(NEW YORK) — The final three episodes of Prince Harry and Meghan’s closely followed docuseries aired Thursday on Netflix.
The latest episodes of the six-part series, titled Harry & Meghan, focus on Harry and Meghan’s decision to step down from their senior royal roles in 2020, with Harry alleging “institutional gaslighting,” and Meghan saying she was “being fed to the wolves.”
Following their exit, Harry and Meghan settled with their two children in California, where they now run a foundation and a production company, which helped produce the Netflix series.
The series’ first three episodes, which aired on Dec. 8, were Netflix’s biggest documentary debut ever, according to the streaming company.
Here is everything we know so far about the final three episodes of Harry & Meghan:
Harry shares his side of ‘terrifying’ family meeting at Sandringham
Harry, fifth in line to the British throne, shares for the first time details of the family meeting at Sandringham convened by Queen Elizabeth II after Harry and Meghan announced their decision in January 2020 to step back from their senior royal roles.
The so-called family summit included the queen as well as Harry’s father, who is now King Charles III, and his brother Prince William, now the heir to the throne. Meghan said she was not included in the summit.
“Imagine a conversation, a roundtable discussion, about the future of your life when the stakes are this high, and you as the mom and the wife, and the target in many regards, aren’t invited to have a seat at the table,” Meghan said, with Harry adding, “It was clear to me that they planned it so you weren’t in the room.”
Harry said he had “happy memories” of Sandringham, where the royal family traditionally celebrates Christmas, noting the contrast with returning there “under very different circumstances” for the family summit.
He said he was given five options at the meeting and chose the third option, which he described as a “half in, half out” model that would allow him and Meghan to have their “own jobs,” but still work “in support of the queen.” But he said he saw that goal was “not up for discussion or debate.”
“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother, you know, quietly sit there and and sort of take it all in,” Harry said. “But you have to understand, from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate sort of mission, goal, slash responsibility is the institution.”
He continued, “People around her are telling her, ‘By the way, that proposal, or these two doing X, Y, Z, is going to be seen as an attack on the institution,’ then she’s going to go on the advice that she’s given.”
The royal family has not commented on the docuseries.
According to Netflix, interviews for the series were completed by August, one month before the Sept. 8 death of the queen at age 96.
“It was really hard,” Harry said of the meeting. “That meeting finished without any like solidified action plan.”
He said of his family members, “I think from their perspective they had to believe that it was more about us, and maybe the issues that we had, as opposed to their partner, the media, and themselves and that relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what they wanted to see.”
Harry says statement denying bullying gave him and Meghan ‘no other option’
Harry said in the docuseries that after the meeting at Sandringham, some news headlines said William had “bullied” him and Meghan out of the royal family.
According to Harry, soon after, a joint statement was released from both him and William denying the bullying claims, but Harry says he never agreed to the statement.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Harry said. “No one had asked me. No one had asked me to put my name to a statement like that.”
Harry said he called Meghan, whom he described as equally upset.
“She burst into floods of tears because within four hours, they were happy to lie to protect my brother, and yet for three years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us,” Harry said, presumably referring to the palace.
Meghan said she had a revelation at that moment that, “It’s never going to stop.”
“Every rumor, every negative thing, every lie, everything that I knew wasn’t true and that the palace knew wasn’t true and internally they knew wasn’t true, that was just being allowed to fester,” she said.
Harry said he realized, “There was no other option at this point,” adding, “I said we need to get out of here.”
In the series, Harry fights back against media coverage and public speculation that it was Meghan who pushed the couple out of their royal roles.
“It was my decision. She never asked to leave,” he said. “I was the one that had to see it for myself.”
In a January 2020, it was announced that Harry and Meghan would still be known as the duke and duchess of Sussex and would remain members of the royal family, but they would no longer travel on behalf of the queen and would not receive any public money. In addition, Harry, a military veteran, lost his military titles and patronages.
Meghan says tabloid lawsuit led to ‘unraveling’ with royals
A London-based attorney who represented the Sussexes says in the series there was a “war against Meghan.”
“There was a real kind of war against Meghan, and I’ve certainly seen evidence that there was negative briefing from the palace against Harry and Meghan to suit other people’s agendas,” says Jenny Afia, identified onscreen as a partner at Schillings, a London-based law firm. “This barrage of negative articles about the breakdown of the relationship with her father was the final straw in a campaign of negative, nasty coverage about her.”
Schillings represented Harry and Meghan in the couple’s lawsuit against a U.K. tabloid publisher over the publication of Meghan’s handwritten letter to her estranged father Thomas Markle.
A U.K. judge ruled in Meghan’s favor in the case last year.
Meghan says it was the queen and Charles who suggested that she write her dad a letter amid their estrangement following her wedding to Harry, which he did not attend. She said that the signature that accepted the letter did not match that of her father’s, and then the entire letter was made public.
According to Meghan, when the royal institution did not follow up on her request to take legal action against the tabloid that published the letter, she and Harry filed their own lawsuit.
“Everything changed after that,” said Meghan. “That litigation was the catalyst probably for all of the unraveling.”
Shortly after, Harry and Meghan chose to spend the final months of 2019 in Vancouver Island, Canada, forgoing the tradition of spending Christmas with Harry’s family at Sandringham.
Meghan described as ‘scapegoat for the palace’
Lucy Fraser, identified in the docuseries as a friend of Meghan, alleges that stories about Meghan were fed to the press on purpose.
“Meg became this scapegoat for the palace,” Fraser says. “So they would feed stories on her, whether they were true or not, to avoid other less favorable stories being printed.”
The docuseries does not give additional context on Fraser’s allegation, nor does it make clear to whom she was referring: Buckingham Palace; the household of Charles and Camilla, the queen consort; or Kensington Palace, the household of William and Kate, the princess of Wales.
Royal family has remained silent on the docuseries so far
Members of the royal family have not commented on Harry and Meghan’s docuseries.
In the opening seconds of the first episode of Harry & Meghan, Netflix states that members of Britain’s royal family “declined to comment on the content within this series.”
Royal sources told ABC News last week “that neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace nor any members of the royal family were approached for comment on the content of the series.”
According to royal sources, Kensington Palace, the household of Harry’s brother Prince William and his wife Kate, the princess of Wales, received an email purporting to be from a third-party production company, via a different, unknown organization’s email address.
The palace contacted Harry and Meghan’s production company, Archewell Productions, and Netflix to attempt to verify the authenticity of the email, but received no response, sources said.
According to the sources, without being able to verify the email’s authenticity, the palace was “unable” to provide any response.
A source at Netflix, meanwhile, told ABC News that communications offices for Charles and William were contacted in advance and given the right to reply to claims within the series.
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