01x04 - Episode 4

[bunniefuu]

Elizabeth and Philip

take their places on history's pages.

To the stirring strains of Mendelssohn,

they march as man and wife

toward the west door

amidst nearly 3,000 invited spectators.

There was this moment

where our private secretary,

she had worked for the queen for almost,

I think 20 years,

and what she said to me was,

it's like this fish.

It's, like, swimming perfectly.

Powerful, it's on the right current.

And one day

this little organism comes in.

She's independent,

she's quite feisty.

- She's a controlling woman.

- Ooh!

This foreign organism.

And the entire thing goes

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

"It doesn't look like us.

It doesn't move like us."

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

- There's polarized opinions

- I say it's doomed.

People are so cynical

before the people are even married.

Give the couple a chance for

goodness sake. They're obviously in love.

I agree.

And she

just explained that, you know,

they'll soon see

that it's stronger, faster,

even better,

with this organism as part of it.

It will be hard at the beginning

for them to adjust to this new thing

but then it'll be amazing.

Times are changing.

She's the first ever global princess.

I think what she and Harry

are going to be capable of

is going to be quite impressive.

This couple is the one

that is gonna change

the face of the royal family for me.

And I was really hopeful

that that was true.

On the day of our wedding,

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

I don't know how I was so calm.

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

And all I wanted was a mimosa, a croissant

and, uh, to play

the song, "Going to the Chapel."

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

Going to the chapel ♪

And we're gonna get married ♪

Going to the chapel of love ♪

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

It's Harry and Meghan's big day.

God save the Queen.

We can

take you now to Windsor town center

where the streets are packed.

Everybody's going crazy.

Yeah, everybody's wedding mad.

The crowd. It was just literally like

you were in the biggest football stadium.

This massive, massive roar.

It's estimated that 115,000 people

will be here in Windsor.

Everything was

big and spectacular.

I mean it was just,

like, hard to even comprehend

that I'm actually a part of this event.

Going to the chapel ♪

It's like this is crazy,

like absolutely crazy.

Bells will ring ♪

Ah ah ah, sun will shine ♪

Whoa oh oh, I'll be his ♪

So I knew

that when I got to the actual castle

How funny is that to say?

"When I got to the castle for my wedding."

Um, that there'd be tons of people.

What I didn't know was

people would be lining

both sides of the street.

I mean, this was a 15-minute drive.

Me and my mom were like,

"What is going on?

Look at all these people!"

Everyone's got their phones out.

There we go. Wow! Look at that.

Married ♪

Going to the chapel ♪

There was an expectation, right?

Diana's boy.

There was an expectation

to have a public wedding.

It was like,

"Mission complete with William."

"Now, let's see

if this goes the distance with Harry

and then we can actually go, 'Job done.'"

- Here she comes.

- Here comes the bride.

Going to the chapel of love ♪

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

This is when you

finally get to see that dress.

Looking

at the design of the dress

there were many conversations we had

over how you want to present yourself

to the world.

I mean, most of us have a wedding

with, you know, 70 to 200 people.

This was billions of people

watching this wedding.

It has to be flawless,

it has to be perfect.

I just remember thinking,

"Just take a deep breath and keep going."

And you chose the song

I walked down the aisle to.

Yep.

Which was stunning.

That was so beautiful.

My father helped us

choose an orchestra,

which made all the difference.

Harry's dad is very charming.

And I said to him, like,

"I've lost my dad in this."

So, him as my father-in-law

was really important to me.

So I asked him

to walk me down the aisle and he said yes.

The whole thing was surreal.

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

What was going through

your head when you saw her coming?

Look at Look at me, look what I got.

- Oh my gosh.

- Look what I look what I found.

The world was watching us,

but when we were actually at the altar,

as far as I was concerned,

it was just the two of us.

H and I are really, really good

at finding each other in the chaos.

When we find each other, we reconnect

to, like, "Oh it's you. It's you."

It's not that the rest of it

doesn't matter, but

The rest of it feels temporary.

It felt like a moment where the world

paused and celebrated love.

I remember watching him look at her,

and I almost started to cry,

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

I won't cry, I won't cry ♪

No, I won't shed a tear ♪

The whole ceremony

was something quite unique.

A gospel choir. That had never been

part of a royal wedding before.

So darling, darling stand ♪

There wasn't

too much pushback on that.

No.

Everyone was like, "Gospel choir.

Wonderful idea. That's great."

And again, more help from,

from, uh, from my dad on that one.

Yeah, said that they could just

take the best people

from certain gospel choirs

and put them together.

And that's how Kingdom Choir

came to be, and they're great.

Trouble, won't you stand by me ♪

To have her culture

represented in that wedding,

amazing, I loved it.

And I thought it was really courageous

and breaking boundaries but not trying to.

- Stand by me ♪

- So darling, darling ♪

We had this massive moment where

myself, Oprah, Idris Elba and his partner,

we all looked at each other for a brief

moment and had a little bit of a chuckle.

And nobody needed to say anything,

because everybody knew exactly

the layers of symbolism

that were taking place that day.

This little light of mine ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

Oh, this little light of mine ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

I say, this little light of mine ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

Let it shine

Let it shine, let it shine ♪

Oh, in my home ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

You know, oh, in my home ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

I say, oh, in my home ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

Let it shine

Let it shine, let it shine ♪

This little light of mine ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

Oh, this little light of mine ♪

I'm gonna let it shine ♪

I said, this little light of mine ♪

And then we had the reception

at St. George's Hall.

- We cut cake. With a sword.

- With a sword.

With a sword.

It was great.

It was all so over the top.

I think most people were just like, "What

is happening?" Elton John's performing.

I couldn't find my mom because she had

beelined to the stage to watch Elton sing.

I just really wanted the music to be fun.

Even our first dance.

- Song of a thousand, uh, dances?

- Thousands

A thousand Help, I always get it wrong.

One two three ♪

Ow, uh, all right, uh! ♪

Got to know how to pony ♪

Like Bony Maronie ♪

- Mash potato ♪

- There you go.

Do the alligator ♪

That was our first dance. It was so fun.

I was just spinning like a whirlwind.

It was so great.

It was just brilliant.

It was how every wedding should be.

Meg was madly in love.

Na na na na na na na na na na ♪

Meg and I would always

sign off on our texts, "Love wins."

Na na na na na na na na na na ♪

Love won.

Someone said to me,

"If you were writing

the royal family story as a novel,

it's almost at this point in its history

that you would want to be

writing in a new character like Meghan."

It needed a boost of energy.

A modernization that would

speak to a new generation of people.

Oh my God.

It's my favorite video.

Thursday afternoon. Someone's happy.

As far as people were concerned, we were

living in a palace. We were. In a cottage.

We were living on palace grounds.

Yeah. Kensington Palace

sounds very regal. Of course it does.

It says "palace" in the name,

but Nottingham Cottage was so small.

The whole thing's on a slight lean.

Really low ceilings, I don't know who

it was for. They must have been short.

He would hit his head constantly

in that place 'cause he's so tall.

Me with a hoe, and H varnishing.

It was just a chapter in our lives

where I don't think anyone could believe

what it was actually like

behind the scenes.

Well, Oprah came over

for tea, didn't she?

- She did.

- When she came in,

she sat down, she goes,

"No one would ever believe it."

"No one would ever believe it."

My first official engagement

with Her Majesty

was very early on after we got married.

We took the royal train together

and we had breakfast that morning.

Your Majesty, thank you so much

for coming back to Cheshire.

And, um I had

a really great time with her.

What do you talk about

with the Queen of England?

I treated her

as my husband's grandma.

And knowing that,

of course, there has to be

a completely different

sense of propriety and whatnot in public.

When you're sitting and having breakfast,

to just be able to talk.

I mean, when we got into the car

in-between engagements,

she had a blanket

and she put it over my knees

and we're sitting in the car

with this blanket and I thought,

"I recognize and respect

and see that you are the queen,

but in this moment, I'm so grateful

that there's a grandmother figure."

"Because that feels like family."

And because I was so, so close

with my grandmother

and I took care of her in her final years.

Yeah. It was really It was such a

Such a good day. We laughed.

Meghan had the Queen

in stitches of laughter.

You don't often see the Queen in giggles.

That day happened to be the

one-year anniversary of the Grenfell fire.

The Queen and the Duchess

of Sussex remembering Grenfell in Chester.

Seventy-two seconds

of silence. One for every life lost.

It was really important to me

because I had become so close

with so many

of the women who had survived that,

even though no one knew that at the time.

Beneath a still moon,

a blaze of such ferocity

it is almost filmic.

The Grenfell fire was horrendous.

We were watching it on the news.

Residents have complained for years

that their concerns about safety

at the flats were simply being ignored.

One key question

was whether council budget cuts

were in any way to blame.

Grenfell has a very high

immigrant population

and is a deprived area of London.

And it is a direct neighbor to Kensington,

one of the richest boroughs in the UK.

The Grenfell fire left

so many families displaced,

outside of how many deaths it caused.

And, I remember saying,

"Well, can we do something?"

"We need to go down there

and do something."

And so, I connected

with the women at Al-Manaar,

which is a mosque in Grenfell.

They were living in these hotels and

just given meal vouchers for fast food.

I started cooking at age of seven,

for at least 30 to 50 every day.

But after the fire happened,

we stayed in the hotel for 19 months.

Eating takeaway, like day and night.

So I walked into the local mosque and I

asked if I could use the kitchen to cook.

The whole idea was

just to try and feel normal again.

For a few hours,

forget that something happened.

The first few months, it was twice a week,

up until

the Duchess came.

When the Duchess came in,

you know, we like to kiss.

Three kisses on the cheek

and there's about 50 of us there.

She couldn't finish. She was like,

"Oh my God, oh my God."

She asked if she could help.

I was like, "Really?"

She goes, "Yeah."

Sleeves up, I gave her apron,

and she washed, like,

five kilos basmati rice.

Uh, okay. Mmm.

Over the course

of eight or nine months,

I just kept going back and visiting them,

and I loved these women so much.

When I watched these women

laughing together and grieving together,

I said, "Why can't you do this

every day of the week?"

They said, "Well,

we don't have the funds for it."

I just looked around, I said,

"We should make a cookbook."

Thank you for coming

for the launch of Together,

to celebrate this and the women

of the Hubb Community Kitchen.

Actually, the first speech I made

as a member of the royal family

was launching this cookbook.

Working on this project

for the past nine months has been

a tremendous labor of love.

We did it on the grounds

of Kensington Palace.

And did your mom make these, um

I feel so proud to live in a city

that can have so much diversity.

It's 12 countries represented

in this one group of women.

It's pretty outstanding. Thank you.

Sales, we're doing brilliantly.

We've knocked JK Rowling off the top spot,

and the book's not even out yet.

It just Just kept growing.

On behalf of all the ladies, thank you.

Thank you!

If you needed an image

of how the Duchess of Sussex

is changing the way

the royal family is perceived,

this one would probably do it.

Thank you! Thank you!

She talked about wanting

to bring new life to the monarchy,

and more honesty and humanity

to those spaces. What's not to like?

Oi, royalty.

There they are.

Prince Harry and Meghan

on the first day of their Australian tour.

They seem to speak so effortlessly

for a different generation.

She and Harry are

the superstars of the British family.

Yeah, I shook her hand too.

Looking back on it now,

amazed we managed to do what we did.

Well, also even harder

when I was pregnant.

One of the things

that we connected on really early

is you always had wanted to be a dad.

- Mm.

- And I'd always wanted to be a mom.

We started journaling right

when we found out we were pregnant.

It was just, "Dear baby,

we're so excited to meet you one day."

And take little snapshots

and stick them in the journal.

"Here's an announcement

that went out about you today."

Breaking baby news.

The Duchess of Sussex is pregnant

and we now know officially.

We announced we were pregnant

in Australia.

Because we had to.

- You were starting to show.

- Yeah.

And then New Zealand

started referring to it as the bump.

- As the bump. Le bump. Yeah.

- Le bump, yeah.

They'll be busy,

which is not easy early in a pregnancy.

They have 76 engagements scheduled.

That was a really

rigorous tour to do, pregnant.

A 16-day trip.

Australia and New Zealand and Fiji.

Let's hope she hasn't got

bad morning sickness.

She's so lovely and just so engaged.

Really all about women's empowerment.

Giving 100%,

every single person that you meet

That's their moment.

The Duchess of Sussex

arrived hand-in-hand with her husband.

It went so well.

Because when girls are given

the right tools to succeed,

they can create incredible futures.

The work they were doing,

the speeches,

the people they were meeting,

it seemed to be amazing.

And then I don't understand

what happened after that.

I think Australia was a real turning point

because they were so popular.

So popular with the public.

Meghan!

The internals at the palace

were incredibly threatened by that.

Putting aside

what I think,

she's becoming a royal rock star.

Bigger, I would argue,

as a couple, than William and Kate.

That's probably not a good thing

in the long term.

The issue is when someone who's

marrying in, who should be a supporting,

a supporting act,

is then stealing the limelight,

or is doing the job better

than the person who is born to do this.

That upsets people. It shifts the balance.

Because you've been led to believe

that the only way

that your charities can succeed

and the only way that your reputation

can be grown or improved

is if you're on the front page

of those newspapers.

But the media are the ones who choose

who to put on the front page.

First time that the penny dropped for her,

M and I spent the night in a room

in Buckingham Palace after an event where

every single member of the family

had been, including the queen.

The next morning,

they'd set up breakfast for Harry and I.

And on the front page

of The Telegraph, Meghan.

I went, "Oh my God."

She was like,

"But it's not my fault."

And I said, "I know.

And my mum felt the same way."

We'd be going round Australia for instance

and you All you could hear was,

"Oh, she's on the other side."

What do you mean?

Well, they weren't on the right side

to wave at me or to touch me.

They were expressing

a preference, even then, for you.

Yes.

Now if you're a man,

or my husband, a proud man,

you mind about that

if you hear it every day for four weeks.

And you feel low about it.

But were you flattered

by the media attention?

No, not particularly.

Because with the media attention

came a lot of jealousy.

A great deal of complicated situations

arose because of that.

When some people

in the institution around the family

started to see that this new couple

could destabilize the power dynamics,

whether actively talked about or not,

the aim was to put them in a box

or make them irrelevant.

It was almost like,

from the wedding and everything,

I saw that they were building her up

and then there was a shift

and they started to tear her down.

The Duchess of Sussex is

at w*r with her sister-in-law.

All of a sudden, these tabloid stories

started to appear,

criticizing Meghan for every little thing.

What's interesting is that

you could see side by side, two articles.

One in which Kate was praised,

and Meghan was condemned.

- You had the bump.

- The bump.

The avocados.

It's bizarre. And there were

maybe like 25 examples.

It's literally the same thing.

It's the off-the-shoulder dress.

It's the same fruit.

- If avocado is a fruit?

- Mm-hmm, it is, yeah.

This is how it's covered for her.

This is how it's covered for her.

If you don't see

the difference and understand

why it's being reported that way, why

then, I can't help you.

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

At the time, I mean we laughed about it

because it's so ridiculous.

But an att*ck can be preposterous

but it's still an att*ck

and that drip feed of constant att*ck

on someone who is an individual,

a real person, has an impact.

The fairy tale has fractured

and one person is copping all the blame.

Meghan

seems to be a version of the Antichrist.

Is Meghan Markle "Duchess Difficult"?

"Duchess Difficult." "Monster Markle."

A lot of the stories

had a connotation and a tone

that were incredibly demeaning.

So many people expect racism

really just to be the N-word.

"None of that's r*cist."

It's like, "You don't understand."

Where is that racism?

I haven't seen it.

So the UK's perfect at doing this, right?

Nobody wants to be openly r*cist.

That wouldn't be civilized.

That wouldn't be British.

Uh, but it's perfectly fine

to kind of dog whistle. Give a nod to it.

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

This kind of angry black woman trope.

It just really came to the fore,

uh, really quite suddenly.

Like even the stereotyping

and the association to dr*gs or terrorism

There's a time

they put my picture and Meghan's picture,

saying that the mosque is related to !sis.

Why?

Anger sells.

That hysteria elicits clicks,

which elicits an engagement,

which elicits money.

I call it the outrage industrial complex.

And racialized anger is just

another step down the same pathway.

I had still

been under the delusion

that if it was in a tabloid,

no one believed it.

Like, it's a tabloid.

And then we had a walkabout in Liverpool

and there was a group of women,

and one of them said to me,

"What you're doing

to your father's not right."

It was the first time that I went,

"Oh my God.

People actually believe this stuff."

And then my entire center

was rocked to its core.

The lies, that's one thing.

You kind of get used to that

when you live within this family.

But what they were doing to her

and the effect that it was having on her

Like, enough.

Enough of the pain, enough of the

The suffering.

No one sees

what's happening behind closed doors.

Back in the day,

my mum was in the back of the car,

going to engagements in floods of tears.

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

And 30 seconds to wipe the tears away,

slap on some makeup,

and then the door opens

and smile, everything's fine.

And flash, flash, flash,

flash, flash, flash.

It was just gloomy. Like she was

just kind of disappearing inside herself.

I'd never seen her like that. It was hard.

It's very hard to talk about.

Um, I was really scared.

It was like,

all of this will stop if I'm not here.

And that was the scariest thing about it.

It was such clear thinking.

I remember her telling me that

That she had wanted to take her own life.

And, um

And that really broke my heart.

Because I knew

Well, I knew that it was bad.

But to just constantly be, um,

picked at by these vultures

Uh, just picking away at her spirit.

That she would actually think

of not wanting to be here.

That, uh

It's That's not an easy one

for a mom to hear.

You know, uh

And, uh

And I can't protect her.

H can't protect her.

She's

I was devastated.

I knew that she was struggling.

We were both struggling.

But I never thought

that it would get to that stage.

And the fact

that it got to that stage, I felt

angry and ashamed.

I didn't deal with it particularly well.

I dealt with it as institutional Harry,

as opposed to husband Harry.

And what took over my feelings

was my royal role.

I had been trained

to worry more about,

what are people gonna think

if we don't go to this event?

We're gonna be late.

And looking back on it now, I

I hate myself for it.

What she needed from me was

so much more than I was able to give.

I wanted to go somewhere to get help,

but I wasn't allowed to.

They were concerned about

how that would look for the institution.

They knew how bad it was.

They thought,

"Why couldn't she deal with it?"

As if to say, "Well, you know,

everybody else has dealt with it,

why can't she deal with it?"

But this was different.

It was really different.

But actually, if you strip all that away

and say, "Okay fine,

it was exactly the same,"

so do we still believe

that she should have just sucked it up

like other members of the family?

Or does one think that maybe

it's about time that we stopped?

No one would have private conversations

with the editors saying, "Enough."

My dad said to me, "Darling boy,

you can't take on the media."

"The media will always be the media."

I said, "I disagree."

I have 30 years' experience

of looking behind the curtain

and seeing how this system works

and how it runs.

I mean, just constant briefings

about other members of the family,

about favors, inviting the press in.

It's a dirty game.

You know, there's leaking,

but there's also planting of stories.

So if the comms team

want to be able to remove

a negative story about their principle,

they will trade and give you something

about someone else's principle.

So the offices end up

working against each other.

It's a kind of a, this weird understanding

or acceptance that happens.

And you can always say,

"I didn't know about this,"

or, "This would never happen.

Are you suggesting that I condone this?"

It's like, "No. But what I am asking is

have you done anything to stop it?"

And the answer is no.

Pretend like

you know each other, come on.

William and I both saw

what happened in our dad's office

and we made an agreement that we would

never let that happen to our office.

Every year,

Kensington Palace hosts a Christmas party

for the principles and the staff.

And so we were gearing up

for one big party.

and very shortly

Very shortly before the party,

it became two parties.

That was the point that you realized

that these offices are separating.

It could be the end

of an era for the "Royal Fab Four."

The "Fabulous Four" no more?

Meghan and Harry officially cutting ties

with William and Kate.

The split

fueling speculation of further strains

in the once-close relationship

between Harry and William,

and growing tensions between their wives.

I would far rather

get destroyed in the Press

than play along with this game

or this business of trading.

And to see my brother's

office copy the very same thing

that we promised

the two of us would never ever do,

that was heartbreaking.

Ready.

- Yay!

- Yay! Merry Christmas!

We were in this bubble

where everything is controlled by them.

I couldn't even text my friends a photo.

"You can't do this, you can't"

Okay. And you do as you're told,

but your world just becomes

more and more like this.

That was a really dark

That was really a dark time.

And I didn't know what to do.

Like, that's the thing is, like,

they are in this complex organism

that I don't know anything about,

or how to help,

or what to do,

and I'm not allowed to say anything.

Like, I was not allowed to say anything.

Anything that anybody was printing

wasn't coming from anybody that knew her.

There's all this untruth.

There's all these lies,

and it just seemed to be getting worse.

Abby came to me

and said we should do something.

I called one of my closest friends,

who just so happened at the time

to be the editor of People magazine.

I said, "We have

to turn this narrative around."

You know, it will

just be her closest friends

coming together to talk about the person,

who she really is,

in the middle of this sh*t storm.

It was born out of

just wanting to remind the world

that she's a person

and not a headline and

That she is loved

and, and stick up for her.

The story comes out.

Like, "Okay." Like,

there was a little bit of an exhale.

My girlfriends surprised me

with a really beautiful

baby shower in New York.

They're like,

"We're gonna shower her with love,

and shower her baby,

and she's gonna survive this."

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

This like, really magical time

of just, like, us just celebrating her.

It was just so cool and so fun to just,

like, try to have an intimate moment.

I don't think I understood that there was

no intimate moment that one could have.

Jessica!

Ladies, ladies, come on!

- That turned into a thing

- Criticized the extravagance.

- Ostentatious.

- The world's biggest stars.

- A show-off moment.

- Traveling home in style.

Clooney's private jet.

Not too shabby.

It was so wrong.

These independent,

strong, successful women

choose to use their own money,

and it's not taxpayer money,

to throw a party for their friend

from a place of love.

Why are you taking such a beautiful moment

and trying to ruin it?

They knew that they didn't

want to bring Archie up

in this frenzy that they lived in.

So then to suddenly

have my grandmother go, "There's a house."

"Frogmore Cottage.

It's available. Are you interested?""

- "Yes, please."

- Yes.

It was a place

where we had so many memories.

From our courtship,

our engagement, our wedding, our walks.

And then where we ended up,

you know, having our baby.

Oyez, oyez.

Buckingham Palace proudly announces

the birth of a royal baby boy.

We wanna start off by congratulating

Duchess Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

Very happy news. It is a boy!

Just a few hours ago

Meghan and myself

had a baby boy, um, early this morning.

It's been the most amazing experience

I could ever have, um, possibly imagined.

One of those babies is

gonna pop out looking like me.

As a Black man who's just been

born to royalty, the Black prince,

Archie has changed the game!

Her Royal Highness is

the proud and happy mother of a prince.

The whole country knew

that the baby would soon be born.

All day on Sunday,

people waited outside the palace

Things have been done

in a certain type of way for many years.

The big photo call on the steps

as soon as you've given birth.

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

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

reporters were constantly phoning like,

"What are the plans?

We know that it's close."

There was already, like,

the pressure of, like, the picture

with Archie on the steps,

and "are they gonna do that,

are they not?"

We are very familiar with this brown door.

But I had been

really worried going into that labor

because I'm older and I didn't know

if I'd have to have a C-section.

And I had a very long-standing

relationship with my doctor.

And that's who I trusted

with my pregnancy.

And they said, "Right.

But she's at Portland Hospital."

"And the steps are at this hospital."

I said, "Okay, we could do a photo call

in front of Portland Hospital."

And they said it's impossible.

"We couldn't barricade these streets off,

and it would create a thr*at

for the emergency room entrance,

because that's where

you would have to do this picture."

We said, "Okay, what's the hybrid?

Can we give them more time at the castle?"

And everything in turn was like,

"Yes. Yes, great. Oh, yes."

At no point did someone go,

"Absolutely not."

Meghan, tell us

what it's like becoming a new mum?

And tell us a little about

"Baby Sussex", as we're calling him.

Um, it's magic.

It's pretty amazing and

I mean, I have the two best guys

in the world, so I'm really happy.

And how are you

finding parenting, generally?

Yeah, it's great.

Parenting is amazing.

It's only been, what,

two and a half days, three days.

Yep.

But we're just We're just so thrilled

to have our own little bundle of joy.

He's already got a little bit

of facial hair as well. Wonderful.

- Guys, thank you.

- Thank you all so much.

- Thanks for your time.

- Thank you.

And thank you, everybody,

for all the well wishes and the kindness.

It's really It just means so much.

- Thank you.

- Thanks. Bye.

Now, I think, if you ask

most average members of society,

they would say, "We would love

to be able to see him."

"Take all the time you need.

We'll see him when you're ready."

But even though it was

just two days after Archie was born,

it turned into a narrative

of Harry and Meghan being selfish.

A sharp departure

from Charles and Diana,

and William and Kate,

all more public with their kids.

There has been

some controversy,

some comment in the newspapers saying,

"Look, we fund them.

We wish to see the baby."

The amount of abuse that we got,

especially you, but both of us,

for not wanting to serve our child up

on a silver platter, was incredible.

This is

an unprecedented slap in the face.

If anyone needed evidence

as to why Meghan and Harry

felt it necessary to protect

their newborn baby from the media glare,

they couldn't have asked for

a better case to be made

than the way in which the narrative

played out after the birth.

Archie's just been born.

Media, social media starts

to take on a life of its own.

Someone in the media

posting a photograph of a couple with

a chimp.

And at the top it said,

"Royal baby leaves hospital."

So that was

one of the first things that I saw.

It was a metaphor for the way

this family were being treated.

That their dignity

and their right to be treated equally

and have their humanity

respected and acknowledged

was secondary to

a white, patriarchal media establishment.

Were you aware

of the pressure on them

to go pose for the media at that time?

Mm-hmm. I was with her. I mean,

I was there. I'd been there a month. Yeah.

Yeah. And that, um

Well they had already,

you know, just stripped

both of them of any kind of privacy.

It was almost like it's not your child,

it's the institution's child.

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

I was there when

she brought him home from the hospital.

Little tiny little thing. Mm-hmm.

I'd never been a grandmother I mean

You know, I'm new to being a grandma.

My mom stayed with us for a month solid.

And it was great to have her there.

But then after that, we didn't

have someone to help us with Archie.

I had this phone call

and they were like,

"Prince Harry and Meghan

would like to see you

and speak to you

about looking after Archie."

I was like, "Hang on a minute,

I need to sit down."

I remember just driving so far. I think

I did get a ticket. Actually, yes, I did.

When I arrived

at Frogmore Cottage,

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

and he's walking barefoot.

And I have gone

and bought a new pair of shoes in Clarks.

And suddenly, whatever I thought or felt,

the formality just sort of slid

and I felt so at ease.

They were really hands-on parents.

In the morning when he woke up,

first thing, mum and dad would come in.

They would be with their baby.

She would feed him.

And then after that, I'll take over

and normally we'd go for a morning walk.

And she said, "Is it okay if I, like,

tie him on my back with a mud cloth

like we do in Zimbabwe?"

Yes! Let's do that!

Archie's legs like this.

Hugging Lorren like this, fast asleep.

- It's true.

- It was brilliant.

She just took care of,

not just Archie, but she took care of us.

She definitely took care of me.

Early into the job,

we have to prepare for a tour.

I'm like,

"What do I pack for a small prince?"

Please place items

in the locker carefully

It's always been

a bit of a royal thing

to go on a tour with your child.

The South Africa tour,

Archie being four months old,

off we went and we took him with us.

And it was the first time that

we traveled as a family for official work.

It was a real strange experience.

Far from

traditional start to their royal tour.

Arriving in the Nyanga township known

as the m*rder capital of South Africa.

Symbolic place

for the world's

most talked-about mixed-race couple

to make their entrance.

You have to see the royal family

as diplomats representing the UK.

And so there was, um, great nervousness

about how far Meghan could go

in doing or saying

anything that wouldn't cause

Hello.

national geopolitical rows

between the two countries.

Maya Angelou once said,

"Each time a woman stands up for herself,

without knowing it,

possibly without claiming it,

she stands up for all women."

While I'm here, with my husband,

as a member of the royal family,

I want you to know that, for me,

I am here with you as a mother,

as a wife, as a woman,

as a woman of color, and as your sister.

Just from a cultural standpoint,

you do feel connected,

you feel welcome, you feel a part of.

And as an African American,

that is our lineage.

Baby Archie all smiles

in his first official appearance

on a royal tour.

Of course, everyone

was looking forward

to meeting Archie Mountbatten Windsor.

And there were just

some perfectly wonderful light moments

that, um, she was

just such an enthusiastic new mum.

It must be exciting to be a mom.

Oh, it's the best.

But it was also the first time that I

I really got to see,

uh, how low she'd got.

It was a lot

of pressure on everybody

because the tour was full-on

and you're thinking, "Oh my God,

how are you managing this? And yet

you can still put a smile on your face."

Because she did have a smile.

- Hi.

- Hello.

- How are you? You okay?

- I'm good.

- Yes.

- Okay.

Tom, the journalist,

who was on that trip with us

Yes, the Africa documentary.

This was a royal documentary

that the palace was green-lighting.

I guess I just assumed

this was just gonna be a

Like a glossy version of a happy tour.

This has been quite a journey,

really, one way and another.

Perhaps you could just give us an idea

of what the last year's been like.

Um

I didn't know

what he was gonna ask me.

I hadn't touched up my makeup.

I hadn't I was just fried.

I don't know what the impact

on your physical and mental health,

of all the pressure

that you clearly feel under.

Um

I would say, look, any woman when they're

especially when they're pregnant,

you're really vulnerable and

you add this on top

of just trying to be a new mom

or trying to be a newlywed, it's um

Yeah, well, I guess

And also thank you for asking,

because not many people

have asked if I'm okay. But it's, uh

It's a very real thing

to be going through behind the scenes.

And the answer is,

would it be fair to say, not really okay?

As in it's really been a struggle?

Yes.

And I guess

because I was so exhausted,

I was just really grateful

that someone seemed to ask me something

like I was a human being.

I mean, in I guess I just never thought

they'd even use it in the documentary.

I remember just saying,

"Bye, we'll see you on our flight."

Went and gave Archie a bath.

And then we got in the car,

got on the flight with everybody and

I had no idea that was gonna be

the thing that traveled around the world.

You suddenly go, "Oh, wow, that

What I said was Has gone

Like It's like, yes, it's global.

That's, I think, what spawned

that hashtag, #WeLoveYouMeghan.

It hit a chord for everyone

for something specific to them.

Moms thought, "Oh my God, just like me.

No one asked me as a mom if I'm okay."

Someone of color would be like,

"No one's asked me if I'm okay

when I'm in a situation like this."

I think someone in your position

speaking so openly about it

made so many other women feel seen.

People have asked me

what the causes were.

My view is it doesn't matter.

I think that when we start down

a path of trying to get someone to justify

why they feel depressed,

that's a dangerous place for us to be.

What you had was

someone that was struggling

and she needed more help.

No one in the family speaks that openly.

No one had done, apart from one person.

My mum.

In a space of a year,

my whole life changed,

turned upside down.

I never had had a depression in my life.

But then when I analyzed it,

I could see that the changes

I've made in the last year

had all caught up with me.

I was at the end of my tether.

I was desperate.

Because I am a very strong person

and I know that causes complications

in the system that I live in.

From an Institutional perspective,

there was something wrong with her,

as opposed to the environment

or the system which we were part of.

All this candor

has won Harry and Meghan

some sympathy among the British public,

but rumblings from the palace suggest

it hasn't gone down quite so well.

The fallout was bonkers.

Every single front page in the UK was like

very different to what

the general public's reaction was.

When you would expect support

from the people closest,

we got the opposite.

There's only so much

you can take on your own.

So you end up saying,

"Something has to change."

It was a huge turning point.

It's when we started

having harder conversations

about what needs to happen for us

to be able to continue to make this work.

You don't own me ♪

I'm not just one of your many toys ♪

You don't own me ♪

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

And don't tell me what to do ♪

Don't tell me what to say ♪

And please, when I go out with you ♪

Don't put me on display, 'cause ♪

You don't own me ♪

Don't try to change me in any way ♪

You don't own me ♪

Don't tie me down

'Cause I'd never stay ♪

I don't tell you what to say ♪

I don't tell you what to do ♪

So just let me be myself ♪

That's all I ask of you ♪

I'm young and I love to be young ♪

I'm free and I love to be free ♪

To live my life the way I want ♪

To say and do whatever I please ♪