The second half of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan, a six-episode docuseries tracking Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s exit from the British royal family, is finally here.
Volume II includes Episodes 3-6, which covered some of the most damning claims made against the Firm yet. From the royal family’s competing communications teams to palace insiders allegedly leaking stories about the Sussexes, the last three episodes of Harry & Meghan illustrate the couple’s rocky road to achieving a life outside royal confines.
Ahead, we break down all of the biggest revelations from Volume 2.
1 | Harry implies Prince William fed negative stories to the press.
Prince Harry and Prince William have kept most of the details of their allegedly estranged relationship under wraps since reports of their disagreements first arose. But, in Episode 4 of the docuseries, the Duke of Sussex gets candid about where they stand.
Tensions began when Harry and Meghan split houses from William and Kate, which meant that the Sussexes now had their own, separate communications team. Each team is responsible for working to keep press positive about their assigned royal (or royal couple)—and they often achieve that by feeding negative stories about another royal to the media.
"I have 30 years experience 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," Harry says. "You know, there’s leaking but there’s also planting of stories. So, if the comms team wants 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."
Harry says he and his brother made a promise to never use their offices against each other—but, Harry claims, William did not follow through on his promise. "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," he says. "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."
He continues, "I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or this business of trading. Then, 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."
Harry expands on his relationship with William in Episode 5, explaining that William’s commitment to his royal duties kept him from seeing Harry and Meghan’s side when they decided to step back as senior members of the royal family.
"The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side. Part of that, I get," the Duke of Sussex says. "That’s his inheritance. So, to some extent, it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and the continuation of this institution."
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2 | Harry regrets his reaction to Meghan’s mental health struggles.
The Duchess of Sussex says in Episode 4 that she wanted to end her own life to stop the suffering she felt at the height of her tensions with the royal family and attacks from the British media.
"It was like, ‘All of this will stop if I’m not here,’" she recalls thinking. "And that was the scariest thing about it, is it was such clear thinking."
Harry says he was "devastated," "angry," and "ashamed" that it had gotten so bad for his wife, but he admits he was so blinded by his commitment to his royal duties at the time that he didn’t give her the support she needed.
"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," Harry says. "I’d 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 hate myself for it."
Meghan adds, "I wanted to go somewhere to get help, but I wasn’t allowed to. They (Buckingham Palace and the royals) were concerned about how that would look for the institution."
"They knew how bad it was," Harry says, speaking of the palace. "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?’"
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3 | Harry claims William "screamed and shouted" at him.
Shortly after the couple announced their plans to step back as working senior royals in January 2020, Harry met with then-Prince Charles, William, and Queen Elizabeth II to hash out the details of their exit.
"It became very clear very quickly that goal was not up for discussion or debate," he recalls. "It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things that just simply weren’t true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in."
4 | Harry denies he was involved in a joint statement released under his name with William.
After the Sussexes publicly announced their decision to step back as senior royals, tabloids began to report that the couple had been pushed out due to William’s bullying. The institution responded to those reports quickly, releasing a rare joint statement from the brothers that denied those allegations—but, Harry now claims he never saw the statement until after it was released.
"Once I got in the car after the meeting, I was told about a joint statement that had been put out in my name and my brother’s name squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family. I couldn’t believe it," he says. "No one had asked me. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that. And I rang M and I told her, and she burst into floods of tears because, within four hours, they were happy to lie to protect my brother and yet for three years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us."
5 | Tyler Perry is Lilibet Diana’s godfather.
The media mogul revealed in the final episode of the docuseries that the couple asked him to be their daughter’s godfather. Perry became close to the couple after offering his home and private security for their family once they decided to permanently relocate to Los Angeles, California.
"They said ‘Well, we’d like for you to be Lili’s godfather.’ I go ‘Whoa.’ I had to take a minute to take that in," Perry says. "And I thought, I’d be honored. I’d be absolutely honored."
6 | Beyoncé had words of encouragement for Meghan following the couple’s Oprah Winfrey interview.
Meghan shared that superstar Beyoncé casually texted her the day following their bombshell sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey commending her for her bravery in speaking her truth about her experience joining royal life.
"She said she wants me to feel safe and protected. She admires and respects my bravery and vulnerability and thinks I was selected to break generational curses that need to be healed," Meghan says to Harry in the docuseries after reading the singer’s message.
7 | The couple’s tabloid lawsuit may have led to Meghan’s miscarriage.
While the Sussexes worked on their copyright infringement lawsuit against Associated Newspapers (which owns British outlets like the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday), they were also in the midst of moving into their new home in Santa Barbara, California. The compounded stress of all those events combined eventually culminated in Meghan’s miscarriage, Harry says.
"I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did. I watched the whole thing," the duke says in Episode 6. "Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? ‘Course we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that that caused, the lack of sleep, and the timing of the pregnancy, how many weeks in she was, I can say, from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her."
Meghan recalls the painful memory, saying, "I was pregnant. I really wasn’t sleeping. And the first morning that we woke up in our new home is when I miscarried."
Harry also detailed the moment he saw his wife miscarry. "I’m driving up just like, all right, we’re going to unpack. We’re going to get settled," he says, referring to the family’s arrival at their Santa Barbara house. "And Meg is standing outside waiting for me, and I can tell something’s off. And she’s like, ‘Show me the new home.’ So it’s very mixed emotion[s] because here’s our new home. … She’s having a lot of pain. She was holding Archie, and she just fell to the ground."
Watch Harry & Meghan Volume 1 and 2 now on Netflix.
