The Duchess of Sussex’s mother Doria Ragland says she knew her daughter had found “the one” in Prince Harry after first meeting him, in their new documentary series released on Thursday.
In the series, Ms Ragland, 66, sat down to discuss the couple’s relationship for the first time on camera, as she said she was “ready for her voice to be heard”.
She recalled when Meghan told her during a phone call about her blossoming romance with Harry, in 2016.
Ms Ragland said her daughter whispered to her: “Mommy, I’m going out with Prince Harry”. She added: “I started whispering ‘oh my God!’”
Meghan’s mother was then introduced to Harry, and mentioned the besotted pair looked “really happy together”, leading her to believe he was “the one” for her daughter.
She said: “He was this 6ft 1in handsome man with red hair, great manners. He was just really nice.”
The couple eventually had their engagement announcement in 2017, which they branded “an orchestrated reality show” in the third episode.
It is here that the documentary series focuses on the heightened press invasion on Harry and Meghan, and their loved ones, as they were “ruthlessly” hounded by reporters.
Ms Ragland said she felt “unsafe”, adding: “I can’t just go walk my dogs, I can’t just go to work, there was always someone there...I was being stalked by the paparazzi.”
Meghan then said: “The UK media, I truly believe, wanted my mum’s side of my family to be the ones that all this drama could be stirred up with...and they just had my mum who is classy and quiet and then you have the other side of family which is just acting differently.”
She said of half-sister Samantha Markle: “I hadn’t seen [her] for over a decade, and that was only for a day and a half, suddenly it felt like she was everywhere...I don’t know your middle name, I don’t know your birthday, and you’re telling people that you raised me and are calling me ‘princess pushy?’”
Meghan added: “I don’t remember seeing her [Samantha] when I was a kid... the last time that I saw her I remember was when I was in my early 20s…I hadn’t had a fallout with her I wasn’t close enough with her...and I wanted a sister!”
In the third episode, Meghan also shared how she discovered her father Thomas, 78, wouldn’t be going to her wedding “through a tabloid”.
She says: “We got a call…saying your father has been staging pictures and taking money from the press. That was the first I was hearing of it.”
