EXCLUSIVE Nelson Mandela’s grandson slams Meghan Markle

Nelson Mandela’s grandson today slammed Meghan Markle for suggesting her marriage to Prince Harry sparked scenes of joy in South Africa reminiscent of the 1990 release of the legendary anti-apartheid campaigner after 27 years in jail, telling MailOnline: ‘It cannot be equated to as the same’.

Zwelivelile ‘Mandla’ Mandela has said he was ‘surprised’ at her remarks in The Cut magazine when she claimed that three years ago a cast member of the Lion King had made the comparison between her royal wedding and Madiba’s historic walk to freedom.

In a 6,409-word article called ‘Meghan of Montecito’, the former Suits star recalled an encounter she had at the 2019 London premiere of a live-action version of the Disney classic. She said an actor from South Africa pulled her aside and told her: ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison’. 

But MailOnline has learned that the story has astonished the Mandela family. ‘Mandla’ Mandela, an MP and Chief of the late South African President’s Mvezo tribe, said he was ‘surprised’ at her remarks.

He told MailOnline: ‘Madiba’s celebration was based on overcoming 350 years of colonialism with 60 years of a brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. So It cannot be equated to as the same.’

His grandfather served 27 years in prison before being released and re-uniting opponents and going on to lead his country. 

Zwelivelile said when the people of South Africa expressed their joy at his grandfather’s release and danced in the streets, it was for a far more important and serious reason than her marriage ‘to a white prince’.

The African National Congress MP added: ‘We are still bearing scars of the past. But they were (Mr Mandela’s celebrations) a product of the majority of our people being brought out onto the streets to exercise the right of voting for the first time.’

Meghan’s claim has sparked rage and ridicule with critics telling her to ‘get lost’ and accusing her of showing ‘utmost disrespect’. 

Harry and Meghan have built up quite a relationship with the Mandela family in recent years – following in the footsteps of Harry’s parents Prince Charles and Princess Diana. 

Just last month, Harry gave a speech at the UN General Assembly for Nelson Mandela Day in New York City on July 18. 

The Sussexes met Graca Machel, widow of Mandela, on the last day of their tour of Africa in 2019. Harry also met Ms Machel when he visited South Africa in 2015. 

And in 2018, Harry and Meghan met Mandela’s granddaughter Zamaswazi Dlamini-Mandela during a visit to the Nelson Mandela centenary exhibition at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Charles and Diana were also close with Mandela. The late Princess of Wales met him in Cape Town in March 1997, while she was in South Africa visiting her brother Earl Spencer. 

And Charles took Mandela to Brixton in South London when he visited Britain in July 1996.

In addition, Mandela visited Diana’s ancestral home at Althorp in Northamptonshire in November 2002 to see where she was buried.

The Duchess of Sussex, 41, shared the new anecdote in another bombshell interview with a US magazine yesterday – but people have claimed that it was not their experience of what happened on May 19, 2018.

After her claim the hashtag #VoetsekMeghan began trending in South Africa. Voetsek is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘go away’ or ‘get lost’ and is a common slur used by millions in the country. 

An angry Twitter user said: ‘No one was rejoicing in the streets of South Africa when she got married. For her to imply that it was the same as when President Mandela was released is the utmost disrespect’.

Another South African claimed: ‘From South Africa, I can promise you 1 thing, nobody but nobody celebrated in the street as with when Mandela was released over a foreign state wedding, yes we watched at home happy for the couple, that was that’.

One critic said: ‘Comparing your marriage to Nelson Mandela being released? What a pompous & arrogant thing to say’. Another said: ‘Her arrogant and yet delusional comparison of herself to Mandela is yet another insult to South Africa’.

Meghan managed to get up South African’s noses after her first Archetypes Spotify podcast where she described the mansion where she stayed on a royal tour with Harry and Archie as a ‘housing unit’. 

One South African commentator, Howard Feldman, wrote yesterday: ‘Sorry Meghan only South Africans are allowed to speak ill about the country. Meghan should have stayed out of it’.

In July Prince Harry used his keynote speech at the UN General Assembly for Nelson Mandela Day, in New York City, to again wade into US politics as he blasted the ‘rolling back of constitutional rights’.

The Duke of Sussex launched a thinly-veiled attack on the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade ruling last month that handed abortion rights back to individual states.

The 37-year-old claimed it was part of a ‘global assault on democracy and freedom’ as he also cited Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine among problems facing the world.

South Africans have already hit out at Meghan Markle after she told of an apparent fire that broke out in her son Archie’s room while she was on a tour of the country.

Archie, then four months old, was not in the room in Cape Town when a heater started to smoke – but the incident left the Duchess of Sussex ‘shaken’ and ‘in tears’, she told tennis star Serena Williams in her new podcast.

Others are understood to recall the incident which took place on September 23, 2019 – and while they do not remember there actually being a fire, the heater was certainly smoking and was unplugged and dealt with.

Despite the upset, Meghan said in the Spotify podcast that she was obliged to continue with official engagements, accusing those running the tour of concentrating on ‘how it looks, instead of how it feels’.

However, South Africans have not taken too kindly to her claims on social media, to the point where ‘#VoetsekMeghan’ – an offensive term meaning ‘go away’ – was trending on Twitter.

One wrote: ‘South Africa… You’re amazing – the #VoetsekMeghan tag is brilliant. She’s single handedly offending the world country by country! Shame really when most of her fanbase is in SA…oopsie!’

Another said: ‘I don’t care about the fire incident but the statement: coming to South Africa was the bravest thing she has done. Speaks volumes. As if she was coming to some apocalypse state or something. She should elaborate on what was brave about it, is it because is in Africa? #VoetsekMeghan’

A third added: ‘So after the supposed fire , Meghan could have taken Archie to their engagements in South Africa. Catherine did it in Australia and New Zealand without issue. Why could she not? You know why? Because then it would no longer be just about her! #VoetsekMeghan’.

Sources have defended the Duchess over the incident, saying it would have understandably caused concern to any parent. The Sussexes were subsequently moved to different accommodation as the tour continued.

There would undoubtedly have been an expectation for Harry and Meghan to go on with their engagements after months of planning on the ground – but as senior royals, the couple would have had the final say on continuing.

And one source told the Daily Telegraph that any announcement about Archie being at risk of fire – or having to cancel an event where they spoke to people about Apartheid – would have overshadowed the couple’s work.

Later that same day following the incident, the couple visited Cape Town’s historic District Six neighbourhood, met residents in its Homecoming Centre and heard from people who were forcibly removed to a township during the Apartheid era, with the Sussexes also carrying out an impromptu walkabout.

District Six is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town where freed slaves, artisans, immigrants, merchants and the Cape Malay community lived – but in 1966 the government declared it a ‘whites-only area’, and more than 60,000 residents were forcibly removed and relocated to the Cape Flats township about 15 miles away.

‘Bizarre’, ‘breathtaking arrogance’ and ‘doesn’t do her any favours’: Royal experts react to Meghan’s latest jaw-dropping swipe at royal family – as Palace braces for more ‘truth bombs’ in new podcast TODAY

Royal experts today panned Meghan Markle’s latest bombshell interview as ‘truly bizarre’ and said it proved her ‘breathtaking arrogance’ – as the palace braced for yet more ‘truth bombs’ in a new Spotify podcast expected in the coming hours.  

In a 6,400-word magazine article to promote her new ‘Archetypes’ podcast with singer Mariah Carey, the Duchess of Sussex made a series of apparent swipes at the royals, warning she could ‘say anything’ now that she has left the Firm. 

In further shock claims, Meghan said she and Harry felt forced to leave Britain because ‘just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy’, while Harry, 37, made his own jibe at the royals, saying: ‘Most people that I know and many of my family, they aren’t able to work and live together.’

And the duchess also claimed a South African member of the cast of the West End production of The Lion King told her: ‘When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.’

Today, royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams described the interview ‘truly bizarre’ – and excoriated the Mandela reference. 

He told MailOnline: ‘When she quotes an enthusiastic supporter saying that her marriage into the royal family led to rejoicing in the streets ”the same as we did when Mandela was freed from prison” it’s an utterly crazy comparison which speaks volumes about the person making it. 

‘She inhabits a world where, as on Oprah, the truth seems to be subsumed into her truth. Who are the royals who have the half in, half out job they were denied? Why is there not a note of regret that they gave the Oprah interview when Prince Philip was so ill?’ 

Angela Levin, author of ‘Harry: Conversations with the Prince’, told GMB News ‘It’s breathtaking – her arrogance, her rudeness and her taking everything for granted and not giving anything back attitude. 

‘And I think it’s a tragedy that she has convinced Harry that his family is so awful. When you mentioned they saw the Queen at the Jubilee, it was only for 15 minutes because she was extremely busy… they could have come another time.’ 

Meghan, 41, appeared to tell The Cut that Prince Harry felt he had ‘lost’ his father over his decision to quit his public duties. But in an extraordinary clarification last night, allies of the couple said the duchess had actually been referring to the breakdown of her relationship with her own father.

The interview quoted her as saying: ‘Harry said to me, ”I lost my dad in this process.” It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision.’ Yesterday a source close to Prince Charles said he would be saddened if Harry felt their relationship was lost, adding: ‘The Prince of Wales loves both his sons.’ 

Tom Bower, whose recent biography of Meghan, Revenge, was highly critical of the duchess, suggested her interview was a form of ‘revenge’.

‘From her position it’s an excellent tactic,’ he told MailOnline. ‘She has taken the high ground, asserting her pristine righteousness, giving no quarter. It’s all about her greatness. Just as I described in my book, she is threatening the Royal Family with worse than her Oprah Winfrey interview That will be delivered during her visit to Britain next week and then in Harry’s book. Her revenge will be merciless.’ 

Meanwhile, the Mirror’s Royal correspondent Russel Myers told Good Morning Britain it would have been wise for the duchess to ‘hold back’ when millions of people were struggling economically. 

‘There’s so much to unpack here, it will be interesting to see the backlash, because people are struggling with the cost of living and Meghan is bemoaning her life while sitting in her mansion. She doesn’t do herself any favours.’    

Buckingham Palace will be braced for more bombshells from Meghan when her podcast drops later today. 

She used episode one with Serena Williams to take a veiled swipe at life in the Royal Family, while also recounting her horror at a time a small ‘fire’ broke out in son Archie’s room during a tour of South Africa.

The then-four-month-old was not in the room at the time that a heater began to smoke but it left duchess ‘shaken’ and ‘in tears’, she told her friend. Despite her upset, she said she was forced to continue with the couple’s official engagements.

At the end of the episode released last Tuesday at around 1pm UK time, Meghan confirmed she would be back ‘next week, when we hear from the one and only…Mariah Carey’. The subject of their discussion, which was ‘The Misconception of Ambition’ with Ms Williams last week, has not been revealed. 

But talking about her guests, and the themes they will cover, Meghan said: ‘They’ve all in some way borne the brunt of the labels we’ll be picking apart, and of course I know a thing or two about these labels myself.’      

In addition, the interview saw Meghan:

• Refer to her and Harry as being ‘like salt and pepper’ because they ‘always move together’;
• Say she has ‘never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking’ but she is ‘still healing’; 
• Claim she faced problems in the UK from being an American, not necessarily a black American;
• Say she has made an ‘active effort’ to ‘forgive’ 

The couple have given a series of interviews since starting their new life in California, including the notorious Oprah Winfrey interview in which Harry claimed his father had stopped taking his calls.

In the latest interview with New York magazine The Cut, Meghan was asked if her relationship with the royals and with her own family could be healed.

She replied: ‘It takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything.’

But her apparent description of Harry’s relationship with his father Prince Charles threatened to cause fresh hurt.

She told interviewer Allison P Davis: ‘Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process’. It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision.’

Later a source told the New York Post she had meant she did not want Harry to lose his own father.

And journalist Omid Scobie, who co-wrote a flattering biography of the Sussexes and is close to the couple, tweeted: ‘There seems to be confusion in some headlines about this quote in The Cut interview.

‘I understand that Prince Harry is actually referring to Meghan’s loss of her own father, and Meghan is saying she doesn’t want Harry to lose his.’

Asked about the confusion regarding Meghan’s comment, The Cut declined to comment.

A source added: ‘This line is a direct quote from Meghan’s interview with Allison, and as a general rule, we don’t comment or speculate on sources’ intent outside of the text of the story.’ Meghan said she and Harry felt they had to leave Britain because of negative media coverage, including of their £2.4million refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.

When they were planning their departure, Meghan said they asked the Royal Family if they could be allowed to work on behalf of the monarchy and make their own money, and were willing to live in a Commonwealth country to help the transition. But she told the interviewer: ‘That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing.’

In fact, no other working royals are allowed to make their own money at the same time as performing official duties.

There are fears the Sussexes are planning to ramp up media appearances, culminating in the publication of Harry’s highly anticipated memoir. Sources have previously hinted at Harry’s ‘truth bombs’, of which there may be more to come.

In the latest interview, Meghan hinted she had more to say about her life in the Royal Family, but was ‘still healing’.

She said: ‘It’s interesting, I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking… I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to.’ Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

‘Upsetting the dynamic of the Royal Family’

Meghan said that she and Prince Harry were ‘happy’ to leave Britain and were ‘upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy… just by existing’ before they stepped down as frontline royals and moved to North America.

The Cut reported today that 41-year-old Meghan listed a ‘handful of princes and princesses and dukes who have the very arrangement they wanted’, although none of these royals are named in the article.

And Meghan, speaking to New York-based features writer Allison P Davis, said: ‘That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing.’

Asked ‘Why do you think that is?’, she simply replied: ‘Why do you think that is?’, with the interviewer Ms Davis saying that she said this ‘right back with a side-eye that suggests I should understand without having to be told’.

The article states that Harry and Meghan suggested to ‘The Firm’ that they should be allowed to work on behalf of the monarchy but make their own money, with the Duchess saying: ‘Then maybe all the noise would stop.’

The article says: ‘They also thought it best to leave the U.K. (and the U.K. press) to do it. They were willing to go to basically any commonwealth, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, anywhere.

”Anything to just … because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, ‘Okay, fine, let’s get out of here. Happy to,’ ‘ she says, putting her hands up in mock defeat.

‘Meghan asserts that what they were asking for wasn’t ‘reinventing the wheel’ and lists a handful of princes and princesses and dukes who have the very arrangement they wanted.

”That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing.’

‘Why do you think that is? I ask. ‘Why do you think that is?’ she says right back with a side-eye that suggests I should understand without having to be told.’

Meghan says she has made an ‘active effort’ to ‘forgive’

The Duchess was asked during the interview whether forgiveness can exist between her and her own family as well as members of the Royal Family.

She told The Cut: ‘I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive. But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything.’

The article also refers to Meghan’s estranged father Thomas Markle, a retired lighting director who now lives in Mexico.

The report said that Meghan discussed how two families had been ‘torn apart’.

And it quotes Meghan as saying: ‘Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process.’ It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision.’

Meghan says she can say what she wants but is ‘still healing’

The Duchess says towards the end of interview that she has ‘never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking’.

She also says: ‘I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to.’

The interviewer then asks Meghan why she does not talk, and she replies: ‘Still healing,’.

Harry says ‘many’ of his family ‘can’t work together’

Harry and Meghan run Archewell from their shared home office at their mansion in Montecito, California.

The article in The Cut refers to them having ‘two plush club chairs placed side by side behind a single desk, facing into the room like thrones’.

And it quotes Harry as saying: ‘Most people that I know and many of my family, they aren’t able to work and live together,’

The article also refers to him enunciating the word family ‘with a vocal eye roll’.

Harry added: ‘It’s actually really weird because it’d seem like a lot of pressure. But it just feels natural and normal.’

It comes after a royal expert said today that Harry and Meghan are very unlikely to visit the Queen at Balmoral when they return to Britain for a trip next week, and warned that the ‘family rift is getting worse, not better’.

The Sussexes have an ongoing row about their security with the Home Office – and tensions with the Royal Family have been deepened by mounting concerns over what will be published in Harry’s upcoming biography.

These issues will no doubt worsen after Meghan’s latest comments published in The Cut today, in addition to her making veiled criticisms of the family in her new Spotify podcast released last week.

Royal expert Phil Dampier told MailOnline today that he would be ‘very surprised’ if the Sussexes visit the Queen at Balmoral, where she is likely to remain for the next few weeks as concerns grow over her mobility issues.

He added that there is little ‘goodwill on both sides’ and that the royals will be ‘wary’ of Harry amid what could be in his book. Mr Dampier also said that a ‘visit to Scotland would create awkward family tensions for everyone’.

The Sussexes, who last went to Balmoral in 2018, are not planning to visit the Highlands estate, according to the Daily Telegraph – which also reported that they are still waiting on decisions around their security in the UK before they decide whether to travel off schedule.

A Home Office panel is also set to decide whether they qualify for protection by the Metropolitan Police.

On September 5, the Duke and Duchess will travel from their home in California to visit Manchester for the One Young World Summit, where Meghan will give the keynote address at the opening ceremony.

The couple will then head to Germany for an event to mark a year until the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf on September 6, before returning to the UK for the WellChild Awards in London on September 8 where Harry – a long-term patron of the charity – will give a speech. The Sussexes are expected to leave their children Archie and Lilibet at home in California.

There are no official engagements scheduled for September 7 – at least, none that have been announced at this stage – meaning they could go and visit family.

But Mr Dampier told MailOnline: ‘I would be very surprised if Harry and Meghan visit the Queen at Balmoral. They have ongoing issues about their security travelling around the country, though obviously they would be secure within the Castle grounds.

‘They have a tight schedule anyway so would find it hard to fit in. But above all, I just don’t get the impression at the moment that there is much goodwill on both sides. Prince Charles is up in Scotland at the moment, as are other royals, and under normal circumstances Harry would want to see his father as well as his grandmother.

‘But these are not normal times and I fear the family rift is getting worse, not better. Meghan didn’t help with her recent podcast in which she made veiled criticisms of the royal family. And of course Harry’s book is hanging over the family like a bad smell. All the time the royals don’t know what he will say in his book they will be wary of him.

It is believed that the couple will spend much of their time in the UK next week at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor – much like when the California-based couple were in England in June, when they kept a low profile.

Harry, 37, last saw his 96-year-old grandmother during her Platinum Jubilee, where he reportedly only had around 15 minutes with her.

He and Meghan also visited in April, when they secretly met with Prince Charles and the Queen on their way to the Netherlands for the Invictus Games at The Hague.

After this trip, the Duke spoke about ensuring his grandmother has ‘the right people around her’ when he appeared to make a swipe at royal household staff during an interview with NBC including the so-called ‘men in grey suits’ who advise the Queen.

This latest news comes as warring brothers Prince William and Harry will reportedly not mark the 25th anniversary of Diana’s death on Wednesday together – neither in public or private.

The Queen normally spends the months of August and September at her Highlands retreat, where she is joined by other family members at stages.

William, Kate and their children, Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four, are among those who have already visited this year.

Balmoral has had a number of adaptations in recent years, including her Craigowan Lodge, which was fitted with a wheelchair-friendly lift in 2021.

The castle was bought for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852 for £32,000, and it has been the Scottish home of the royal family since. She usually arrives at the estate in mid-July.

The Queen is also ‘carefully considering’ whether she is fit enough to attend the Braemar Games next weekend as concerns grow over her mobility issues, The Mail on Sunday reported yesterday.

The Highland Games, which are often attended by the Queen and the Prime Minister of the day, are usually a highlight in the monarch’s calendar.

This year’s competition – which will see contestants battle it out in caber-tossing and tug-of-war in front of spectators – is the first to be held since the start of the pandemic.

A source revealed that the Queen is keen to attend if her health will allow it. She was last seen in public on July 21, when she flew to Aberdeen Airport to begin her annual holiday at Balmoral.

The source added that in the past fortnight, Her Majesty has been delighted to receive ‘family visitors’ at her Scottish estate with ‘lots of the great-grandchildren’. 

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their children Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte headed up last week, while the Earl and Countess of Wessex and their children Lady Louise and Viscount James have also been to visit. It is also said that the Prince of Wales is visiting the Queen daily. 

Prince Andrew had also been in Balmoral, keen to speak to the Queen about whether it is possible for him to carve out a new working role within the Royal Family, according to the source.

Another source added that there had been ‘a change in the past few weeks’ in the Queen’s mobility, which meant that she was ‘resting’ a lot more.

The 96-year-old is likely to concede that she will no longer be able to fly down to London to appoint a new Prime Minister. It had been hoped the Queen would head to Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace to fulfil what is known as her ‘personal prerogative’ – to invite a new leader to form a government.

But her health on recent days ‘may make it unlikely’, according to a well-placed source. The decision will be announced this week. The nine-mile trip to Braemar for next weekend’s games, however, may yet be possible.

Her Majesty asked the couple and their two children, three-year-old Archie and Lilibet, one, to stay at her Scottish residence and told royal staff to prepare, it was reported in July. 

It was said that the Sussexes would not have to spend time with other royals such as Charles and William. 

A Balmoral insider previously told The Sun and Page Six: ‘Staff have been told to expect the full list of royals including Harry, Meghan and their children. They are preparing for the Sussexes.’

Another source is reported to have said: ‘I would be stunned if they did turn up.’

But since then, the Telegraph reported overnight that sources say a visit to the Queen is not anticipated but there may well be more unplanned engagements. 

Speaking of meeting his grandmother at Windsor Castle in April, Harry said: ‘It was great. It was really nice to see her in some element of privacy. Being with her it was great, it was just so nice to see her, she’s on great form.

‘She’s always got a great sense of humour with me and I’m just making sure that she’s protected and got the right people around her. Both Meghan and I had tea with her, so it was really nice to catch up with her. We have a really special relationship, we talk about things that she can’t talk about with anybody else.’

Royal author Tom Bower told MailOnline then that he believed the comment by Harry was directed at the Queen’s private secretary Sir Edward Young in addition to the Duke’s father Prince Charles and brother Prince William with whom he has an ongoing feud.

Meanwhile the Duke of Cambridge, 40, and the Duke of Sussex have agreed to end public commemorations over Diana and will instead remember their mother with their own families this week. 

The pair have not spoken face-to-face since they unveiled a statue of their late mother the Princess of Wales last summer.

They put their strained relationship aside briefly for the unveiling of the highly anticipated statue in her memory in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, her former London home.

In 2017, William and Harry marked the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death by creating a memorial garden at Kensington Palace, taking part in a documentary and loaning belongings to an exhibition.

Wednesday will be the 25th anniversary of Diana’s death, but the brothers will grieve privately to ark the poignant occasion, reported the Telegraph.

But Prince Harry said last week: ‘I want it to be a day filled with memories of her incredible work and love for the way she did it.

‘I want it to be a day to share the spirit of my mum with my family, with my children, who I wish could have met her. Every day, I hope to do her proud.’

Meanwhile, the Duke of Cambridge and his family are moving from Kensington Palace to Adelaide Cottage – just a ten-minute walk from Windsor Castle, later this month. 

If the Sussexes stay at their home, Frogmore Cottage, will only be a short five-minute walk from the Cambridges, who will be just 800m away when they relocate to Adelaide in the next few weeks.

It will be the first time the two couples have been neighbours since Prince Harry and Meghan moved out of Kensington Palace in 2019.

But a source reportedly said the Sussexes’s visit will be focused on ‘supporting several charities close to their hearts’, and they have no plans to see the Cambridges.

It comes as a French documentary has claimed Harry ‘slammed the phone down’ on Prince William after being confronted with witness statements portraying Meghan as a vicious bully of female staff.

In turn, William – ‘who already didn’t like his sister-in-law very much’ – became so angry at his brother’s insistence on protecting his wife from criticism that he jumped in a car ‘towards Kensington Palace to go and confront Prince Harry’.

The explosive claims are contained in a documentary by the most popular TV news outlet in France.

BFM TV displays emails – disclosed as part of the Duchess of Sussex’s privacy claim against the Mail on Sunday – in an investigative documentary series called ‘Red Line: William and Harry, the enemy brothers’.

It claims that traumatised staff resigned from the Royal Household and set up a WhatsApp group called ‘The Sussex Survivors’ Club’. The documentary is timed to come out next week.

Diana died in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997, at the age of 36 – when William was 15 and Harry 12.

While both understand the historical significance of the anniversary, and the fact that many around the world are keen to mark the occasion, it is a much more personal landmark for them.

Friends say they both still feel intense sadness that their mother has been longer out of their lives than in them, and that she has missed seeing the birth of her first grandchildren.

In other royal news, US celebrity gossip website Page Six reported that Harry’s highly-anticipated memoir may not be published until next year.

The Duke of Sussex’s tell-all book had been due out in time for Christmas, but it is claimed the release date is now ‘up in the air’.

A source told Page Six that industry experts had expected a November publication date. They said: ‘I have heard that Harry has some truth bombs in his book that he is debating on whether to include or not. So this [delay] is no surprise if he needs more time to work on the book.’ 

Publisher Penguin Random House announced last year it would bring out Harry’s ‘literary memoir’ in late 2022.

It said he would be sharing for the first time the ‘definitive account’ of his life. It has been feared by Buckingham Palace that Harry will use the memoir to settle old scores.

‘My marriage was likened to the release of Nelson Mandela’: From royal jibes to new N-word claims, the Duchess of Sussex lifts the lid on gilded life with Prince Harry

Meghan’s latest interview lifts the lid on her gilded life in the millionaires’ haven of Montecito in California.

Over 6,400 gushing words, American journalist Allison P. Davis describes everything from the Soho House-branded rosewater candles that she burns to the conjoined palm trees at the Sussexes’ home which the loved-up couple compare to themselves.

In New York magazine The Cut, she even quotes Meghan telling her what to write after the duchess answered a question with ‘moaning’ and ‘guttural sounds’. But it was her and Harry’s apparent jibes at the Royal Family that caused jaws to drop on this side of the Atlantic last night.

‘I LOST MY DAD’

The interviewer explains that Meghan discussed how ‘toxic tabloid culture has torn two families apart’, an apparent reference to Meghan’s falling out with her own father, Thomas Markle, and Harry’s fractured relationship with Prince Charles.

She is quoted as saying: ‘Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process.’ It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s his decision.’

Her comment was widely interpreted as meaning that Harry felt he had ‘lost’ his father because of the fallout.

But hours after the piece was published, an ally of the couple came out to suggest that is not what she meant. Royal reporter Omid Scobie, known to be close to them, said: ‘I understand that Prince Harry is actually referring to Meghan’s loss of her own father, and Meghan is saying she doesn’t want Harry to lose his.’

US publication Page Six separately quoted a ‘highly placed royal insider’ as saying: ‘I’m not aware that Harry has broken up with his father. Charles gave Harry and Meghan millions when they left the UK. Right now, the family are all at Balmoral, and I’m sure they are aghast at this interview.’

Meghan’s comment was made after the interviewer asked her about a letter Thomas Markle provided to The Mail on Sunday, and the legal case that followed.

Harry’s relationship with his family became increasingly strained after he and Meghan gave an explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey last year in which he claimed Prince Charles had cut him off financially and stopped taking his calls.

WE UPSET THE HIERARCHY

‘It was bittersweet, you know? Knowing none of it had to be this way,’ Meghan said when talking about the couple’s decision to leave the UK and criticism of their £2.4million taxpayer-funded refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage.

Meghan said the couple wanted to earn their own money so tabloids could no longer attack them under the ‘guise of public interest’ because their lives were taxpayer-funded.

‘Then maybe all the noise would stop,’ she said, adding they were willing to move to any commonwealth country, including Canada, New Zealand or South Africa.

‘Anything to just… because just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy.’

The couple had proposed a hybrid arrangement, mixing official duties with private commercial work but were told it would not work. Meghan said: ‘That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing.’

WEDDING WAS ‘CELEBRATED LIKE MANDELA’S RELEASE’

Meghan recalled an encounter she had at the 2019 London premiere of a live-action version of The Lion King.

She said a cast member from South Africa pulled her aside. ‘He looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison,’ she said.

CHILDREN ‘CALLED THE N-WORD’

Among the most shocking claims by Meghan is that her children have been called the highly offensive and racist ‘N-word’. She made the comment while discussing how she was angered by the Royal Family’s arrangement for releasing pictures of her children, which she said needed to be distributed to the media’s accredited royal correspondents, known as the Royal Rota, before she could post them herself.

The interviewer said that this ‘didn’t sit right with Meghan, given her strained relationship with the British tabloids’.

Meghan is quoted as saying: ‘Why would I give the very people that are calling my children the N-word a photo of my child before I can share it with the people that love my child?’ she said. It was unclear who she was accusing of using the racist language. The couple are known to have faced abuse from online trolls.

HARRY: MANY IN MY FAMILY CAN’T WORK TOGETHER

Harry said the couple working together from their shared home office for their company Archewell feels ‘natural and normal’.

But in what will be seen as a swipe at his own family, he added: ‘Most people that I know and many of my family, they aren’t able to work and live together.’

The interviewer said he enunciated family with a ‘vocal eye roll’.

HOUNDED ON THE SCHOOL RUN

The interviewer, who apparently accompanies Meghan to pick son Archie, three, up from pre-school as part of the piece, says Meghan felt she would not be able to do the school run in Britain without being hounded by the paparazzi.

She feared it would have become a ‘royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures’, the interviewer states. Royal experts pointed out strict rules governing the press prevent taking photographs of children in education. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge regularly drop their children off at school most days without note. Any pictures published of their children are ones released to the press with their approval or taken at public events.

I’M SEEN AS ‘REAL-LIFE PRINCESS’

Meghan told the magazine she is still very aware that people see her as a princess. ‘It’s important to be thoughtful about it because – even with the Oprah interview, I was conscious of the fact that there are little girls that I meet and they’re just like, ‘Oh my God, it’s a real-life princess.’

But she said her ambitions for the little girls who look up to her are more than to marry well. ‘I just look at all of them and think, ‘You have the power within you to create a life greater than any fairy tale you’ve ever read’. I don’t mean that in terms of ‘You could marry a prince one day.’ I mean you can find love. You can find happiness.’

‘A MODEL AND A MOM’

A gushing Prince Harry told his wife she could be both model and a ‘mom’. He made an appearance to tell the interviewer how he’d had to reassure his wife after a ‘ten hour’ cover shoot the day before.

Addressing his wife he said: ‘Tell her the first thing you said when you got back last night,’ before turning to the interviewer and saying: ‘She said, ‘I’m not a model’. I was like, ‘No, you are, of course you can be a model’. And she’s like, ‘I’m a mom!’ And it’s like, ‘You can be both’,’ he said.

£11M MONTECITO MANSION

Meghan, who included privacy concerns among her reasons for quitting the UK, welcomed the interviewer into their Californian home, and she in turn described it in detail. ‘The Montecito house is the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone’s daily reality,’ the journalist wrote.

‘WE HAVE TO GET THIS HOUSE’

Meghan said they initially dismissed the property believing it to be too expensive because they ‘didn’t have jobs’. But they later went on to sign multi million-pound deals with Spotify and Netflix. Meghan said: ‘We were looking in this area and this house kept popping up online in searches.’ They did eventually view it and fell ‘almost immediately in love’.

‘One of the first things my husband saw when we walked around the house was those two palm trees,’ she said. ‘See how they’re connected at the bottom? He goes, ‘My love, it’s us’.’

Meghan said she told Harry ‘We have to get this house’ after only touring the grounds.

GUTTERAL SOUNDS

Meghan dictated how the noises she was making should be interpreted by interviewer Miss Davis. The writer said: ‘At one point in our conversation, instead of answering a question, she will suggest how I might transcribe the noises she’s making: ‘She’s making these guttural sounds, and I can’t quite articulate what it is she’s feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she’s just moaning’.’

NETFLIX LOVE STORY

Meghan hinted that the couple’s upcoming Netflix documentary would be about their ‘love story’. ‘The piece of my life I haven’t been able to share, that people haven’t been able to see, is our love story,’ she said.

The couple are reportedly filming a fly-on-the-wall style documentary and have been spotted accompanied by a camera crew.

TEACHING ARCHIE MANNERS

Harry and Meghan are trying to teach their son manners, she revealed. ‘We always tell him: ‘Manners make the man. Manners, manners, manners, manners, manners.’

She also recalled a saying she’d learned from a friend’s mum: Salt and pepper are always passed together. ‘She said, ‘You never move one without the other.’ That’s me and Harry. We’re like salt and pepper. We always move together.’

GRANOLA BARS FOR HOMELESS

Meghan has made up black back packs containing water, peanut-butter crackers and granola bars to give out to the homeless. In the car on the way back from the pre-school run, they stop to get one from the boot and a member of the security team gives it to an ‘unhoused man on the corner’. She said they were teaching Archie that ‘some people live in big houses, some in small, and that some are in between homes’.

HINTS SHE HAS MORE TO SAY

Meghan says: ‘I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking,’ she said: ‘I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to.’ Asked why she hadn’t, she replied: ‘Still healing’.

Asked if she thinks there is room for forgiveness between her and her royal in-laws and her own family she said: ‘It takes a lot more energy to not forgive,’ she said. ‘But it takes a lot of effort to forgive. I’ve really made an active effort, especially knowing that I can say anything.’

Bizarre, often unintentionally hilarious, but her warblings also have an unmistakable undertone of cool menace: It’s hard to know where to begin to unpick Meghan’s extraordinary statements, writes REBECCA ENGLISH

ByRebecca English Royal Editor For The Daily Mail

Her behaviour ranges from the unintentionally hilarious (likening herself and Harry to entwined palm trees and matching salt and pepper shakers), to the downright bizarre (handing a pre-prepared backpack – unprompted – to a homeless person she comes cross on the school run via her bodyguard).

But there is an undertone of cool menace in the Duchess of Sussex’s latest extraordinary interview with American lifestyle magazine The Cut.

‘It’s interesting, I’ve never had to sign anything that restricts me from talking,’ she notes at one point, adding: ‘I’ve really made an active effort [to forgive], especially knowing that I can say anything.’

Even the interviewer notes that her voice is ‘full of meaning’. Meghan goes on: ‘I have a lot to say until I don’t. Do you like that? Sometimes, as they say, the silent part is still part of the song.’

The language may be strangulated but her message is crystal clear: the Royal Family – her in-laws – had better watch their backs. She makes the not-so-subtle impression that her treatment by the British establishment – which she feels was different to any other member of the Royal Family in history – was because of race.

This observation is followed by a deliberately knowing but ever so slightly wistful look into the distance as if to emphasise her ‘regret’ at all that has been lost – not that any of it was her fault.

It’s hard to know where to begin to unpick Meghan’s extraordinary warblings in the first leg of what promises to be an extensive publicity junket to mark her new commercial endeavours, from her Spotify podcast to a Netflix documentary.

How you read them probably depends on your existing view of the famously divisive Duchess of Sussex. Deluded, narcissistic, manipulative… all words I heard yesterday to describe her musings. Others saw it as a ‘brave, powerful and incisive’.

While Meghan is given plenty of scope to express her opinions on everything from life in The Firm to her plan to get back on Instagram, the interviewer, Allison P Davis, isn’t slavishly flattering.

The point where she describes Meghan’s ‘suggestion’ that she might transcribe the ‘guttural’ moaning noises she is making is laugh-out-loud comedy.

Davis is also astonished at Meghan and Harry’s decision to accept a free stay in a Hollywood mansion from actor and film-maker Tyler Perry, a man they had never met, before deciding to buy a £10million Montecito mansion they hadn’t even seen inside.

She also acknowledges the duchess’s shrewd efforts to turn her apparent ‘hardship’ as a working royal ‘into content’. Ouch. But she fails to pull her up on some of her more, shall we say, surprising claims.

Meghan is perfectly entitled to hold whatever view she wishes about the UK media but perhaps it would be better to base that view on facts.

She suggests that she could never have done the school run in the UK because the British media would have ’40’ photographers stationed in a media pen at the gate daily. Strict regulation in the UK about reporting around children – any children, even royal ones – that the media willingly subscribe to makes that simply impossible in this day and age.

And the proof is in the pudding. Both William and Kate have dropped off and collected their children from school since Prince George, now nine, started nursery when he was two – and not a single photograph has ever appeared in the British press.

The irony of her saying that, while inviting a hand-picked journalist to invade her son’s privacy and join her on the school run is just, well… I have no words. One close friend once told me that, historically at least, William shares many of his brother’s sentiments about the media when it comes to the historical treatment of his mother and the worst excesses of the paparazzi.

The striking difference between the two men, however, is that William has come to accept that 25 years has passed, the media landscape has changed, and there is huge public goodwill for, and interest in, his young family.

And as long as the children’s day-to-day lives are ‘ring-fenced’ (which they absolutely are), he and his wife are happy to share their own images with the public.

‘But that’s the difference between working for two adults as opposed to a couple of stroppy teenagers,’ one who has had experience of working with both couples tells me.

At one point in the interview Meghan refers to people ‘calling my children the N-word’. It’s not 100 per cent clear who she was referring to but if it was the media it was abhorrent and untrue.

The constant references to the couple’s children – and their interaction with the journalist interviewing Meghan – is remarkable given the Sussexes’ repeated demands for privacy. That said, it’s up to the Sussexes how much they share publically of their family.

When those demands are clearly and repeatedly watered down in pursuit of the almighty dollar, it’s unbelievably hypocritical. What’s so clear about this interview – and the stylish photoshoot that accompanies it – is that it’s exactly what Meghan thought she would be able to do when she joined the royal family.

It’s what she grew up with, aspired to and had started to get a tiny taste of when she met Harry. There’s nothing wrong about that whatsoever.

But this glossy, access-all-areas, thrusting a basket of home-grown fruit and vegetables (and a jar of ‘Lili’ jam) into the arms of your interviewer-style of publicity is not what our tweeds in the country and Tupperware boxes in the pantry royal family is about. Instead of accepting that, she – with Harry as a more than willing co-conspirator – decided to take the nuclear option.

For the time being Buckingham Palace have decided to take the line of least resistance – a dignified silence – even in the face of Harry’s repeated digs at his family (including a sarky reference to his family not being able to live or work together, as well as a slightly garbled reference by Meghan to what may or may not be his ‘lost’ relationship with his father).

But Meghan – and Harry – might do well to remember, as they fire their latest salvo, that their perpetually maligned relatives across the pond may be prepared to take only so much.

 

 

Inside Harry and Meghan’s Montecito home: The Cut interview reveals how the Sussexes’ $14.65million mansion is decorated with Soho House candles, a piano from Tyler Perry – and two plush chairs ‘like thrones’ in the office

By Jessica Green for MailOnline 

Meghan Markle has given a glimpse into the $14.65million Montecito mansion she shares with Prince Harry and their two children Archie and Lilibet.

In a new interview published today with The Cut, the Duchess of Sussex, 41, shared how her home in Southern California makes her ‘feel free’ and is ‘calm and healing’.

The magazine revealed various features of the property – including the two connected palm trees in the garden, which the Duke of Sussex, 37, refers to as himself and Meghan – with even their son, three, calling ‘Hi, Momma. Hi, Papa’ whenever he passes them.

Elsewhere, it detailed Harry and Meghan’s shared office and the ‘two plush club chairs placed side by side behind a single desk, facing into the room like thrones.’

The couple’s sitting room is home to a grand piano from actor-director Tyler Perry – whose Beverly Hills mansion they first stayed in following their move from Canada – as well as a Soho House rose-water candle and cosy chairs. 

‘The Montecito house is the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone’s daily reality,’ wrote Allison P. Davis. 

The author compared it to a classic Tuscan villa, a Napa vineyard and a Beverly Hills country club.

Meghan revealed that both she and Prince Harry avoided visiting their current home at first – because affording it wasn’t possible since they didn’t have any jobs.

She explained that the couple didn’t want to ‘window shop’ the property – however, they eventually visited the home and fell in love with the grounds. 

They had only toured the outside – which includes a chicken coop, pool and pool house – when they told the real estate agent that they wanted the home, purchasing it for $14.65 million.

‘We did everything we could to get this house,’ said Meghan. ‘Because you walk in and go… Joy. And exhale. And calm. It’s healing. You feel free.’ 

They have since secured Spotify and Netflix deals estimated to be worth £18million and £75million, respectively. 

One of the first features of the home that Meghan and Harry saw was two palm trees, connected together at the bottom, which the Duke claimed represented the loved-up couple.     

‘And now every day when Archie goes by us, he says, ‘Hi, Momma. Hi, Papa,” explained the Duchess. 

Harry also featured in the magazine interview, and briefly explained that he is in the middle of renovations for the home – fixing pipes, for example. 

Meanwhile, in the couple’s sitting room, a grand piano proudly sits after Tyler Perry gifted it the couple as a housewarming present, while Soho Houses candles also feature.

Meghan explained that the founder, Nick Jones, is a friend. For their first meeting, the Duke and Duchess are said to have been set up on a blind date at Soho House’s Dean Street Townhouse.

It comes amid reports that the couple are very unlikely to visit the Queen at Balmoral when they return to Britain for a brief trip next week, a royal expert said today as he warned the ‘family rift is getting worse, not better’.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have an ongoing row about their security with the Home Office – and tensions with the Royal Family have been deepened by mounting concerns over what will be published in Harry’s upcoming biography, and Meghan making veiled criticisms of the family in her new Spotify podcast released last week.

Royal expert Phil Dampier told MailOnline today that he would be ‘very surprised’ if the Sussexes visit the Queen at Balmoral, where she is likely to remain for the next few weeks as concerns grow over her mobility issues.

He added that there is little ‘goodwill on both sides’ and that the royals will be ‘wary’ of Harry amid what could be in his book. Mr Dampier also said that a ‘visit to Scotland would create awkward family tensions for everyone’.

Meghan Markle reveals extraordinary words from a South African performer at the Lion King film premiere who told her: ‘When you married into the royal family we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison’ 

By Maria Chiorando for MailOnline 

Meghan Markle said a South African cast member of the Lion King film told her ‘they rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison’ when she married Prince Harry. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended the star-studded premiere of the Disney remake in July 2019, rubbing shoulders with A-listers including Beyoncé and Jay-Z.

‘I just had Archie. It was such a cruel chapter. I was scared to go out,’ she said in an interview with The Cut magazine, published today. 

A cast member from South Africa pulled her aside. ‘He looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.’ 

The Duchess of Sussex did not name the cast member.  

The comments came as part of a wide-ranging bombshell interview to The Cut – part of New York magazine – in which she claimed that what the couple asked for when they wanted financial freedom was not ‘reinventing the wheel’.

The fashion publication reported today that 41-year-old Meghan listed a ‘handful of princes and princesses and dukes who have the very arrangement they wanted’, although none of these royals are named in the article.

And Meghan, speaking to New York-based features writer Allison P Davis, said: ‘That, for whatever reason, is not something that we were allowed to do, even though several other members of the family do that exact thing.’

Asked ‘Why do you think that is?’, she simply replied: ‘Why do you think that is?’, with the interviewer Ms Davis saying that she said this ‘right back with a side-eye that suggests I should understand without having to be told’.

Meghan also said: ‘I’m getting back … on Instagram’ – with Ms Davies describing ‘her eyes alight and devilish’. It comes after she closed all of her social media accounts ahead of her wedding to Harry in 2018. But further down the article, it says: ‘Later, Meghan would relay she was no longer sure she would actually return to Instagram.’

The article states that Harry and Meghan suggested to ‘The Firm’ that they should be allowed to work on behalf of the monarchy but make their own money, with the Duchess saying: ‘Then maybe all the noise would stop.’

The Duchess, who celebrated her birthday earlier this month, is set to return to the UK with Prince Harry for a brief trip next week.

However, it is thought the couple is unlikely to visit the Queen at Balmoral, with a royal expert saying the ‘family rift is getting worse, not better’.

Tensions have reportedly been deepening by growing concerns over what will be published in Harry’s upcoming biography, and Meghan making veiled criticisms of the family in her new Spotify podcast released last week.

According to royal expert Phil Dampier, there is little ‘goodwill on both sides’ and that the royals will be ‘wary’ of Harry amid what could be in his book. Mr Dampier also said that a ‘visit to Scotland would create awkward family tensions for everyone’.

He told MailOnline today that he would be ‘very surprised’ if the Sussexes visit the Queen at Balmoral, where she is likely to remain for the next few weeks as concerns grow over her mobility issues.  

From Archie’s bouncy castle playdates to glamorous polo matches and dinners with Gloria Steinem, Meghan Markle offers a rare insight into her and Harry’s charmed life in California

By Jo Tweedy for MailOnline

Meghan Markle has offered a glimpse into the Sussexes’ seemingly charming family life in California, saying the couple are ‘building a community’ in the luxury enclave of Montecito. 

Speaking to The Cut – part of New York magazine, the duchess painted a near ambrosial picture of life in California incorporating dinners with ‘safe harbor’ friends, taking Archie to his friends’ birthday parties and polo matches with Harry – although the 41-year-old said the nursery run is impossible to do without being papped by an army of photographers. 

During the exclusive interview with the fashion publication, which took place at the couple’s luxury $14.7m home in the exclusive residential hills near Santa Barbara, Meghan revealed how she enjoys dinners with old ‘safe harbor’ friends, including feminist icon, Gloria Steinem and makeup entrepreneur Victoria Jackson. 

 

Little Archie, who’s described as having a mop of ginger curls, clearly dictates some of the couple’s schedule, with the Sussexes attending toddler parties. 

Meghan regaled during the interview how some residents are hesitant in the couple’s presence, and surprised when they even show up at birthday parties. 

She said: ‘I was in a bouncy castle, and I saw this 1-year-old inside. I was like, ‘Where’s your mom?’ And this mom on the outside goes, ‘Oh, hi! I’m here. I wasn’t sure if I should come in.’ ‘

The 41-year-old reveals she told her: ‘Do you need your child? Of course you can come in.’

The fashion magazine also joins Meghan on a pre-school run to collect Archie, saying that the little boy shouts ‘Momma, Momma, Momma’ when he spots the duchess. 

Meghan told the publication that a legion of paparazzi await their son’s daily arrival, saying that being aggrieved by it ‘doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child.’ 

Gloria Steinem, the political activist who has recruited Meghan in her fight to get Congress to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment – a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex, also remains a close friend, and she introduced the couple to 80s makeup entrepreneur Victoria Jackson.

At the beginning of the month, Meghan celebrated her 41st birthday at Jackson’s ranch close to Santa Barbara, where Harry plays polo for Los Padres, and the couple’s children, Archie and Lilibet, have spent time petting the businesswoman’s mini pigs on her sprawling farm.

Jackson appears on an upcoming episode of Meghan’s podcast Archetypes and tells The Cut that the couple are ‘good people’, saying she wants to help them ‘get out of the house because it’s complicated for them to go anywhere’.

Last week, Prince Harry turned out to play polo in a round robin tournament in Aspen, Colorado, and the sport the prince has loved since being a child has clearly also been key to the couple establishing themselves across the Pond.

Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Figueras, 45, an Argentine actor, model, polo player, and longtime friend of Harry’s who competed alongside him at the Sentebale Polo Cup in Colorado on Thursday, is clearly a close confidant.  

Nacho first met the royal, 37, in 2007 at a charity match hosted by Sentebale and the couple decamping to California has only firmed up their friendship.  

Is THIS Meghan’s secret Netflix project? Duchess hints at a documentary about her and Harry’s ‘love story’ and says it’s a ‘piece of her life she hasn’t been able to share’

By Claire Toureille for MailOnline

Meghan Markle has hinted that the documentary she and Prince Harry are currently filming for Netflix could focus on their ‘love story’. 

Speaking in an interview with The Cut, published today, the Duchess of Sussex said her five-year-long romance with Prince Harry is one of the ‘pieces of her life’ that she has not yet been able to share with the public. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s production company, Archewell Productions, signed a reported $100million deal with the streaming giant in 2020 but there has yet to be a release. 

A documentary series about the Invictus Games has been confirmed. Meghan’s planned animated children’s series was scrapped as part of wider Netflix cutbacks.  

It had previously been rumoured that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were planning a fly-on-the-wall documentary series, in the style of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. 

However it appears it might be closer to a look back on the royal romance.  

‘The couple has directly smashed rumors of a reality show, both in statements made to publications and in conversation with me,’ journalist Allison P. Davis notes in the article. 

‘But, Meghan explains, there’s a difference between a historical documentary and a reality docuseries.’

The Duchess continued: ‘The piece of my life I haven’t been able to share, that people haven’t been able to see, is our love story.’

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been filming the Netflix documentary for more than a year after signing a widely reported $100million deal in 2021.

They have been spotted with a film crew at a number of engagements, including the Invictus Games earlier this year. The filming is believed to have taken place for their confirmed docu-series Heart of Invictus.

Multiple sources told Page Six that the streaming platform is hoping to release the Sussex documentary around the same time as The Crown’s new series, which is set to be released in November.

The major streaming service doesn’t want to be ‘scooped’ by the Duke’s memoir, despite claims the Sussexes want the documentary to air next year, sources said. 

Harry’s book is set to be released sometime this fall, and Netflix will be keen to capitalize on the huge buzz that the tell-all tome will likely generate.

‘[Netflix executives] knew the book was coming out, which is why they wanted the series this year,’ a source told Page Six. ‘They don’t want to hold off any longer.’ 

The royal couple, however, reportedly wants the series to hit the small screen next year, according to Page Six. 

DailyMail.com contacted Netflix for comment at the time the reports first emerged.

Meghan Markle previously had an animated series, Pearl, in the works with Netflix but it was scrapped in May as part of a wave of cutbacks prompted by the streaming juggernaut’s drop in subscribers. 

The series, which had Sir Elton John’s husband David Furnish on board as an executive producer, was set to see a young girl inspired by Meghan – whose name means ‘pearl’ in Welsh – take on various social injustices, while highlighting the work of feminist icons. 

A now-removed quote from Meghan about the series read: ‘Like many girls her age, our heroine Pearl is on a journey of self-discovery as she tries to overcome life’s daily challenges.

‘I’m thrilled that Archewell Productions, partnered with the powerhouse platform of Netflix and these incredible producers, will together bring you this new animated series, which celebrates extraordinary women throughout history.’

Director Liz Garbus was involved in the project and is now attached to the Netflix documentary. 

It comes a week after Meghan Markle released the first episode of her Spotify podcast Archetypes.