The first three parts of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle 's highly-anticipated documentary series were released this morning.
Harry & Meghan volume one became available on Netflix at 8am GMT and a further three episodes are set to follow next Thursday (December 15).
The series has been described by Netflix as an “unprecedented and in-depth documentary series" which will provide 'the other side' of their high-profile love story. It will also look at the early days of their relationship and the decision to ultimately step down as senior members of the Royal Family.
READ MORE: How much are Harry and Meghan getting paid for their Netflix deal?
In the second episode, Harry and Meghan spoke about a number of serious issues such as invasion of privacy by the press and allegations of racism towards the Duchess of Sussex, who is mixed race. There were also some lighter moments including stories about Meghan's first meeting with the Queen, Harry's proposal and even an insight into their lives as parents.
Here are five of the main things that we learned from Harry & Meghan episode two:
Paparazzi response to their relationship left Meghan 'scared'
Episode two began with Harry and Meghan being driven around New York and the conversation between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex quickly got on to whether they were being followed by paparazzi. Invasion of privacy was a theme throughout the episode and Harry made a reference to his mother, Princess Diana, saying: “Back in my mum’s days, it was physical harassment. They had cameras in your face following you, chasing you.
“Paparazzi still harass people. The harassment really exists more online now.
“Once the photographs are out and the story is then put next to it, then comes the social media harassment. To see another woman in my life who I love go through this feeding frenzy. That’s hard. It is basically the hunter versus the prey.”
Later in the episode, Meghan spoke about how her life was turned upside down when the news of their relationship broke. She accused the press of paying her neighbours to install cameras. Meghan said: “It felt like all of the UK media descended upon Toronto. My house was just surrounded. Just men sitting in their cars all the time waiting for me to do anything.
“Then my neighbours text me and said ‘they are knocking on everyone’s doors trying to find you’. They had paid certain neighbours to put a live stream camera into my backyard. “Suddenly everything about my life just got so much more insular. Like all the curtains were pulled, all the blinds were pulled. It was scary.”
Meghan later said that when she raised concerns to police, they fell on deaf ears and she was eventually the subject of a death threat. She added: “I would say to the police, if any other woman in Toronto right now said to you ‘I have six grown men who are sleeping in their cars around my house and following me everywhere that I go and I feel scared, wouldn’t you say it was stalking?’ And they said ‘yes but there’s really nothing we can do because of who you’re dating’.
'The Palace' apparently told Harry and Meghan to remain tight-lipped over concerns of racist press coverage
The episode touched on accusations that Meghan has experienced difficulties since she started dating Harry due to being mixed race. The former Suits star said that she was never treated as a ‘black woman’ growing up and had only really seen racism through the eyes of her mother.
“I had never in my life heard someone say the N-word,” she said. “[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 UK but before that most people didn’t treat me like a ‘black woman’, so that talk didn’t have to happen for me.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex said that the Palace effectively told them to ignore any news stories with racist undertones.
Harry also said that other members of the Royal Family did not think there was any difference by how Meghan was treated by the media, compared to their own partners. He remembered: “Within that first week that it became public knowledge, the first story was ‘Harry’s new girl is (almost) straight outta Crompton’ and I was like ‘whoa!’
“The direction of the palace was ‘don’t say anything’.
“But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they’d been put through as well, so it was almost like a rite of passage.
“Some of the members of the family were like ‘my wife had to go through that so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’ And I said ‘ the difference here is the race element’.”
Meghan thought it was a 'joke' when Harry told her she had to curtsy during first meeting with the Queen
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex opened up about the first time that Meghan met the Queen. Meghan admitted that she thought it was a 'joke' when Harry asked her if she knew how to curtsy, ahead of their first meeting at the Duke and Duchess of York's country residence Royal Lodge.
"I mean it's surreal, there wasn't like some big moment of 'now you're going to meet my grandmother.' I didn't know I was gonna meet her until moments before.
"We were in the car and we were going to Royal Lodge for lunch and he was like 'oh my grandmother is here, she's gonna be there after church.' We were in the car driving and he's like 'you know how to curtsy, right?' And I just thought it was a joke.
"Now I'm starting to realise this is a big deal. I mean, Americans will understand this, we have 'Medieval Times, Dinner and Tournament'. It was like that."
Harry also conceded that explaining that he had to ‘bow’ to his own grandmother was ‘weird’.
"How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother and that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American? That's weird."
Matching penguin onesies for their engagement party
The episode ended with the couple announcing their engagement and Harry opened up about how he proposed by opening a magnum of Champagne and turning on 15 electrical candles in the gardens of the Kensington Palace cottage where they stayed at the time. He then joked that he had her pet dog Guy ‘hostage’ so she could not say no.
He said: “I wanted to do it earlier. Like I was… because I had to ask permission from my grandmother, I couldn’t do it outside of the UK.
“I did pop a bottle of champagne while she was roasting the chicken and that kind of slightly gave the game away. She was like ‘you don’t normally drink champagne, what’s the occasion?’ I was like ‘I don’t know, just had it laying around here, whatever.
“It wasn’t that I knew she’d say yes . but she’d already moved Guy over so I had Guy as a hostage. He was using stilts so he couldn’t run away. And then in the north garden being overlooked by the staff flats, I got 15 of those electric candles. Of course I got down on one knee, of course I did.”
Meghan appeared to send a selfie-style video to her friend Jess, that was shown in the episode, in which she excitedly whispers: ‘oh my god Jess it’s happening, he told me not to peek’.
The most surprising detail was that the pair hosted a small engagement party with a theme that everyone had to dress in animal onesies, with Harry and Meghan both dressing as penguins. Meghan’s friend Lucy explained the cute reason for the decision.
“Penguins mate for life,” she said. “They were so sweet.”
Harry is a keen birdwatcher
One of the sweetest moments of the episode just showed Harry being a father to Archie. The Duke of Sussex tried to get the toddler to show an interest in nature, whispering: "We won't get a chance to be this close to hummingbirds ever again because they're scared of humans," but the tot who is sixth in line to the throne did not seem to care.
As Harry stood in awe, Archie said in his American accent: "I've got a dirty foot mama, because I was with you". Harry and Meghan both laughed and the Duchess of Sussex told her son: "Papa is a bird watcher so this is a really big moment for him".
Aside from everything else, it was really nice to really get to see the human side of the family.
Read more of today's top stories here
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