Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have shed light on private conversations held behind palace walls in the second part of their explosive Netflix docuseries.
The last three episodes of the bombshell documentary dropped on the streaming platform today, giving the couple's personal account of their time in the royal family after their wedding and them sensationally quitting their royal roles.
And throughout the three episodes, both Harry and Meghan detail private chats, calls and emails with several senior royals, including the late Queen, King Charles and Prince William.
They include a private call with the Queen, an explosive text message from William and Charles' warning to his son when Meghan received unfavourable press coverage...
Private call with the Queen
In the fifth episode, the couple talked about the negotiations in the lead up to the announcement of them quitting as working royals in early 2020.
The pair spent Christmas 2019 in Canada and had been preparing to return to the UK, with Harry claiming he had sent emails to his father outlining his and Meghan's future plans.
He says that he called his grandmother to tell her they were coming back to the UK and details their private chat.
He recalls: "Before we left I spoke to my grandmother as well and told her that we were coming back on the 6th, and I would love to come and see you.
"She knew that we were finding things hard. I’d spoken to her many times about it. She told me that she had no plans for the week. She said: ‘Well, why don’t you come up?’ You can have tea, but why don’t you stay the night, you and Meghan?’"
But the couple alleges just before they were due to board a flight back to London, they were told the Queen would no longer be available to meet them.
Meghan says: "So we were flying back from Vancouver straight to Heathrow and right as we were getting on the plane, this urgent, urgent message comes through to H saying, ‘You are not allowed to go and see Her Majesty, make sure your principle is aware he cannot go and see her. She’s busy, she has plans all week'.
Harry adds: "I was like, ‘That’s certainly the opposite to what she had told me.’ Once we were back in the UK, I rang her and said “I’m now told that you’re busy.
"She goes, ‘Yes, I didn’t know I was busy. I’ve been told that I’m busy. I’ve been told that I’m busy all week, and I was like ‘wow’."
And Meghan recalls: "I remember looking at H, I mean this when a family and a family business are in direct conflict.
"Because they are blocking you from seeing the Queen. But really what they are doing is blocking a grandson from seeing his grandmother."
'Terrifying' Sandringham meeting
Also in the fifth episode, Harry gave an insight into what happened during a meeting at Sandringham, where plans were to be discussed about him and Meghan moving abroad.
And he revealed how he was left "terrified" when his brother William began to "scream and shout" at him during the showdown.
He said: “I went in with the same proposal that we’d already made publicly, but once I got there I was given five options – one being all in, no change, five being all out.
“I chose option three in the meeting – half in, half out. Have our own jobs but also work in support of the Queen.
“It became very clear very quickly 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 take it all in.
“But you have to understand that, from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate, sort of, mission, goal/responsibility is the institution.”
Charles warning
In episode four Harry alleges that his father the King warned him "you can't take on the media" when referring to less than favourable coverage about Meghan.
He claims: "My dad said to me ‘Darling boy, you can’t take on the media, the media will always be the media’. And I said ‘I fundamentally disagree’."
Harry adds: "I have 30 years’ experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how the system works and how it runs. Just constant briefings, about other members of the family, about favours inviting the press in.
"It’s a dirty game. There is leaking but there is also planting of stories. So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principal.
"So the offices end up working against each other. It is a kind of weird understanding or acceptance that happens.
"You can always say ‘I didn’t know about this’, or ‘Don’t be ridiculous, this would never happen, I would never get you suggesting I would condone this’.
"I was like ‘No, but what I am asking is ‘Have you done anything to stop it?’ and the answer is no."
Funeral heart-to-heart
Just weeks after Harry and Meghan's bombshell Oprah interview, Harry's grandfather the Duke of Edinburgh died.
He returned to the UK for the funeral at Windsor Castle and was seen chatting to William and Charles - fuelling hope it would be the first steps in repairing their relationship.
But when asked about what it was like returning to the UK for the funeral, Harry said: "It was hard, especially spending time having chats with my brother and my father who just were very much focussed on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation.
"So none of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s funeral, but we did.
"I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I’m probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.
"You know, my wife and I, we’re moving on. We were focussed on what’s coming next."
William's text
In episode six, it appears to show the couple watching their interview with Oprah Winfrey but the television screen is not shown.
The documentary moves to the following day with the couple sat at a desk behind their laptops and Harry pulls a mock surprised face and throws his hands up with the words “shut up” when Meghan says “ Beyonce just texted”.
In other footage Harry holds up his phone to Meghan to show her a text from his brother William and her reaction is to say “wow” as she looks at its screen.
Harry says “I wish I knew what to do” and his wife replies “I know. Let’s take a breather. Get some air and decide,” and they hug.
Harry's email to Charles
Harry recalls how in January 2020, he told his father, who was then Prince of Wales, he and his wife would be willing to relinquish their titles if the couple’s plan to move to Canada as working royals did not work out.
Harry said: “By the time I was speaking to my father from Canada, the family and their people knew that we were trying to find a different way of working for the minimum of two years.
“I was speaking to my father, ‘This is the plan’, and he says ‘Can you put it in writing’, and I said I would rather not because of what happened last time…
“And he said ‘I can’t do anything unless you put it in writing’. So I put it in writing, sent him emails on the 1st and the 2nd and the 3rd of January.
“And in one of those I had mentioned that if this wasn’t going to work out, then we would be willing to relinquish our Sussex titles if need be. So that was the plan."
Queen's advice to Meghan
In the fifth episode, Meghan reveals that the late Queen told her to write a letter to her estranged father which was then leaked to the press.
Meghan sued the publisher of the Daily Mail, Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), and won in 2021 after The Mail On Sunday published parts of the “personal and private” letter to Thomas Markle.
The duchess said she went to senior members of the royal family for advice after her father began to criticise them in the media.
She recalls: "And so I reached out to Her Majesty and said ‘This is what’s going on. What do you want me to do? I want whatever advice you have’, but ultimately it was suggested by the Queen, the Prince of Wales, that I write my dad a letter.”
She said she went to “great efforts” to get the letter to her father “discreetly”.
