'Enrique and Meghan, the documentary': appointments in London and Botswana, bows to Elizabeth II and Diana as a reference

At nine o'clock in the morning on December 8, Netflix dropped one of its big bombs of the season: the long-awaited documentary series about Prince Henry of England and his wife, Meghan Markle.

It promised to be his own version of the events recounted and hackneyed over the last five years: courtship, commitment, wedding, children, problems, departure from the British royal family and finding his own way.

And so it is, at least in the first three episodes (the last three can be seen on Thursday the 15th), which go up to the day before the couple's wedding, held at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018.

But, like every version of their own, that of Enrique and Meghan is also a Manichean account of the events.

As soon as the documentary started, two posters: “This is a first-hand version of the story of Enrique and Meghan, told with a personal file never seen before.

All interviews were completed by August 2022.”

Something that reveals, in a not very subtle way, that Queen Elizabeth II, head of the British royal family and Enrique's grandmother, was still alive when the footage ended.

And a second poster: "Members of the royal family declined to comment on the content of this documentary."

Here those who speak are Enrique and Meghan and his troupe.

The end.

More information

Controversy with the documentary of Enrique and Meghan Markle for using their photos without permission in Buckingham

A dozen guests parade through the docuseries: friends of both, Markle's agent when she was an actress, members of her foundation, journalists and authors specializing in the royal family (few, given the direct criticism of the protagonists in the British press), tennis player Serena Williams and even, and for the first time, Doria Ragland, Markle's mother.

All of them are there to support the story, the couple's narrative, in which they lay the foundations for what will come next: the reasons for their departure, for their departure as active members of the Windsor family.

But first they have to explain themselves.

How did they meet?

How could such a media relationship be forged in secret?

What were the reactions of their families?

How was the arrival of an American actress to a royal family with a thousand years of history?

Meghan Markle and Enrique of England, on September 25, 2017 at the Invictus Games in Toronto (Canada).Danny Lawson (Cordon Press)

Without great revelations, but always with the logical interest that the story is told by the protagonists themselves, these questions are answered throughout the three chapters —of almost an hour each—.

But always marked by two closely linked elements that, as is abundantly clear, very quickly become the pillars of their relationship: first, the persecution of both and especially of Markle by the tabloid press;

and, second, the importance of race, specifically that she is a mixed race (as she is called in the footage), the daughter of a white man and a black woman.

Those two keys mark the first three chapters (all of them, by the way, without a title), which reveal these curiosities.

[Warning: from this point there are

for the Netflix documentary series '

First chapter:

From "We met on Instagram" to "My mother made decisions with her heart and I am my mother's son"

The first chapter is perhaps the most revealing and, above all, personal of the three broadcast so far by Netflix.

There is a lot of homemade footage, private images of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, of their beginnings as a couple, of their secret meetings.

But it is also known, right at the beginning, that the embryo of this future documentary began to take shape even before they left the royal family permanently, on March 31, 2020, after his last act with them, the day 9 of that month.

The first images are taken in the VIP terminal of Heathrow airport, in London, next to a not a little ironic "Departures" sign, and in them Enrique records himself vertically with his own phone, without being very clear what day it is, counting that they have been finalizing their commitments with royalty for two weeks.

They had not even left and they were already beginning to accumulate (at the suggestion of "a friend", they say: "Now it may not make sense but one day it will") that personal file that is so announced at the start of the episode.

After that, a phrase that already drew attention in the trailer: "It's hard to look back and think, what the hell happened?

How did we end up here?"

These powerful phrases follow one another at the beginning of the footage, from "My job is to keep my family safe" by Enrique, where he talks about the supposed "hatred aroused these three years against" his "wife and son", to Markle stating: "I just I want all this to happen now."

Or Enrique with: “It is my duty to uncover the exploitation and bribery of the media.

It's not just our story, it's something bigger.

Nobody knows the whole truth.

We know the truth.

The institution knows it and the press knows it”.

As an advance: that nebulous truth is not clear in those three chapters.

But they want to tell it: "I'm not going to say that I feel comfortable, but when people have no idea who you are for so long it's very nice to have the opportunity to let them know who you are," says Markle.

A photograph of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex provided by them for their Netflix documentary 'Henry and Meghan'.-- (EFE/Courtesy of Prince Harry and Meg)

From this introduction of suspense and little-revealed promises for now (what is that truth?), they begin to tell their love story, which "has only just begun", according to the prince, and where the two turned their lives upside down. worlds to be together, he says.

“She sacrificed everything she knew, freedom, to join my world.

I sacrificed everything she had to join her world."

It wasn't exactly a blind date arranged by a friend that brought them together.

Markle says that, in July 2016, she had renewed her contract with the series

(

in Spain, available on Netlix)

for another season, she had been single for “a couple of months” and wanted to travel and enjoy her friends.

But one night, a friend wrote her an email and told her that, through her Instagram account, Prince Henry of England had seen a video of her and Meghan where they both came out with a Snapchat filter with puppy ears.

Images of her caught his attention and she asked him to meet her.

Markle assures that she was not clear who this prince was but that she does not search for him on Google (as she will later say that he did search from the British anthem to how to dress), but rather looks at his profile.

From there, they exchange telephone numbers and meet up, as she is in London to attend a Wimbledon tennis match.

They meet for a drink in Soho.

He arrives very late and exhausted.

They have a great time.

But she decides to leave after only an hour... although she writes to him shortly after to see each other the next day.

They dine together, in the same place.

Now the one who is late (just a little) is her.

“I came from Wimbledon all dolled up, I wanted to take a shower and get comfortable and be myself,” she says.

And from there comes their first photo together, which, of course, the documentary shows.

In this chapter Enrique makes an interesting reflection on how in the royal family "especially in men, there may be a temptation or an impulse to marry someone who fits the mold", with someone chosen for convenience rather than for love, something that he lived in his own flesh with his parents and what he wanted to escape after Diana's example.

"My mother made decisions with her heart and I am my mother's son," he says of the late princess, of whom he says he was very protective but has "few memories" and with whom he often compares himself.

As he has already affirmed on more occasions, he did not want "history to repeat itself" with his partner, especially in terms of the persecution of the paparazzi that accompanied him since he was a child.

From left to right, Harry of England, Eugenie and Beatrice of York (daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson) and Prince William pose for photographers before a day of skiing in Klosters, Switzerland, on January 4, 1995.Pool BASSIGNAC/BENAINOUS/MORVAN (Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Enrique tells that Africa, his long periods in Lesotho or Botswana collaborating with NGOs (he came to found one, Sentebale), hardened him and made him mature.

And that is why he decided to take Markle there very soon, that same summer of 2016. “I have seen her twice and we are going to spend five days in a tent.

And if we don't like each other?” Enrique says jokingly.

“It was the first time we had seen each other in a month.

We had to meet before the world and the media.

We feel good and normal.

There was no coverage, there was no bathroom.

We were attracted to each other, how were we going to make it work?” asks Markle.

Since then, the romance continues, and her intention is to keep it private, like a big secret.

They decided to see each other every two weeks, especially with trips to London by the actress, who was staying at Kensington Palace.

In a couple of months she was already integrated and knew Eugenia de York and her then boyfriend, Jack Brooksbank.

But the chapter closes, of course, out loud: “I was naive.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

Everything changed".

Second chapter:

From "Is it worth going through that?"

to “My children are mestizos and I am proud of it”

The paparazzi are beginning to be more and more present in the couple's story, because their romance is already being made public.

In fact, Enrique starts by justifying himself, explaining what may be a popular feeling: “Many people think: 'They have a problem with the paparazzi.'

When my mother was alive it was a physical problem.

Seeing how another woman I love has to go through that frenzy that feeds back is hard.

She basically she is the hunter against the prey”.

There are also certain contradictory versions, because if before they talked about keeping the romance closed to the world, now Markle affirms that the fact that it was made public was "a tremendous relief."

She quickly, she says, she realized that it was not so easy: the first day

she greeted the photographers who were waiting for her with a smile.

Enrique warned him: "You can't talk to them, people here think they love you."

“It seemed that all the media from the United Kingdom had come to Toronto,” she says, with apparent disbelief, explaining how the press began to get dirty laundry out of her and tell intimacies that, apparently, the prince was unaware of.

“We were still getting to know each other.

That speeds up the learning curve, ”says the former actress, with a sad smile.

An essential and hitherto unheard testimony has great weight in the chapter: that of Doria Ragland, the mother of Meghan Markle.

"I am ready to tell what I have experienced as her mother," says she, a key character in the documentary who is seen accompanying her daughter in some events (such as, for example, on a visit to her old school, where the duchess met defines as "not the pretty one, the nerdy one"), the couple at events and speaking on camera on many occasions.

Meghan Markle (right) arrives at Windsor Castle on her wedding day, May 19, 2018, with her mother, Doria Ragland.

OLI SCARFF (AFP)

Then the racial question appears.

Markle says: "People are aware of my race because in the UK it was made important, but in general it was not", and her mother, remorseful, says that she would like to "go back and make it important", to maintain a conversation with her daughter about it, because she saw clearly that it was going to be a problem in her inclusion in the Windsors and in British society.

The youngest son of Carlos III also saw it soon, when the persecution of Markle by the press began: “Most of my family had gone through that.

It's like a rite of passage.

Everyone was saying to me, 'My wife has been through this before, why would she be any different with your girlfriend?

Why should it be protected?'

The difference, he told them, is the race ”.

For this reason, eight days after their relationship was made public,

Enrique himself is surprised by the treatment professed to Markle because of his race, despite the fact that he assures that "he thought she was aware of life, of the problems", and assures about his two children, Archie and Lilibet: "My children are mixed-race And I am proud of it.

When they say to me: 'What did you do?', I want to give them an answer”.

In addition, he affirms that for him "it is a responsibility to make the world better" and "not to repeat the mistakes of our parents: children of divorced parents have something in common."

Markle also recounts the beginnings of that relationship that was already beginning to be made public, and how "everything changed for the worse" in many aspects: at work, when she needed constant protection, in the harassment of her friends by the press.

“If there were six grown men sleeping in cars around your house, wouldn't that be harassment?' I asked.

'We can't do anything because of who your partner is,' they replied.

She had to count on special security, suspicious letters arrived.

Then the inevitable question appears with his equally inevitable answer: "Is it worth going through that?"

They tried to pull many visits, video calls, transoceanic flights and humor.

Markle's visits to the United Kingdom became frequent and she had her first meetings with her boyfriend's family but always, she says, from ignorance.

“I know a lot now, but I'm glad I didn't then,” she says.

"Guillermo and Kate came to dinner and I was barefoot and in jeans," she recounts about her first dinner with her then-future brothers-in-law.

"I guess I quickly understood that the formality of the outside continues on the inside."

Before meeting Henry of England's brother and his wife, she had a meeting with Elizabeth II, who is also taken as a joke, with total lightness and surprising ignorance of the facts.

"You know how to bow, don't you?" they told me.

I thought it was a joke,” she laughs.

“How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother, that you bow to her?

And especially an American."

argues Enrique, while she gestures, bowing mockingly.

Eugenia, Jack and

[Sarah Ferguson] told me: 'You've done very well.'

The British royal family, according to Harry's version, thought that "dating an American actress clouded his judgment" and that it would not last.

But he saw that she was "perfect for the part" and, after asking her grandmother's permission, he proposed to her.

They celebrated with a costume party with friends.

And the chapter, again, ends on a high note: “I still believed what they told me.

The promise of 'When you get married it will be better, the better they get used to you'.

Whatever I did, they were going to find a way to destroy me."

Third chapter:

From “orchestrated reality TV” to “Do you remember '

Princess by Surprise'

?”

In November 2017, the commitment to the media and a subsequent interview (logically agreed) arrived, which Markle refers to as "orchestrated reality television."

“I was rehearsed.

We were with the press, we took off our coats and we started.

We were not allowed to tell our story.

That's why we're here."

The first acts of her with the royal family and her first

before citizens and the media arrive for her, who appears absolutely naive and disoriented about what to wear, explaining that she had bought the clothes for the event online, by example.

The chapter leaves interesting revelations.

On the one hand, one that is relatively well known in the United Kingdom but not so much abroad: the tacit agreement of the royal family with the press, the so-called

, by which the tabloids "have a verbal contract by which the royal family is available for the media.

They feel they have a duty to readers to get their private lives out."

“This family is ours, this trauma is ours, we control it,” says Enrique.

“You have to get in the game or bad things will be published about you.

It's a cutthroat business.

With Meghan there were no limits."

Harry and Meghan Markle, along with other members of the royal family, after the Christmas mass held at Sandringham on December 25, 2017.Kgc-22Starmaxinc.Com (ZUMAPRESS.com / Cordon Press)

On the other, there is talk of Markle's poor (not bad, according to her) relationship with her half-sister Samantha, whom she barely knows, she says.

On the other hand, he does have a good relationship with her daughter (of whom Samantha lost custody at the age of two; the girl was raised by her grandparents), Ashleigh.

In fact, Ashleigh herself —a hitherto unknown character— appears explaining how, despite being good friends, the couple could not invite her to their wedding because they were not going to invite Samantha either and it would not be understood that she was the daughter and not the mother .

The royal family also takes center stage in this third chapter.

Markle affirms that after her first Christmas the perception was very good: "It's incredible, a big family, what I've always wanted."

Enrique does not deny that there were racist biases, also in him,

but it detracts from their seriousness: "It's nobody's fault, but you learn, it's a constant work in progress for everyone, including me."

In fact, he talks about that commented incident in January 2005 where he put on a Nazi uniform: “One of the biggest mistakes of my life.

I felt very ashamed."

For him, it was his 10 years in the army that helped him "mature a lot" and create "a second family."

But Meghan focuses on the main one, on the royal family, where she began to talk about feminism, or MeToo at public events.

“I didn't know it was taboo,” she says, surprised.

“I knew there was a protocol for doing things.

Do you remember

of Anne Hathaway?

There are no classes and no one to tell you, 'Sit like this, use that fork, don't do this, that's how bowing is, wear this hat.'

I had to learn a lot.

Including the national anthem.

I would sit and practice and practice.”

And for that, she says, she was looking for it on Google.

She says that no one taught her how to dress but that she preferred not to wear "colorful clothes."

“It was all premeditated, as I understand you cannot wear the same color as the queen or the rest of the family.

What are they not wearing?

Camel, beige, white.

I did that, so it didn't look like I wanted to stand out.

I don't want to embarrass anyone."

Then, he assures her, the isolation of her began.

The end of the chapter portrays the break in relations with his father, who accepted money to pose in manipulated photos for paparazzi a few days before his wedding.

Doria Ragland is “shocked that Tom was part of this circus.

As a father that is not done ”.

And Markle expresses her disappointment: “He didn't want to answer the phone but he did talk to [the gossip outlet]

.

I found out he's not coming to the wedding from the tabloids.

And then they told me that he is in the hospital.

Her father suffered a heart attack and did not answer the phone.

And he did not attend his wedding.

But that can be seen in the next three chapters.