Susanna Reid suggested that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recorded their final days in the Royal Family with the prospect of sharing their account one day in mind.
The Good Morning Britain star hosted the ITV breakfast programme alongside Ben Shephard on Thursday morning as the Sussex couple’s highly anticipated Netflix documentary series dropped.
The series is being released in two sections of three episodes, with three having dropped on December 8 at 8am, with the following three arriving on December 15.
As ITV correspondents showed clips of the first few scenes of the docu-series, Susanna and Ben were surprised to see the Netflix special comprised of candid selfie videos recorded when the couples were stepping back from being senior Royals.
Susanna said: “They clearly were documenting this over the past couple of years. They clearly had in mind at some stage this would be their account of a moment in history.”
Ben then replied: “I wonder at what point they decided they needed to do that – whether it was as a reaction to what was happening, the attention they were getting and the press that was being written, that they said we should document this.
“Or whether it was before that they said, ‘If we’re going to do this, let's keep in mind that we might be able to do something with it’.”
Susanna said the couple were clearly left ‘very emotionally affected’ by the headlines that were written about them at the time of their decision to exit the Royal Family and move to the US.
She said: “He focuses a lot on sacrifice. It’s clearly a massive feeling of grievance and upset.”
Ben reiterated his surprise at the access of the documentary scenes, saying: “Really behind the scenes candid emotional selfie videos of a Prince and a Princess is something we’ve never seen before. It’s so personal.”
Susanna then added: “People have very strong feelings about Meghan and Harry. It will be interesting to see whether this changes your mind.”
The first three episodes of the six-part show, described by insiders as "utterly explosive", began streaming at 8am today.
The Netflix documentary series opens with a disclaimer stating: This is a first-hand account of Harry & Meghan's story, told with never before seen personal archive.
“Members of the royal family declined to comment on the content within this series.”
The opening scenes of the first episode show an airport with a close-up of a departures sign while piano music plays over the footage.
It then cuts to Harry and words on the screen tell viewers he is in the Windsor Suite at Heathrow Airport in March 2020.
He appears to be filming himself speaking into his phone camera and says: “Hi. So we're here on Wednesday the something of March.
“We've just finished our two weeks, our like final push, our last stint of royal engagements.
“It's really hard to look back on it now and go 'what on earth happened'? Like, how did we end up here?”
