UK royals had a problem with Meghan’s acting career, reveals doc series

Los Angeles, Dec 8

The first three episodes of 'Harry & Meghan', the highly-anticipated Netflix docuseries about Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, dropped on Thursday after a frenzy of speculative reporting in the British media about the content and how damaging it would be for King Charles III and Prince William, reports 'Variety'.

None of the royal family members agreed to be interviewed for the series, which contains a number of revelations on the Harry-Meghan love story -- they met over Instagram, and Harry was late for his first date! -- and also about the early bumps in their relationship with the family.

The first three episodes, however, do not contain anything that may upset the royal family, but it carries footage from Princess Diana's controversial 'Panorama' interview with the now-disgraced BBC journalist Martin Bashir, which, 'Variety' notes, is "likely to anger" the Prince of Wales.

It emerged last year that the interview had been secured via fraudulent means. Earlier this year BBC publicly apologised to William and Harry and donated the $1.6 million it earned from the interview. Prince William had then said: "It is my firm view that this 'Panorama' programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again."

In the docuseries, according to 'Variety', Harry says: "I think we all now know that [Diana] was deceived into giving the interview, but at the same time, she spoke the truth of her experience."

In another segment, Harry says that male family members were unsympathetic about the intense press intrusion into his and Meghan's lives because their spouses had suffered the same.

"Some of the members of the family were like, 'But my wife had to go through that'," Harry says. " '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."

Harry and Meghan also reveal it was Meghan's career as an actor -- at the time she was appearing in the long-running legal drama series 'Suits' -- that was one of the "biggest problems" for the royals. Unnamed members of the family reportedly predicted to Harry that the relationship wouldn't last.

The couple shares intimate details about how they met, and the first time Meghan met Harry's relatives, including William and his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, as well as her first interaction with Queen Elizabeth.

Meghan, repeating an anecdote from her interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, says the meeting with the Queen was sprung upon her unexpectedly, with Harry asking her on the drive to Windsor Castle whether she knew how to curtsy.

"How do you explain that to people?" Harry says to the series helmer Liz Garbus. "How do you explain that you need to bow to your grandmother? And that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American. Like, that's weird."

--IANS