I Stayed at the Same Hotel Where Prince Harry Met Meghan Markle

In late June, I needed to spend the night in London without having any place to do so. So I booked a room at Dean Street Townhousebecause someone, somewhere, I swore, told me they’d liked it. Yet as I sat in the back of a black cab from Gatwick, smelling like the soggy pasta I ate 8 hours ago in seat 42B and sending the same text over and over—“You liked Dean Street Townhouse, yeah?”—I got the same response. “Never stayed.”

Check-in at the hotel, which is part of the Soho House group, is at 3 p.m. I arrive just past noon. The interiors feel like a polished English country house: a rich wooden bookcase lines the peach painted walls and a chandelier hangs from the ceiling, while a circular turquoise tufted velvet couch sits in the middle. Just beyond is another sitting area where a coffee table has a print copy of The Daily Telegraph. Antique lithographs hang right behind it. My room isn’t ready yet, but the woman at the reception desk tells me a secret: behind that bookcase is a trick door that leads to a corridor with two full bathrooms. Would I want to freshen up?Yes, Spare: Prince Harry’s scorched earth memoir that sold 3.6 million copies in its first week and dominated the newspaper headlines for many weeks more. Because he revealed everything! He revealed that Camilla Parker Bowles allegedly leaks private information about the royal family to the press. He revealed that Prince William allegedly physically assaulted him. He revealed that he (not so allegedly) got frostbite on his penis. And he revealed the origin story of how, exactly, he met his now wife Meghan Markle: “Soho House at 76 Dean Street. It was her headquarters whenever she came to London,” he wrote. “Sometimes she just left her luggage at Soho House for weeks. They stored it without question. The people there were like family.” The couple met there for their first date, for which Prince Harry was 30 minutes late.But that was far from Dean Street’s only mention. The pair held several clandestine dates there, including one where ​Harry “navigated a sort of maze through the bowels of Soho House” before finally reaching Markle’s hotel room. They spent the night together: “In the morning we needed sustenance. We phoned room service. When they knocked at the door, I looked around frantically for a place to hide. The room had nothing. No cubbyhole, or wardrobes, no armoire,” he wrote. “So I lay flat on the bed and pulled the duvet over my head.

Until it went completely and utterly off the rails. The British tabloids published racist articles about Meghan and paparazzi began to swarm her home. Meghan’s own father sold her out to the press—and told TMZ he wasn’t coming to the royal wedding before his own daughter. A year and a half after their wedding, they quit the monarchy entirely. In March 2021, the Duchess of Sussex revealed to Oprah she struggled with suicidal thoughts through it all. As I sat on my couch, watching it all unfold on television, I texted my sister: “Well, this is all just really fucking dark.” Suddenly, a prince seemed like the last thing anyone, anywhere would ever want.

My phone buzzes and I look at the WhatsApp notification. “Grabbed us a table outside,” it said. I jot up, take a quick look in the mirror, and put on some lipgloss. “Be right there,” I text back in the elevator.

I walk out to Dean Street and he’s there watching the crowd. His sunglasses are on and his legs outstretched.

“Hi,” I say in my American accent.

“Hello,” he says in his British one. He smiles. I smile right back.