Meghan Markle reveals what surprised her about the royal family
Harry also said that explaining to Meghan that she had to ‘curtsy to my grandmother’ was ‘weird’
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Your support makes all the difference.Meghan Markle has said she was “surprised” about the formality of the royal family, which continues even behind closed doors, in the new Netflix documentary Harry and Meghan.
Speaking in episode two of the six-part Netflix docuseries, she said: “When Will and Kate came over, and I met her for the first time, they came over for dinner, I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot.”
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Markle continued: “I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger, I didn’t realise 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.”
She added: “[I thought there would be] a forward-facing way of being, and then you close the door and go, ‘You can relax now,’ but that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”
Also in the documentary, the couple spoke about the first time Meghan met the late Queen. “[Harry] said, ‘You know how to curtsy, right?’” recalled the duchess. “And I just thought it was a joke.”
Harry then said: “How do you explain that to people? That they need to curtsy to your grandmother? Especially to an American. That’s weird.”
Elsewhere in the series, Markle talked about how her 2017 engagement interview with Prince Harry was an “orchestrated reality show”.
Harry and Meghan is directed by Liz Garbus and features archival footage and interviews with the couple’s friends, family, and historians.
The pair said that they hoped the documentary would go beyond “one couple’s love story” but rather, “[paint] a picture of our world and how we treat each other”.
Follow along here for live updates about the Harry and Meghan documentary.