Meghan Markle's "mock curtsy" as she recalls meeting the Queen for the first time in her explosive Netflix series prompts a "cut-off" gesture from an uncomfortable Prince Harry, an expert has said.
The first three episodes of the bombshell series dropped on the streaming platform today and sees a series of interviews with the couple talking about the early days of their romance.
Harry reveals that Meghan being introduced to his grandmother, the late monarch, was a “shock to the system” and that she was one of the first senior royals she met.
Meghan says: “There wasn’t like some big moment of ‘Now you’re going to meet my grandmother’. I didn’t know I was going to meet her until moments before.
“We were in the car and we were going to Royal Lodge for lunch, and he’s like ‘Oh, my grandmother’s here, we’re going to meet her after church.’ And I remember we were in the car driving up and he’s like ‘You know how to curtsy, right?’ And I just thought it was a joke.”
Harry adds: “How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you will need to curtsy. Especially to an American. That’s weird.”
Before Meghan says: “Now I’m starting to realise ‘This is a big deal’. I mean, Americans will understand this… We have medieval times, dinner and tournament. It was like that.”
She then performs an awkward and exaggerated curtsy and giggles away as she says: "Pleasure to meet you Your Majesty" while the camera shows Harry.
And according to body language Judi James, the whole scene leaves Harry suggesting his "discomfort" as he performs one telling "cut off" gesture.
She told the Mirror: "Meghan is the more chatty and natural speaker during their interview and here she sits talking confidently and readily in a slightly gossipy style as though talking to a girlfriend she is keen to amuse.
"Her joke is self-effacing as she speaks about her curtesy when she first met the late Queen. Her smile becomes asymmetric, pulling up on one side to register a shared joke.
"Harry, however, is already watching her carefully, turning to gaze at the side of her face with his own facial expression looking less turned to 'fun' than hers.
"Meghan does an extravagant mock-curtsey that does, as she says, look Medieval. It takes her eight seconds to perform, making it a long joke but there is no change in Harry’s more serious facial expression until the end, when he lets out a small, mirthless laugh.
"As Meghan mentions ‘Your Majesty’, the direct reference to the late Queen, it does seem a small step too far for Harry who quickly drops his head down to perform a cut-off ritual that partially hides his face, suggesting some discomfort at this point."
The moment in the second episode comes after Meghan said she found the "formality" of being in the royal family "surprising" and recalled an awkward encounter with Prince William and Kate.
She revealed: “When Will and Kate came over, and I met her for the first time, they came over for dinner, I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot.
“I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger, I didn’t realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.
“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside.
“There is a forward-facing way of being, and then you close the door and go ‘You can relax now’, but that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”
