AFP/Netflix/Prince Harry and Meghan
ANNOUNCEMENTS•
“Even though I belong to this family, it is my duty to expose this exploitation and corruption within our media.” British Prince Harry says so at the beginning of the Netflix documentary that appeared this morning Harry and Meghan. According to Harry, people close to the couple were paid by gossip columnists to publish fabricated stories.
In the series, Harry and his wife Meghan discuss their choice step back do in the British royal family. The first three episodes dropped online this morning, with three more episodes to follow in a week.
According to Harry, the idea for the documentary came from a friend. This way, the couple wants to tell their own story, says Meghan. “If you feel like people have no idea who you are for so long, it’s really nice to have the opportunity to give them some more insight into what happened and who we are.”
In the UK and abroad was much anticipated to the series because it would be “explosive”. But the first few episodes of the series are mostly a continuation of what the couple said in a previous interview with Oprah Winfrey and what Meghan shared on her podcast.
Massive media attention is a recurring theme in the documentary. For example, it already appears in the first episode that this was an important reason for Harry and Meghan to distance themselves from the British royal family. “I knew I had to do everything possible to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mother,” the prince said. By this he is referring to the car crash in which Princess Diana died, pursued by the tabloid press. “I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”
Harry says he was already annoyed by the tabloid press at a young age. He and his brother were “forced to smile and answer questions” by these paparazzi.
According to Harry, that attention was also a stumbling block in previous relationships. “That person’s family was harassed, their lives were shaken up. So after one or two boyfriends, the third or fourth is like, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t know if I want this.'”
When Harry met Meghan in the summer of 2016, he was “terrified” that she too would be “scared by the media”. To avoid this, they tried to keep their relationship quiet for as long as possible. The relationship was born in the fall of 2016, after which Harry and Meghan still had to contend with a lot of media attention.
Unconscious biases
Additionally, the couple said they had faced racism within the British royal family. They feared it beforehand, because Meghan has a black mother. According to Harry, there are many unconscious biases within the royal family. According to him, no one can be directly blamed. “But once you settle with you, you have to make things right.”
He too has made mistakes, the prince admits. He calls wearing a swastika armband at a costume party in 2005 “the biggest mistake” of his life.
In facing his own prejudices, according to Harry, it helped to spend ten years in the army. “Working and living with normal people – and I totally understand that my life isn’t normal – definitely has an effect. The bubble within the bubble I grew up in then burst.”
