler.com.Manolo Blahnik BB-White Nappa Leather Pump, available at manoloblahnik.com. 14k Yellow Gold Large Half Moon Earrings with Diamonds, available at mateonewyork.com.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the August 29, 2022, issue of New York Magazine.

Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the August 29, 2022, issue of New York Magazine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has left the British monarchy behind. Harry's found a polo team in Santa Barbara. Archie and Lilibet are doing great. Now she's ready for her own next act.

# data[].attributes.body
This article shows that Meghan didn't really have another option. She had to change her celebrity persona as she was marrying royalty. Her voice had been silenced or appropriated by the monarchy: she has quit her acting career, closed down her popular blog and social media accounts for all her online activity to be ciphered through Kensington Palace, and a blog post she wrote on menstrual stigma has been co-opted for her official biography on the royal website.

# data[].attributes.body
Meghan is being described as 'Suits actress Meghan Markle' and 'The Hollywood princess'.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Getty Images

In 2016, "Suits" actress Meghan Markle combined business and pleasure when she traveled to London for work . . . and ended up falling in love with Prince Harry. In this adapted excerpt from his new book, "Meghan: A Hollywood Princess" (Grand Central Publishing), out Tuesday, royal biographer Andrew Morton reveals the inside story of how the couple first met - from the friend who set them up on a blind date at Soho House to the heartbreaks that bonded them together, leading to May 19's royal wedding.
As Meghan Markle nestled back in her seat in preparation for landing at Heathrow Airport, she had love and marriage on her mind. It was June 2016 and the "Suits" actress had just enjoyed a long weekend on the Greek island of Hydra - savoring wine, fresh seafood and yoga alongside her best friend from college, Lindsay Jill Roth, who was soon to be wed. As the maid of honor, Meghan had planned the luxe bachelorette bash, considerately organizing the party in this beautiful location rather than some raucous club.

"There is something wholly cathartic about being able to turn it all off - to sunbathe with no one watching, swim in the briny Mediterranean Sea, eat copious amounts of Greek salads and fried red mullets and toast to the day," she wrote on her blog, The Tig.

The women, including Roth's other bridesmaids, had undoubtedly discussed romance, the past and future. Meghan had also arranged a surprise wedding dress fitting for Roth - a TV producer who met the actress at Northwestern University - at the Toronto location of Kleinfeld Bridal boutique (the New York institution made famous by the TV show "Say Yes to the Dress").

Meanwhile, Meghan's own relationship with Canadian chef and restaurateur Cory Vitiello had recently ended, having withered on the vine as both of their lives became busier and busier, and she likely relished time away from Toronto and the house they had shared there.

She was officially flying to London for a week to promote the upcoming season of "Suits" and to attend Wimbledon as a guest of Ralph Lauren's fashion house. And, although the newly single actress was open to finding new love, she never expected to be set up with a real-life prince charming.

After watching her friend, legend Serena Williams, play in the tournament, Meghan reached out to Piers Morgan. The morning show host - with whom she was Twitter buddies - was a favorable media friend for an up-and-coming actress seeking her name in headlines.

The two agreed to an early evening drink at his local pub, the Scarsdale Tavern in Kensington. Morgan was a "Suits" fan, but this was his first time meeting the woman who played paralegal Rachel Zane. "She looked every inch the Hollywood superstar," he later recalled. "Very slim, very leggy, very elegant and impossibly glamorous."

Meghan sipped a dirty martini as they chatted about the series, her days as a "briefcase girl" on the game show "Deal or No Deal," gun control in America, women's rights, her passion for calligraphy and her one‑time ambi‑tion to be a TV presenter. She also admitted to Morgan that she was "out of practice" with the dating scene and trying to fend off "persistent men."

Morgan was impressed. "Fabulous, warm, funny, intelligent and highly entertaining," he later recalled. "She seemed real, too. Not one of those phony actress types so prevalent in California."

While in London, reportedly from the end of June until early July, Meghan was working closely with Violet von Westenholz, a Ralph Lauren public relations executive. "How much more can I adore this gem," an effusive Meghan wrote on Instagram of her new bestie. Not only is von Westenholz a well‑connected fashion maven, but her father, interior designer Baron Piers von Westenholz, is a friend of Prince Charles.

For years Violet and her sister Victoria had joined Princes Charles, William and Harry on annual skiing trips to Switzerland. In fact, Victoria was once seen as a possible match for Harry.

Instead, it seems likely that Violet set up Meghan and the prince on their blind date, which probably took place at Soho House during her visit to the city.

It is certain that Meghan was excited the day of her first date with Harry. On that day, the actress had lunch with her friend Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne at the Delaunay restaurant in the chic Covent Garden neighborhood. The two women met in 2014 while both working on the One Young World youth summit; Nelthorpe-Cowne later became Meghan's agent. She told the Daily Mail last week how Meghan broke the news.

"[She] told me, 'I'm going on a date tonight . . . With Prince Harry!'' . . .  She whispered it so quietly I had to ask her to repeat it," Nelthorpe-Cowne recalled.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing but I think she could barely believe it either. We were both extremely excited.

"I jokingly asked if she knew what she was letting herself in for and she said: 'Well, it's going to be an experience and at least it will be a fun night.' "

Had Meghan met Harry a few years earlier, she might have had a different expectation.

The prince would be the first to admit that during his 20s, his life had descended into "total chaos" as he struggled to process the black cloud of grief that had enveloped his life since the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana, in a 1997 car accident in Paris.

Drilled with grief and absent a steadying, nurturing influence in his life, Harry had gone off the rails. He became notorious as an angry drunk who lurched out of London nightclubs, ready to throw a punch at the paparazzi who dogged his every footstep.

For years, he was carefully protected by highly paid public relations professionals who smoothed over his public escapades.

When he dressed up in a Nazi uniform for a "Colonials and Native" fancy dress party shortly before Holocaust Memorial Day in 2005, his minders accepted that it was a "poor choice of costume," but that there was no malice in his decision. Similarly, when he was caught on video referring to a fellow officer cadet at Sandhurst as "our dear little Paki friend" and another as looking like a "raghead," a pejorative term for an Arab, once again his p.r. minder Paddy Harverson came to the rescue.

If Meghan had been in his life at that time, she would not have been impressed by his casual racism. Nor were others. "He was a very lost young man," a former royal official told me. "Harry was deeply troubled, unhappy, and immature, imbued with the slanted, quietly racist views of those from his class and background."

In 2012, he was pictured cavorting naked in a Las Vegas hotel room during a game of strip billiards with a bunch of strangers, some of whom had camera phones and uploaded photos of his antics for the startled world to watch. "Too much army, not enough prince," was his rueful response.

But, in fact, the army had also helped give him a sense of purpose. At the end of his first tour of duty in 2008, he traveled with the coffin of a dead Danish soldier, which had been loaded on board his flight home from Afghanistan by his friends, along with three British troops all in induced comas who were being transported with their missing limbs, wrapped in plastic.

"The way I viewed service and sacrifice changed forever," he recalled. "I knew it was my responsibility to use the great platform that I have to help the world understand and be inspired by the spirit of those who wear the uniform." That flight set him on the trajectory that would culminate in the Invictus Games, an international multisport jamboree in which sick, wounded or injured servicemen and women compete.

In September 2014, after a year of planning, the first games, which involved army personnel from around the world, were held in London. The games were a triumph, giving the prince, who was due to leave the army in 2015, new focus and impetus. He was fully committed to using his unique position to help and encourage those who were at the sharp end of modern warfare.

"Since then, he has become the man he is today," observes a former royal courtier. "It has not been an easy process. He has become more open and developed into someone who genuinely cares about social issues."

By the time he met Meghan, Harry was also - after a series of failed romances - warming up to another big life change.

At a birthday party in January 2016, he told TV presenter Denise Van Outen: "For the first time ever I want to find a wife." Three months later when he was in Orlando, Fla., for the Invictus Games, he again brought up the subject of love and marriage: "At the moment my focus is very much on work, but if someone slips into my life then that's absolutely fantastic. I am not putting work before the idea of family and marriage . . . I just haven't had that many opportunities to get out there and meet people."

But the difficulty of finding someone "willing to take me on" was an issue that always stayed at the back of his mind every time he met someone new. Were they attracted to him for his personality or his title?

As one of his friends pointed out to London's Sunday Times, "You have to be a very special girl to want to be a princess."

While Violet von Westenholz had the royal connections, Meghan's friend Markus Anderson, the brand ambassador for Soho House who had just vacationed in Madrid with the actress, was on hand to rustle up a private room at the members-only club for an intimate evening away from prying eyes.

On July 1, 2016, Harry had just returned from France, where he had joined the then prime minister David Cameron, Prince Charles, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and other dignitaries at a service to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest days of warfare in British history. At an evening vigil for the fallen, Harry had read "Before Action," a poem penned by Lieutenant W. N. Hodgson, who died in action. The event had been a moving reminder of the enormity of that day. He returned to London in somber spirits.

Until the day of the blind date.

Upon meeting Meghan and learning that she had given a speech at a UN forum, the prince realized - as he subsequently confessed - that he would have to up his game.

At the end of the evening, they said their goodbyes and went their separate ways, he to Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace, she to a hotel room at the Dean Street Townhouse in Soho, London. Both were buzzing. As Meghan relived the fateful evening in her mind, she perhaps wondered if she had been too eager to accept his invitation to meet again the following day.

"After the date, [Meghan] was telling me what a great guy he was, a real gentleman, genuinely nice," Nelthorpe-Cowne told the Daily Mail. "When I asked if she would see him again she said: 'Well, it looks like it.' "

As Harry later confirmed, the couple enjoyed back-‑to-‑back dates, making every minute matter before she had to fly back to Toronto on July 5 to continue promoting the new season of "Suits."

The normally self‑-contained actress was smitten. Unable to keep her feelings to herself, her Instagram account gave away just a little; on July 3 she posted a picture of two Love Hearts candies that bore a simple message: Kiss me. Next to the photograph Meghan posted "Love Hearts in #London."

She had even taken herself by surprise. When Harry asked if she would be interested in joining him on a safari for a few days in August - mere weeks after their first meeting - she found herself saying, "Yes, please."

"I'm sure that the Botswana trip is what clinched the deal," Nelthorpe-Cowne said. "When they were back, she showed me the most wonderful photographs of the two of them on her phone. They were so clearly already in love. She told me it was serious and they had started discussing the future.

"She said they'd said to each other: 'We're going to change the world.' "
From the book "MEGHAN" by Andrew Morton. Copyright © 2018 by Andrew Morton. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The days leading up to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's first date

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"[She] told me, 'I'm going on a date tonight . . . With Prince Harry!''

# data[].attributes.body
Study on why Meghan was so negatively in the UK tabloids and if her race or acting career influenced that.