01x03 - Episode 3

[bunniefuu]

- Alright.

- Good morning Sir.

Your Royal Highness

and Meghan Markle,

congratulations to you both.

Thank you.

Can we start with the proposal

and the actual moment of your engagement.

When did it happen? How did it happen?

- It happened a few weeks ago.

- Mm-hmm.

Um, earlier this month.

Here at our cottage.

In your engagement interview, er

Orchestrated reality show, yep.

It was, you know, rehearsed.

So we did the thing out with

the Press, then we went right inside,

took the coat off,

sat down and did the interview.

So it's all in that same moment.

Well hearts are

broken worldwide this morning

certainly because he's probably the most

popular member of the Royal Family

The official news

Prince Harry

and Meghan Markle are in an engagement

Buckingham Palace proudly announces

the engagement

of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

God save the queen.

What like prepping you

that they're gonna ask this, this, this?

Or how does that work?

Yeah. But also, "There'll ask to see

the ring, so show the ring."

So the main stone itself,

I sourced from Botswana.

And the little diamonds on the side

are from my mother's jewelry collection

to make sure she's with us

on this crazy journey together.

What do you think

your mother would have thought of Meghan

or said about Meghan?

At least they'd be thick

as thieves.

Without question,

I think she would be over the moon.

Jumping up and down and so excited for me.

And as I said, would have probably been

best friends, best friends with Meghan.

- I know I'm sure she's, er

- She's with us.

I'm sure she's with us,

jumping up and down somewhere else.

I think this is the happy ending

that people have wished for,

for Prince Harry.

They were thrilled.

Absolutely thrilled.

Absolutely thrilled,

it's such exciting news.

His family has been so welcoming.

- Katherine's been absolutely amazing.

- She's been wonderful.

Amazing, as has William, as well.

Have you met each other's families?

My mom, we've been spending a lot

of time with. It was so much fun.

He's talked to my dad, few times.

Hasn't been able to meet him just yet.

Not just a mention of an American bride

but also with a mixed race background.

- First, of mixed race

- Many things about her,

- make her relevant to this generation

- So much scrutiny

Do you have that sense

that the combination of the two of you,

your different backgrounds,

that you'll represent something new

for the Royal Family?

Em, you know, we're a fantastic team,

we know we are. And

we hope to, over time,

try and have as much impact

for other things

that we care about as much as possible.

I am very excited about that, yeah.

But yes. We weren't,

so my point is, we weren't allowed to tell

our story because they didn't want.

We are not allowed to tell our story.

That's true.

That's the consistency.

That is consistent. Yeah.

Until now.

I guess that's why we're here.

Yeah.

Meghan!

Who dreamed that Britain

would have a Black princess?

Who could have conceived that?

It was a conclusion

to a history that was so improbable

as to be astonishing.

It is hard to believe the role

that Britain played in modern history.

This little island off the coast of Europe

was at the center of the biggest empire

that the world has ever seen.

But the question we have to ask is,

"Who's paid the cost in all of this?"

It's often said

that Britain had a deep south

that was just as brutal,

that actually enslaved more Africans

than the United states of America did.

But that deep south was the Caribbean.

It was overseas. It was far away.

It was out of sight and out of minds.

Jamaica becomes

this incredibly profitable center

of British sl*very.

And then of course,

there's the settlements in North America.

Tobacco in Virginia

and Maryland, rice from the south.

sl*very is fueling

this early British empire.

The first ever commercial

sl*ve Voyage conducted by Britain,

was personally financed

by Queen Elizabeth I.

And it continued

to be financed by kings and queens,

while up until its abolition.

When I was at school, the only aspect

of the whole story of British sl*very

that I was ever told,

was the abolition of sl*very.

In 1807, Britain abolished its sl*ve trade

and in the 1830s

Britain abolished its sl*ve empire.

But even when we tell

that very selective slice of the history,

we miss out a critical aspect.

sl*very wasn't just abolished,

the sl*ve owners were compensated.

They were compensated enormously.

Twenty million pounds

for their human property.

It's just another way

in which our memory of British sl*very

has been airbrushed

out of Britain's story.

God save our gracious Queen ♪

Long live our noble King ♪

Growing up in the UK,

I was completely oblivious

to that history and that legacy.

And when I look back

on it, I think a lot of the focus

was put on celebrating our colonial power

and just how important

Britain used to be globally.

I think one

of the oddest things is,

it was only on the very last decades

that imperial epoch,

that Black and Brown people came

to live in Britain in large numbers.

In the mid-twentieth century,

Britain went to the Caribbean Islands

recruiting people to drive buses,

become nurses in the newly

created National Health Service,

teachers in newly expanded schools.

And these were,

on the whole, low-paid jobs.

And this city, London, began

to look for the only time in its history,

like it actually was

the center of an empire

that was mainly

made up of non-White people.

I think what's happened

over the past 50, 60 years,

is that there is a call

to re-imagine the Commonwealth,

to re-imagine Britain.

To re-imagine its institutions.

And so the moment when

I thought, "Well, this is significant."

was when they got engaged.

Could this really be

a moment in which, in essence,

the Royal family

caught up with the rest of Britain?

Nottingham, this morning,

center of attention

on both sides of the Atlantic.

The crowds waiting to take their place

in the fairy-tale of the soldier

Prince and the Hollywood actress.

Harry's brought his bird

to town so I brought mine.

And why are you here?

Um, just to see Meghan.

That's it.

This is the moment which

will be played around the world.

The first Royal test for Meghan Markle.

I never saw pictures

or videos of a walkabout.

Like, what's a walkabout?

I could talk her

through as much as I knew

from my own experience of what I'd seen.

The piece I really didn't

know about was the style, right,

and what a woman needed to,

how they needed to dress and all that.

No, you'd be there with the scissors like,

"Guys, be ready. We have five minutes."

Okay. And I was like,

"Should I wear these earrings?

Are these a British designer?

I just ordered these online. Is this good?

Wait, my tag's on. Cut the tag."

And then the zip breaks, I'm just like

And he's like, "Okay babes,

safety pin. Just safety pin it."

Well, the whole thing was just ridiculous.

"Ready?" "Yeah." "Okay."

We just sort of went with it.

Just days

since we found out they were engaged,

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

were on their first ever Royal Walkabout.

As an actress,

Meghan Markle is used to

the red carpet and all these crowds.

This however is something else.

- Hey, Meghan.

- Oh, thank you.

They looked perfect.

And she was dressed just on point. Yeah.

- She looked amazing.

- Yeah.

Meghan.

She was delightful. She was lovely.

Meghan, we love you! Ooh!

Meghan!

Everybody was just

so excited and pleased and happy.

And I think people looked at it and went,

"Wow, what a breath of fresh air."

Good addition

to the Royal family.

Definitely.

- An American.

- The mixed kids.

Yeah, mixed kids in the Royal Family now.

What a day for Meghan Markle.

There was no doubt

who sparkled the most today.

I thought to myself,

like, "What a dream."

I found a woman

that not necessarily finds this easy

but is able to do it

and make it look easy.

H, can you DJ?

Mm.

- Elton.

- An Elton? I'll take it.

I mean,

Archie loves Bennie and The Jets.

It is his favorite song.

And to watch a two-year-old go "Bennie.

Bennie."

Daniel was

with me on our wedding.

We've been together

for the progression so much.

- How long has it been now?

- Ten, I think.

- Almost ten years? Over ten years?

- Easy.

Oh my goodness.

- It's so crazy!

- I know.

Nothing has changed,

except for everything.

Um, so maybe

after this we can do a little bit of prep.

Just go through some of

the journalists that post these accounts.

Mostly royal experts?

Is this one mine?

- I don't understand what that.

- Yes.

Someone can

just call themselves a royal expert?

That's a question for my husband.

People can

just call themselves royal experts?

- Well no, it's the same as

- It should mean something.

It's the same as Royal Correspondent.

Royal Correspondent is a title,

I suppose, that is given

to a selected group of journalists,

so that those newspapers

can use them and their stories

with Royal Correspondent as credible fact.

Just so that whatever the papers

print can come with extra credibility.

I mean, anyone can be a royal expert.

The whole point of it is to try

and lend legitimacy to media articles,

and they get paid for it.

And that press pack of

royal correspondents is essentially just,

an extended PR arm of the Royal Family.

So there's been an agreement

that's been there for over 30 years.

The tabloids in the UK

have a very special relationship

with the Royal Family.

There's a sort of unwritten contract

between the Institution and the Press.

The way it's presented

in the media is, the taxpayer in the UK

pays for the Royal Family.

And in return for those payments

Can we just see the ring?

there's an expectation

that the Royal Family

would be available to the media.

And this is a sense of, we pay, you pose.

And they feel

that they have a duty to their readers

to bring private aspects of their lives

to light.

Not all of it always directly

related to the facts on the ground.

If you're part of the royal rota,

you have priority

over the story, over everybody else.

The royal rota is a system

by which certain media are allocated slots

to cover the members of the family.

And however aggressive their

previous coverage might have been,

they still get the right

to be on the rota.

Like so, all royal news goes through

the filter of all the newspapers

within the royal rota of which, apart

from the Telegraph, happen to be tabloids.

It all comes out to control us. Like,

this family is ours to exploit.

That trauma is our story

and our narrative to control.

Cameras poking at you from every quarter,

recording every twitch.

If you don't try to work out in your own

mind some kind of method for existing

and surviving this kind of thing,

you would go mad I think.

Harry and William

are the first generation

that I've seen

grow up under that contract.

And I wish there was

more introspection about the idea

that you could be born into a contractual

relationship with the British media.

Rota!

A couple of steps back, please.

Sorry, keep moving.

I remember doing an event

with both the Duke and Duchess.

And one of the photographers,

almost in jest, said to me,

"Oh, can't you get him to do something

more. He doesn't perform for us anymore."

So I went to Harry and Meghan

and I actually,

regret it wholeheartedly now,

I said to them, "Sometimes,

we just gotta play the game."

And that ultimately,

that game is the invisible contract.

Harry, Meghan and the rest of

the family had an obligation to perform.

And if they didn't,

you would fall out of favor,

and then any opportunity would be used

to write negative

or highlight negative would be taken.

Imagine all of these people

that have published

horrible things about you,

published horrible things

about your family,

have published

horrible things about your mother,

you've got to perform for them.

It's a real cutthroat business.

And with Meghan

There was no limit.

It was fair game on everyone.

You know, we knew that they would

contact people that Meg was close to.

I didn't know the lengths

that they would go.

There were journalists outside

of my apartment building

There were people trailing us in London.

It was intense.

The Press was ruthless.

They would go to my parents' home.

I remember a friend

forwarded me this article where my mom

was quoted.

It was like, "Oh, Meghan's

obsessed with Princess Diana."

Just things that

never happened and weren't true at all.

I felt unsafe a lot.

I can't just go walk with dogs.

I can't just go to work.

You know, there was always

someone there waiting for me,

following me to work.

I was being stalked by the paparazzi.

Once, I pulled over.

And so he pulled up next to me and said,

"You know,

I just was trying to get a story.

You know you could get

a lot of money for this."

And I just looked at him and said,

"This is my child. Like

I've nothing to say."

The UK media, I truly believe,

wanted my mom's side of my family

to be the ones that

all this drama could be stirred up with.

And suddenly, you just had my mom

who's classy and quiet in there,

and you had the other side

of my family that is just

acting differently.

My half-sister who I haven't seen for over

a decade, and that was only for a day,

suddenly, it felt like she was everywhere.

I don't know your middle name.

I don't know your birthday.

You're telling these people you raised me,

and you call me Princess Pushy?

Tom's kids were

a good 17 years older than her.

And Meg and I left when she was two.

I don't remember

seeing her when I was a kid

at my dad's house, if and when

they would come around.

And then the last time that I saw her,

that I remember,

is when I was in my early twenties.

I hadn't had a fallout with her. We didn't

have a closeness to be able to have that.

And I wanted a sister.

My name's Ashleigh Hale.

I'm an immigration attorney.

And I am Meg's niece.

How are you and Meg related?

So Meg is my aunt

on the maternal side of my family.

So she is

my biological mother's half-sister.

My biological mother's Samantha Markle.

And it was agreed by everyone,

by myself and my brother

to be raised by our grandparents.

So they got custody of us

when I was probably around two years old

And ultimately, um, they did adopt us.

So I was raised

by my paternal grandparents.

You know, for me, they were my parents.

My biological mother, I've not

seen her since I was six years old.

And then later in life, around 2007,

we reconnected.

I just remember my dad saying to me,

"Samantha found her daughter."

And I was like, "Oh! If you have

her email address, I want to email her."

It started out with these long emails

back and forth to each other.

And then texts and calls.

After a while, I think we were talking,

on some level, several days a week.

And we just hit it off.

And then she and I just started,

like I was on Suits at the time.

So I said, "Let's go on vacation."

She took me to New Orleans.

We walked around.

We listened to some good live music.

Ate way too much food.

Had way too many drinks.

It was just the two of us,

which I think was really special.

I think she takes on

a lot of roles for me.

There's a sister element,

there's something maternal.

She's a best friend.

She's kind of all the things

I think we both craved the same thing.

I wanted a sister,

and she was like a little sister.

Ashleigh was put through quite a bit

by the media, just by association.

And I didn't want

I didn't want her life

to be plagued with all that drama.

After the news first broke,

Samantha pretty quickly

began expressing a lot of angry words

about Meg towards me.

What was communicated to me

was maybe some resentment.

And it felt like no matter what I said,

you know, her perspective didn't change

and seemed to get angrier and bigger.

And we stopped talking.

You know, some people

you just can't reason with.

It's your future

wife's first Christmas with the in-laws.

All of us have to explain

certain things about our family

to the person we're marrying.

Where there family traditions

you had to explain to her?

Oh, plenty. I think we've got one

of the biggest families I know of.

And every family is complex as well so,

she's done an absolutely amazing job.

She's getting in there

and, you know, it's

it's the family that

I suppose she never had.

I remember so vividly

the first Christmas at Sandringham.

Calling my mom, and she's like,

"How's it going?"

And I said, "Oh my gosh, it's amazing."

It's just like a big family

like I always wanted.

And there was just

this constant movement and energy and fun.

At dinner,

I was sat next to H's grandfather.

And I just thought it was so wonderful.

And I was like,

"Oh, we chatted and it was so great."

And I talked about this,

and talked about this.

He was like, "You had his bad ear. He

couldn't hear anything you were saying."

I was like,

"Oh. Well, I thought it went really well."

Tonight, there is a new royal scandal.

The wife of one of the queen's cousin,

Princess Michael of Kent,

wore what's called a blackamoor brooch

to the Queen's annual Christmas Lunch.

The jewelry is widely viewed as r*cist.

And the decision to wear it

quickly drew criticism on social media.

When I heard

about Meghan at an event where

a member of her soon-to-be family

was wearing a blackamoor brooch,

I wasn't hugely surprised

because one of

the realities of life in Britain

is that if you go into a palace,

or a stately home,

or anywhere that represents tradition,

you are likely

to be faced with r*cist imagery.

There are murals on the wall,

carvings on the ceiling

that depict enslaved people

in a way that glorifies

the institution of sl*very.

You could say, "A small thing, a brooch.

She probably didn't mean any harm by it."

If you magnify that thousands of times,

"It was just a painting,

it was just a sl*ve,

it was just a plantation"

These are the skeletons in the closet that

frequently make

an unwelcome appearance in daily life.

In this family, sometimes

you know, you're part of the problem

rather than part of the solution.

And there is

a huge level of unconscious bias.

The thing with unconscious bias

is it's actually no one's fault.

But once it's been pointed out

or identified within yourself,

you then need to make it right.

It's education. It's awareness.

And it's a constant work in progress

for everybody, including me, you know.

British headline writers

have been salivating today,

Prince Harry's choice to wear

a n*zi uniform earlier this month

to a private party has caused outrage.

Many are questioning

the sensitivity of a 20-year old Prince

who chooses to party in a n*zi uniform.

It was probably one

of the biggest mistakes in my life.

I felt so ashamed afterwards.

All I wanted to do was make it right.

We sat down and spoke

to the chief rabbi in London,

which had a profound impact on me.

I went to Berlin

and spoke to a Holocaust survivor.

I could've ignored it and probably made

the same mistakes over again in my life.

But I learned from that.

Harry, he was not too dissimilar

to a lot of boys I went to school with.

You know, they were

in an echo chamber of absolute privilege

that afforded them

to live a very particular life.

And once you step out of that,

you realize that

there's a much bigger world.

Everyone, the Duke and Duchess.

Hi, how are you?

Okay, thank you.

- Hi.

- How're you doing?

- Hi, guys.

- Hello.

How long have you guys

been sitting in here for?

In silence.

Hello, hello.

Probably having breakfast too.

Yeah.

Hi every body. How are you doing?

I'm never gonna

remember these names so

Look, we don't know each other.

It is just like speech.

It's so weird.

Watching my husband over there,

you could see how much joy

it brings him to be back on a base.

So he immediately

goes back to m*llitary banter.

Everybody, it's amazing how long you all

stay on. The pension's 20 years, right?

Once you get to a certain point,

it's like the point of no return.

You're like, "Oh, 12 years-ish?

Well, may as well stay now."

Well, I signed up with the three.

And then they kept dangling the carrot

of different options in front of me.

And I ended up serving ten years.

My ten years in the army,

it gave me a lived experience that other

members of my family wouldn't have had.

Two tours in Afghanistan, flying

apache helicopters on a m*llitary base

means that you grow up pretty fast.

Jeez, I went to w*r twice.

The people that I met

and the lifelong friends made,

that was my second family.

Because that for that point.

Yeah, there's still scars left open from

from my mum's awesomeness

to put it mildly.

Hopefully, she'll be proud.

William sent me a letter

saying how proud he reckons she'll be.

You know, it's one thing that I don't

necessarily think about the whole time

because I've got the guys to worry about.

We've been married ten years and done

five moves since we've been married so

Three kids in ten years,

and five moves.

Yeah, so we've been busy.

Well, not that way.

Well, in every way.

That's good, that's cool. That's fine.

Working and living with normal people

and I fully appreciate

that my life is not normal

Has certainly has

an effect on you, right?

The bubble within the bubble

that I was brought up in got burst.

Ultimately, I'm so grateful for it.

And that was all before I met Meghan.

What I'd like to say is, depression

is a family secret that we all share.

And sharing our story

allows others to tell theirs in return,

so on behalf of the Bulldogs,

and ur, those

that help generate the airplanes

that deliver hope to others,

I wanna give this to you.

- Thank you very much.

- I appreciate that.

So this coin comes

from the 108 maintenance squadron.

I'm the commander, that

squadron's first female commander.

- Breaking barriers

- They'll know.

But, uh, it means a lot to me

to be able to give this to you

because of all the barriers

that you've broken for the world.

- And that's very special.

- Thank you.

Sir, no offense, but this is her

If anyone that starts with that

Our life was, "Okay,

we're gonna do this job together," and

that felt great cause I'd been doing

that on my own for so long.

I also think, what she was

already doing, what I was already doing,

that sort of came together

in this beautiful matrimony.

Welcome to

the very first Royal Foundation forum.

Now, the principle of working together

is in the foundation's DNA.

This is the only charity

The Royal Foundation was

the charity that was originally set up

for William and Harry

to launch their charitable endeavors.

Their Royal Foundation is a team effort,

but we also seem to get an insight

into how Meghan

may want to do things her own way.

Most attention was

on Meghan Markle and

what sort of issues she will take on.

Meghan, it's well known, you've championed

the empowerment of women and young girls,

and promoting their self-worth.

How do you hope to continue

that work with the Royal Foundation?

Um, women don't need to find a voice.

They have a voice.

They need to feel empowered to use it.

And people need

to be encouraged to listen.

And I think right now,

in the climate that we're seeing,

with so many campaigns, I mean MeToo

there is no better time than

to really continue to shine a light on

women feeling empowered

and people really helping to support them.

This is the first time

that we've heard anyone

associated with the Royal Family

talking about those campaigns.

Kate, for example,

didn't wear black to the BAFTAs.

And Camilla, who also

supports women's organizations

hasn't mentioned MeToo or or TimesUp.

The Kensington Palace stressed

It's important

to remember the Royal Family in the UK

and the causes that they champion

are deliberately non-controversial.

Meghan was more of an activist.

I didn't know that that

would be taboo to talk about.

To me, it was just topical.

All the work you do together is great

but working together as family,

do you ever have

disagreements about things?

Oh yes.

Healthy disagreements.

Okay, the last thing

you disagreed on, how did you resolve it?

Uh, I can't remember

They come so thick and fast!

- But is it resolved? We don't know.

- We don't know.

Oh, you don't know?

Well, you're putting on

a great show if it's not.

The younger Royals held

first event as a foursome this morning.

We were looking at the future

of the British monarchy.

This is the woman who's turning

Britain's most traditional

brand on its head.

Meghan Markle isn't British,

she's been married before,

she's mixed-race,

and she doesn't shy away from politics.

That will have to stop now,

of course, in public at least.

Joining this family,

I knew that there was a protocol

for how things were done.

And, do you remember that old movie,

Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway?

Me?

A a princess? Shut up!

I can teach you to walk, talk, sit,

stand, eat, dress like a princess.

There's no class

and some person who goes, "Sit like this.

Cross your legs like this.

Use this fork. Don't do this.

Curtsy then. Wear this kind of hat."

It doesn't happen.

Some people

on Twitter are suggesting it looked a bit

like the Happy Poo emoji.

So I needed to learn a lot.

Including the National Anthem.

How did you learn it?

Oh, I Googled it.

Well, girls, your last day

at the Zermat school for young ladies.

Your final and most important lesson.

[Meghan I Googled it, and I'd sit

there and I'd practice and I'd practice.

She broke Royal protocol by the

she and Harry are not yet married.

And then on top of that,

with the press lots of invented protocols.

There was baptism by fire.

Meghan! We love you, Meghan!

Give us a wave!

Meghan!

I have to ask, did anyone

have to teach you how to do the wave?

That's not a thing. You just sort of watch

and go, "Okay, I guess that's what"

I don't know. I guess you don't wanna wave

like an American. Like, "Hey!"

Everything is just

smaller.

- Hello?

- Hello?

- Hi!

- Hi, how are you?

Come on in.

- Should we take our shoes off?

- Ah, yeah. I think it's fine.

It's fine. How are you?

- I'm good. And you?

- Oh my gosh. Look at this.

You too. Come in.

Wow. Look at this piece.

I mean, we really went

from dress to dress.

- Yes? Okay.

- We go dress to dress.

Does it feel tight?

No. Not at all. It feels great.

I step into this?

Have you ever had four people

helping you into a dress?

No! Never!

The safety pins.

Please tell me you're getting that.

There are now three people

under your dress.

Do you have enough light?

- You're offering me a flashlight?

- This is called a rhetorical question.

Good?

The color is amazing.

Most of the time

that I was in the UK,

I rarely wore color.

There was thought in that.

To my understanding,

you can't ever wear

the same color as Her Majesty,

if there's a group event.

But then you also should never

be wearing the same color

as one of the other

more senior members of the family.

So I was like, "Well, what's a color

that they'll probably never wear?"

Camel? Beige? White?

So I wore a lot of muted tones,

but it also was so I could just blend in.

Like, I'm not trying to stand out here.

So there's no version

of me joining this family

and trying to not do

everything I could to fit in.

I don't want to embarrass the family.

Some of

the bride's family don't know yet

if they'll be invited to Windsor Castle,

including Meghan's half-sister,

Samantha Markle,

who's made plenty of her own headlines

in the leadup to the Royal Wedding.

Her half-sister is

also writing a tell-all disparaging book.

Kensington Palace is not commenting.

But you guys, to be a fly

on the wall when he gets to meet

Harry and the Royal Family

for the first time.

We were playing whack-a-mole everyday.

It was like,

"Wait, another one popped up. Wait, stop.

Another story popped." Constant.

They were going through

the woodwork and pulling out people

to create and plant the most

salacious stories that they could.

And then it started to get scary.

Police say a white powder letter

was sent

to soon-to-be-Royal, Meghan Markle

package was since learnt to be

some kind of white substance

Markle has been subjected to a wave

of abuse and of harassment

in National newspapers and

This was on the heels

of those t*rror1st att*cks, right?

So there was so much

concern about the wedding.

And it was just so scary and they

were talking about getting sn*pers and

It was a public event, right?

Behind the scenes of all that

I was just turtling.

Communication with

Meg became less and less frequent.

My impression was that her relationships

were being managed on some level.

For every duke and duchess,

there is also a communication team.

Comms for the Royal Family

is very similar to a press office,

Press spokesperson for politicians

and businesses, celebrities.

There is a Communications

team at Buckingham Palace,

at Clarence House, at Kensington Palace,

all of whom had a primary duty

to their own principals.

These communications teams

allow the Family

to be one step removed

from dealing with the media.

Overall, there is an aspiration

for a controlled narrative.

Our comms team at that time

was joined with my brother's office.

So in total, there was only

one person really dedicated to us.

So it really was a huge undertaking.

I don't think anyone understands

what that very small

comms team was dealing with.

They just couldn't wrap their heads

around it. And I have compassion for it.

How do we explain that this

half-sister isn't invited to the wedding,

but that the half-sister's daughter is?

And so with Ashleigh,

the guidance at the time

was to not have her come to our wedding.

I was in the car with H. I had her

on speaker phone and we talked her through

what guidance we were being given

and why this assessment was made and

And that's painful.

I think I said I was hurt

on some level but I

understood where it was coming from.

To know that it was

because of my biological mother that

this relationship

that's so important to me

was impacted in that way

To feel like because of her,

it was taken away

it's been hard.

Across the pond tonight,

a save-the-date notice of sorts,

as the Palace has released new details

In the run up to the wedding

the sense of excitement

for the country was incredible.

It's wonderful.

She's different, she's the 21st century.

That's what we need now.

Yeah man,

it's just a good, happy feeling.

You gotta like a good old wedding.

First and foremost, I was pretty surprised

Harry could actually bag a girl like that.

They were just

so evidently really in love.

And I think it radiated out.

Everyone's happy.

Nice.

I'm looking at it through

the lens of my friend, not a Princess.

They as a couple are so tight.

And rely on each other so much,

and are each other's

best, best friends.

I was just super excited.

This is a big day for Meghan Markle.

Just minutes ago,

the Royal Family arrived.

at Westminster Abbey in central London

for a service marking Commonwealth Day

The many-colored flags were carried

by young nationals of the countries

joining in the celebrations.

It remains a great pleasure and honor

to serve you as Head of the Commonwealth.

Here at Buckingham Palace, in 1949,

my father met the Heads of Government

when they ratified the London Declaration,

which created

the Commonwealth as we know it today.

God save the King.

When you study the transition

from colonialism

to independence in those countries,

you see that Britain

played a very strategic role.

Britain calculated that it needed

to grant these countries independence

in a way that protected

its commercial and capitalist interest.

So it created this privileged club

of formally colonized nations

called the Commonwealth.

Excitement

in Accra, capital of the Gold Coast,

reached its first climax

with the preparations

for welcoming the royal visitor.

The British Monarchy

is different from

the other monarchies in Western Europe

in being an international monarchy,

with the Queen being Head of State to over

a dozen other countries around the world.

On my 21st birthday,

I am 6000 miles

from the country where I was born.

But I am certainly

not 6000 miles from home.

At the center of the argument

for the monarchy in this country,

is the Commonwealth.

The Queen made it her life mission

to fight for this institution.

She's famous for it.

She's deeply respected

for having kept this institution together.

I declare

before you all that my whole life,

whether it be long or short,

shall be devoted to the service

of our great Imperial family,

to which we all belong.

If we all go forward together

with an unwavering faith,

the Commonwealth

will continue to offer stability

and continuity for future generations.

The Commonwealth

is still described as that, you know,

a club of friends who share common values.

I find that language really problematic.

I sometimes call

the Commonwealth "Empire two point zero"

because that is what it is.

Well, it's not changed a thing,

they've just got better PR.

If you look at the Black people

in the Commonwealth,

well their conditions are almost just

as bad as they were 50 or 100 years ago.

And the roots of that poverty

are based on the extraction

of their wealth elsewhere.

Those in Britain who extracted that wealth

continue in inter-generational wealth.

Those from whom it was extracted

continue to be inter-generationally poor.

It's a very clear economic relationship.

And yet, the current narrative

in Britain is that it's old history,

there's no point looking back.

It's incredibly painful for the

very many millions of British people

who have a different memory

of empire in their personal background.

And yet, here was a woman

who just looked like

most of the people in the Commonwealth.

Meghan represented something.

There was a hope,

"Well, maybe this is a way of

having these difficult conversations

that had been pushed away so many times.

Prince Harry

and Meghan Markle will attend

a small special memorial later

to mark the 25th anniversary

of the death of Stephen Lawrence.

An 18-year-old boy

has been stabbed to death

as he waited for a bus

with a friend in Southeast London.

Not far away, he and a friend

were approached

by a g*ng of up to half a dozen

stabbed by a group

of white thugs in an unprovoked att*ck.

This was a story of two tragedies.

The m*rder of Stephen Lawrence,

and then the inability

of the legal system

and of the police to provide justice.

No one has ever been

convicted over the death of Stephen.

Local feeling about r*cist att*cks

in this area has been

running high for over two years now.

I'm absolutely shocked.

I didn't expect this to happen again.

How much is it?

How much is a Black life worth?

Pandemonium

outside the Stephen Lawrence enquiry

as the five suspects

Fighting broke out at

the Stephen Lawrence enquiry today

as the five young white men

fought with an angry crowd.

It was such an egregious,

such an appalling, such a disturbing case

that it became too difficult to ignore.

And it made the complaints,

the observations,

the experiences

of Black people difficult to deny.

Hanging

over this memorial, the terrible fact

that only two of Stephen's K*llers

have been brought to justice.

I think that

it was really significant

that Meghan and Harry

visited this memorial

because it represented

a direct attempt to speak to the pain

that many people still feel as a result

of the m*rder of Stephen Lawrence.

A quarter of a century later,

we could only imagine

the man who Stephen would have become.

And that was really welcomed

by many Black communities in Britain.

I always perceived Prince Harry as

just another senior royal

who's a little bit r*cist,

very ignorant

But I have watched him on this journey

and seen that he has really embraced

the education that is required

for someone like him,

to transform themselves

into an anti-r*cist.

The excitement here in Windsor

it's building.

We've reached the final 12 days.

I cannot believe it's this close.

A hundred thousand people will be trying

to squeeze onto

these pavements on Saturday

She's going to make history

on the 19th of May.

And we're ever so proud of Meghan.

Is it going to be a wild one?

Aw, definitely!

Meghan Markle's route to the

chapel on the morning of 19th May

will start off unconventionally

because it will be her mother

who will be in the car with her

as she drives here

along the long walk up to the castle.

Meghan will meet her father, Thomas Markle

at the West Steps to St. George's Chapel

before he walks her down the aisle.

But when Meghan's father flies in

on the week before the wedding,

he will be meeting his daughter's soon-

to-be husband for the very first time.

There was excitement

leading up to the wedding

but she also had

to contend with everybody else.

It's amazing what people would do

when offered a huge amount of money.

Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand,

to hand over photographs,

to create a story

And thank God most of them said no.

The week before our wedding,

We got a call

from our joint communications secretary.

He said, "This story is going

to come out tomorrow

saying your father has been staging

pictures and taking money from the press."

And I was like, "What kind of pictures?"

They were

relatively innocuous enough.

You know, there was

one of him looking at a book

of the UK.

I remember I naively went into the office

and I said, "Isn't that sweet?"

As I genuinely was in this, sort of,

matrimony love-fest bubble.

And a colleague sort of brought me

down to earth fairly quickly

and said, "That's a setup."

That was

the first I was hearing of it.

And I remember Jason said, "You just need

to call him and find out if this is true

or not because

it could be really damaging."

H and I called my dad.

I said, "They're saying you're taking

money from the tabloids to stage photos.

Is this true?" He says, "No."

And on that call, I'd said to him,

"Look. If they can't stop it this story,

then it's going to come out tomorrow

so whey don't we send someone right now

to your house to get you out of there now

because if that's the case, your house'll

be swarmed by media. We'll get you out."

I was like, "We'll just come and get you

a day early and take you out of Mexico."

And he said,

"No. I have things I need to do."

And it felt really cagey.

I was like, "It doesn't make sense."

And when we hung up,

I looked at H.

I was like, "I don't know why

but I don't believe him."

The buzz, this morning,

centers around Meghan Markle's father.

Mr. Markle allegedly

staged photos of himself for paparazzi,

selling them

for a reported 100,000 dollars.

This is tabloid fodder. They're going

crazy with this story this morning.

Everyone was so frantic

with preparing for the wedding itself.

And then all of a sudden,

it just exploded.

I was absolutely stunned

that Tom would become part of this circus.

As the photo scandal swirls around

I felt sad that

the media would run with this.

Do you have

any reaction to your ex-husband's

apparently staging

photos for the paparazzi?

That he would capitalize

Certainly as a parent. It's not

No. That's not what you do.

That's not parenting.

Paps and journalists immediately

were following him all day everyday.

The unraveling happened that week

when he wouldn't pick up my call.

And instead you're talking to TMZ.

We just broke

a big bad story on our website.

Meghan Markle was supposed to be

walked down the aisle by her father.

And we found out from her father,

not only would he not do that,

he's not gonna attend the wedding at all.

And I'm finding out

that you're not coming to our wedding

through a tabloid.

Meghan's father,

73 years old Thomas Markle,

reportedly suffering a heart att*ck,

after enduring

a scandal these past three days

with staged

paparazzi photos that went viral.

And then suddenly

they were saying he was in the hospital.

I said, "What's going on?

Please just pick up the phone.

Like, We're not mad.

Just please pick up the phone."

He told me he had

a heart att*ck six days ago.

- We need to know what's going on.

- Calling and calling.

This is not him saying,

"I will I don't wanna be there."

No, I get it. I'm not saying

The world is watching this drama play out.

For everybody, Thomas Markle

Once it was said in the media,

he just stopped calling

We need to know what's going on.

I don't understand what's going on.

"Are you okay? What hospital are you at?"

We were just trying

to understand what's going on.

How do you not have

your daddy at your wedding?

And then,

someone texted back on his phone.

It was really weird.

You know how people text, right?

Like, you know,

my dad used a lot of emojis

and a lot of like,

ellipses and dot-dot-dot and

And this was just the opposite.

And it called me Meghan.

I was like, "He's never called me Meghan

in my any day I've lived on this planet.

Meg. All my friends call me Meg

and my parents call me Meg.

And I was like, "That's not my dad."

So then, we knew that

his phone had been compromised.

And we said, "Pick up the phone.

We need to know it's you."

Never spoke to him.

Of course, it's incredibly sad what

happened. She had a father before this.

And now she doesn't have a father.

And I shouldered that.

Because if Meg wasn't with me,

then her dad would still be her dad.

Okay, great too.

- Hi, Daddy. I got the English award.

- I know.

Okay. Alright. Am I there? I wonder.

Okay. See you later. Bye-bye.

Where's the little button?

Woah.

I gotta zoom back on you.

Gotta push that button in the back.

We're about 24 hours

away from the Royal Wedding and excited

More than

two billion people worldwide

are expected to watch the wedding on TV.

There is

so much excitement in the air.

In so many ways,

this is a Royal Wedding unlike any other.

The big reveal in just 24 hours.

When the night has come ♪

And the land is dark and the moon ♪

Is the only, only light we see ♪

No, I won't be afraid ♪

No no no no no I won't be afraid ♪

Just as long, just as long

Just as long as you stand by me ♪

Now darling, darling ♪

Whenever I'm in trouble

Darling, won't you stand ♪

I need just a little

Helping hand right now now ♪

And darling, darling

Won't you stand by me ♪

If the sky we look upon now, now ♪

Should tumble and fall

All of the mountains ♪

May crumble, may crumble to the sea ♪

I won't cry, I won't cry ♪