The Duke of Sussex has spoken of a “dirty game” where there is “leaking” and “planting of stories” in a new trailer for his upcoming Netflix docuseries which will debut this week.
In the one-minute teaser for the six-part Harry & Meghan series, he also discusses the “pain and suffering” of women marrying into the royal family.
The streaming giant confirmed volume one will launch on December 8 – exactly three months after the death of Harry’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth II – with the second volume to be released on December 15.
The trailer opens with Harry saying: “It’s really hard to look back on it now and go ‘What on earth happened?'”
As videos play of the couple receiving rapturous applause while conducting royal duties as well as announcing their engagement and their wedding in 2018, a news clip voiceover by Piers Morgan says: “She’s becoming a royal rock star”.
It cuts to Meghan saying “and then” before snapping her fingers with Harry adding: “Everything changed”.
A photo of the royal family at the Trooping the Colour in 2019 is shown while Harry continues his narration, saying: “There’s a hierarchy of the family, you know, there’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories. It’s a dirty game.”
Clips of paparazzi photographing the couple are then paralleled alongside old footage of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana being followed by the media as he adds: “The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution, this feeding frenzy. I was terrified, I didn’t want history to repeat itself.
“No one knows the full truth. We know the full truth.”
Last week, Netflix released the first official teaser which featured never before seen private photographs of the couple including happy snapshots of the Sussexes kissing while Meghan sits on a kitchen island, as newlyweds dancing with joy at their evening wedding do, cuddling in a photobooth and Meghan cradling her bump while pregnant.
Another shows the duchess pictured with her hand over her face as she sits cross legged on a chair holding a phone but it is not clear in this image whether she is crying.
Billed as a Netflix Global Event, the streaming giant has promised an “unprecedented and in-depth documentary series” over six episodes where Harry and Meghan “share the other side of their high-profile love story”.
It added it was a “never-before-seen look at one of the most-discussed couples in history”.
Netflix said the show “explores the clandestine days of their early courtship and the challenges that led to them feeling forced to step back from their full-time roles in the institution”.
It features commentary from friends and family, most of whom have never spoken publicly before about what they witnessed according to Netflix, and historians who discuss the state of the British Commonwealth today and the royal family’s relationship with the press.
It adds: “The series does more than illuminate one couple’s love story, it paints a picture of our world and how we treat each other.”
The director is two-time Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning director Liz Garbus.
Harry and Meghan signed lucrative deals – thought to be worth well over £100 million – with Netflix and Spotify after quitting the monarchy and moving to the US.
