Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan's revelatory docuseries, Harry & Meghan, is finally here, and it's full of bombshells.

Volume I of the show, which includes the first three episodes, delves deeper into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's time as working senior members of the royal family and gives a glimpse into the beginnings of their whirlwind romance.

Ahead, the six biggest takeaways from the first drop. (And make sure to tune in next Thursday, December 15, to catch the final three episodes.)


1 | Harry and Meghan recall how they met

Harry and Meghan detail their first meeting, including the hilariously relatable way Harry first noticed his now wife.

Meghan first caught Harry's eye when he was scrolling through his Instagram feed, where he saw a clip that a mutual friend had posted with Meghan using the then-popular dog filter on Snapchat.

"I said, 'Who is that?'" he recalls.

He asked the friend to introduce the two through email, and they decided to exchange numbers.

While Meghan was in London for Wimbledon, they decided to meet for a drink. The date initially got off to a rough start, with Harry running nearly half an hour late. But by the end of their first meeting, their chemistry was so undeniable that they decided to have dinner together the following day.

"He was just so fun, just so refreshingly fun. And that was the thing. We were like childlike together," Meghan recalls.

"There was one photo. We just wanted to capture the feeling of just sitting in that little restaurant and going, 'Oh, my gosh, I think we're gonna give it a go,'" she adds.

Their third date took place in Botswana, Africa. Harry invited Meghan to join him for a weeklong work trip, and they spent the next five days getting to know each other and sleeping together in a tent.

"That was when it just hit me, like, 'Okay, this girl, this woman is amazing, is everything I've been looking for, and she's so comfortable and so relaxed in my company,'" Harry says.

2 | Harry was "terrified" he would lose Meghan

Harry remembers fearing that his relationship with Meghan would succumb to the pressures that his previous romances had due to the challenges that come with dating a member of the British royal family.

"The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution … I remember thinking, How can I ever find someone who is willing and capable to be able to withstand all the baggage that comes with being with me?" he says. "Every relationship that I had, within a matter of weeks or months, was splattered all over the newspapers and that person's family harassed and their lives turned upside down. … So when I got to meet M, I was terrified of her being driven away by the media, the same media that had driven so many other people away from me."

3 | Harry says Meghan reminds him of mom Princess Diana

Harry recalls his late mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997 after being chased by paparazzi. The prince says his now wife reminds him so much of his mother: their compassion, confidence, warmth.

"I think for so many people in the family, especially obviously the men, there can be a temptation, or an urge, to marry someone who would fit in the mold as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with, the difference between making decisions with your head or your heart. And my mom certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart. I am my mother's son," Harry adds.

A sweet video then shows the couple's son, Archie, admiring and gently touching a framed black-and-white photo the couple keep of the late princess in their home.

"That's your Grandma Diana," Meghan tells him.

4 | Harry is proud to raise children of mixed-race heritage

Reflecting on the unprecedented racist attacks that tabloids lobbied against Meghan at the beginning of their courtship, Harry condemns the royal family's normalization of this so-called "rite of passage."

"Some of the members of the family were like, 'But 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,'" he says.

When it comes to his own children, Archie and Lilibet, the duke is determined to help create a better, more equitable world where they will feel welcome.

"My son, my daughter, my children are mixed race, and I'm really proud of that," Harry says. "When my kids grow up and they look back at this moment and they turn to me and say, 'What did you do in this moment?' I want to be able to give them an answer."

5 | Meghan was surprised by the formality of her initial meetings with the royal family

"It's so funny if I look back at it now because now I know so much, and I'm so glad I didn't then. Because I could just authentically be myself without so much preparedness," Meghan says, recalling her first introductions to some members of the royal family.

"Even when Will and Kate came over and I had met her for the first time, they came over for the first time, I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot," she continues. "I was a hugger, always been a hugger. I didn't realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits. I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside. That there is a forward-facing way of being. And then you close the door and you're like, 'Oh, great. Okay, we can relax now.' But that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me."

Overall, the royals were initially quite dazzled by Meghan.

"I remember my family first meeting her and being incredibly impressed. Some of them didn't quite know what to do with themselves," Harry remembers. "But the fact that I was dating an American actress was probably what clouded their judgment more than anything else in the beginning. 'Oh, she's an American actress, this won't last.'"

6 | Harry feels somewhat responsible for the dissolution of Meghan's relationship with her father

In the final minutes of Episode 3, Meghan details how her relationship with her father became strained in the days leading up to her wedding to Harry. Thomas Markle famously took part in a paid tabloid story and gave quotes to British media regarding Meghan and her relationship with Harry. And per Meghan, he announced he wasn't attending their nuptials via TMZ rather than contacting his daughter first.

Harry mentions in the episode that he partially feels guilty that his heightened relationship with Meghan and the frenzy surrounding their union had an impact on her relationship with her father.

"Of course, it's incredibly sad what happened, she had a father before this, and now she doesn't have a father," Harry says. "I shouldered that. Because if Meg wasn't with me, then her dad would still be her dad."

Watch Harry & Meghan Volume 1 now on Netflix.

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Chelsey Sanchez
Digital Associate Editor

As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers' rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset. 

Lettermark

Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets. 

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Bianca Betancourt
Culture Editor

Bianca Betancourt is the culture editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, where she covers all things film, TV, music, and more. When she's not writing, she loves impulsively baking a batch of cookies, re-listening to the same early-2000s pop playlist, and stalking Mariah Carey's Twitter feed.