Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir, Spare, hits shelves on Jan. 10, but drama-filled excerpts are already leaking. Among the bombshells, the Duke of Sussex looked back on the moment Meghan Markle met his father, King Charles and Harry’s stepmother, Queen Consort Camilla.
Page Six reported that in the new book, Prince Harry explained that he advised Markle to wear her hair down and wear minimal makeup, just the way “Pa likes it,” to ensure that the Duchess received King Charles’ royal seal of approval. According to Harry, his father “didn’t approve of women who wore a lot” of makeup.
It’s reported that the couple “rehearsed” the meeting “several times,” to make sure Markle knew to “curtsy” and to only refer to his father as “your royal highness” or “sir.” The Duke instructed Markle to only give Charles a kiss if he “leans in.” Prince Harry also informed Markle that a curtsy wasn’t “necessary” for the Queen Consort.
“Meg looked beautiful,” he recalled, describing the “full skirt patterned with flowers,” Markle wore for the big occasion.
All their prepping made the first meeting a success, where Harry said they talking about their beloved “fur babies.”
Despite their pleasant beginnings, the relationship went downhill when Markle and Prince Harry’s relationship got more serious. Harry described his father as jealous and recalled that King Charles told him there was not “enough money” for Markle to be a part of the royal family.
“Pa might have dreaded the rising cost of maintaining us, but what he really couldn’t stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him,” he wrote, according to Page Six.
Prince Harry noted that Charles had “lived through that before,” when he was married to Princess Diana.
In their new Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, the Duke of Sussex opened up about the similarities between Markle and his late mother.
“So much of what Meghan is, and how she is, is so similar to my mom. She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her,” said Harry. “I accept that they’ll be people around the world who fundamentally disagree with what I’ve done and how I’ve done it, but I knew that I had to do everything I could to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mom. You know, I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”
After constant media attention and what Harry said was a lack of support or protection from the Firm, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to step back from their royal duties in January 2020, officially exiting in 2021.
