Prince Harry has revealed how he and Meghan met as the couple’s hotly-anticipated Netflix documentary was released on Thursday morning.
The Duke of Sussex says in the series: “Meghan and I met over Instagram.
“I was just scrolling through my feed and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them, like a Snapchat, with dog ears.
“That was the first thing – I was like ‘who is THAT?'”
Meghan describes how a friend emailed her to set them up, later admitting she “did her homework” and scoured Harry’s Instagram feed.
She was impressed by his pictures showing environmental shots and his time spent in Africa.
Harry then tells the camera “and then we got each other’s numbers, and I was like, ‘let’s meet’.”
The former Suits actress, 41, was “really intent on being single and just having fun all the time”.
But meeting Harry saw her life take a different direction.
“I had my career, I had my life, I had my path… then came Harry – I mean, talk about plot twist.”
‘Guarded treasure’
Harry was determined to keep his and Meghan’s relationship a secret for as long as he could, over fears she would be “driven away by the media”.
“I knew that the only way that this would work would be to keep this quiet for as long as possible,” he said.
Their romance was initially long distance, with the duchess insisting they met every two weeks.
“(In) the beginning, our relationship was this guarded little… guarded treasure.
“Everything was just texts and FaceTimes and we’d just talk for hours and it just felt exciting,” Meghan, seen wearing a grey sweater, tells viewers.
“It was just relaxed and easy. We just got to know each other. Truly like any other couple when you’re figuring out ‘what do you like to eat? What do you like to cook? What kind of movies do you like?'”
Harry revealed how, in spite of his fears, he “opened his heart” to Meghan to “see what’s going to happen”.
“I got to know her more and more, I was like, ‘I’m really falling in love with this girl’.”
‘Hot sweaty ball of a mess’
The couple had their first date at Soho House in central London – when Harry arrived late.
“I was panicking, I was freaking out. I started sweating,” he recalled.
Meghan revealed how she thought Harry must have a big ego and expect a girl to wait for him.
“And then I walked in, this hot sweaty ball of a mess, and she realised, ‘no, he’s not like that’,” the duke said.
Meghan described him as “just so fun, refreshingly fun” – but she departed after an hour, saying she had other plans.
The couple met again the following evening for dinner – when she arrived late.
Harry said of their meeting: “That was when it just hit me – this girl is everything I’ve been looking for. And she’s so comfortable and relaxed in my company.”
‘So similar to Diana’
Harry described his admiration for his wife sharing many of the same qualities as his late mother, Diana.
“She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence – she has this warmth about her,” the duke said.
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He added: “I think for so many people in the family, especially the men, there could be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mould as opposed to someone you are destined to be with.
“The difference between making a decision with your head or your heart.
“And my mum certainly made most of her decisions if not all of them from her heart. And I am my mother’s son.”
What Meghan’s friends and family said
Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, revealed the moment she learned her daughter was dating Prince Harry.
“We were on the phone and she told me ‘Mummy, I’m going out with Prince Harry’, and I started whispering ‘oh my God’.”
Remembering the first time she met her future son-in-law, she added: “He was like, 6’1 and (a) handsome man with red hair, really great manners.
“He was just really nice and they looked really happy together. Like he was the one.
“Once it was announced that they were together it seemed kind of like a novelty.”
Friends were “overjoyed” about the couple’s “fairy tale” romance.
One pal of Meghan’s, Abigail Spencer, shared on the documentary: “It was very clear that the moment she told me about him that they were in love. And they were going to go to the ends of the Earth to be together.”