Prince Harry and Meghan’s Relationship Year by Year
IIt’s been eight years since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle met on a date arranged by a mutual friend, and they are still going strong.
It all began with a video of Meghan shot using cellphone filters, which a mutual friend posted to Instagram. The video left Harry feeling like he’d “never seen anyone so beautiful.”
One marriage, two children, a royal exit, and a plethora of tell-all interviews later, the couple is still pursuing new projects and has a long road ahead of them.
Prince Harry and Meghan had their first dates in privacy after the duke spotted his future wife on friend Violet von Westenholz’s Instagram account.
The pair were playing with a filter in the clip. He wrote in Spare: “Violet and the woman had dog ears, dog noses, long red dog tongues hanging out. Despite the canine cartoon overlay, I sat up straighter.
This woman with Violet… my God. I watched the video several times, then forced myself to put down the phone. Then picked it up again, watched the video again,” Harry continued.
“I’d traveled the world, from top to bottom, literally. I’d hopscotched the continents. I’d met hundreds of thousands of people, I’d crossed paths with a ludicrously large cross-section of the planet’s seven billion residents.
“For thirty-two years I’d watched a conveyor-belt of faces pass by and only a handful ever made me look twice. This woman stopped the conveyor-belt. This woman smashed the conveyor-belt to bits. I’d never seen anyone so beautiful.”
Their relationship became public knowledge after an article in the Sunday Express on October 31, 2016, triggered a tidal wave of news stories that left Harry fearing Meghan would not stay.
By November 8, Harry made his concerns public in a broadside against the media and social media issued by his communications secretary Jason Knauf: “The past week has seen a line crossed. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment.
“Some of this has been very public—the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”
2017
Meghan and Harry continued their long distance relationship even as the duke and his brother, Prince William, spoke out publicly for the first time about their mother Princess Diana‘s life and death.
Harry acknowledged for the first time that he’d had therapy and the grief had hit him so hard that at points he had wanted to punch someone.
He told Bryony Gordon’s Mad World podcast: “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well.”
Life got suddenly better for the prince in November when he and Meghan got engaged.
The couple made the announcement during a pooled interview in which Meghan talked about meeting Queen Elizabeth II. Harry said: “The corgis took to you straight away.”
Meghan added: “It’s incredible, I think, you know, to be able to meet her through his lens, not just with his honor and respect for her as the monarch, but the love that he has for her as his grandmother.
“All of those layers have been so important for me so that when I met her I had such a deep understanding and of course incredible respect for being able to have that time with her. And we’ve had a really she’s an incredible woman.”
The duchess carried out her first royal engagement in December when she attended the Terrance Higgins Trust World AIDS Day charity fair in Nottingham.
2018
Meghan and Harry married at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, and King Charles III walked her down the aisle.
Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother, flew in from California and joined her in the car that took her to the fairy tale ceremony watched by millions around the world.
Days before the wedding, Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was outed by The Mail on Sundayas having staged paparazzi pictures for money, shattering their relationship.
In the months after the wedding, he began giving hostile interviews on British TV, leading Meghan to tell Knauf the royals were “constantly berating” Harry to make her father stop.
Their relationship with the wider family was also put under strain by a deterioration in relations with Prince William and Princess Kate, as well as the staff in the shared private office at Kensington Palace.
However, they still had a successful tour of Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, during which they announced Meghan was pregnant with their first child.
At the end of the year, things turn sour as the British press became full of stories that painted Meghan as a trouble maker, with The Sunday Times nicknaming her “Duchess Difficult.”
2019
Meghan would come to describe 2019 as “almost unsurvivable” as hostility toward her took hold in the British media.
By January, she told Harry she was experiencing suicidal thoughts and was concerned she might act on them.
She would later tell Oprah Winfrey: “I was really ashamed to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry, especially, because I know how much loss he’s suffered. But I knew that if I didn’t say it, that I would do it. And I just didn’t want to be alive any more. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.”
At the same time, royal relations further disintegrated behind the scenes as Prince William “threw Prince Harry out” of Kensington Palace, according to a friend quoted in Robert Lacey’s book Battle of Brothers.
They moved to Frogmore Cottage, near Windsor Castle, and created a new private office at Buckingham Palace.
On May 6, their son Prince Archie was born at Frogmore, prompting Harry to tell reporters two days later: “Parenting is amazing.”
Meghan said: “It’s magic, it’s pretty amazing. I have the two best guys in the world so I’m really happy.”
However, tensions continued, and by November, the couple decided to spend time outside Britain, spending Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year in Canada.
2020
By January 2020, they were ready to quit Britain and the palace for a new life in North America, though they wanted to continue to serve Queen Elizabeth II while also being free to make money in the private sector.
This half in, half out approach was rejected by the monarch, Charles and William at a meeting known as the Sandringham Summit.
Early in 2020, the couple were also told they were to lose their police protection team in their new era.
Needless to say, they flew out not to Canada but to California where they began a new life initially in Los Angeles as guests at Tyler Perry’s house.
They bought their own home in Montecito, though the move was tinged with sadness after Meghan experienced a miscarriage.
She would later write in a New York Times essay, “The Losses We Share”: “It was a July morning that began as ordinarily as any other day: Make breakfast. Feed the dogs. Take vitamins. Find that missing sock. Pick up the rogue crayon that rolled under the table. Throw my hair in a ponytail before getting my son from his crib.
“After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful tune a stark contrast to my sense that something was not right. I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”
2021
Meghan and Harry were stripped of their honorary titles and patronages by the queen in February, clapping back in a statement which said “service is universal.”
In March, they did a sit down interview with Oprah which became best known for Meghan’s account of an unnamed royal having “concerns and conversations” about how dark her unborn child’s skin might be.
They also revealed they were expecting a girl, who would be born that June, Princess Lilibet Diana, named after Queen Elizabeth II’s family nickname and also Princess Diana.
The couple said in a statement: “On June 4th, we were blessed with the arrival of our daughter, Lili. She is more than we could have ever imagined, and we remain grateful for the love and prayers we’ve felt from across the globe. Thank you for your continued kindness and support during this very special time for our family.”
That April, Prince Harry returned to Britain for the first time since quitting the palace in order to attend Prince Philip’s funeral.
2022
Meghan and Harry made their first joint trip back to the United Kingdom on their way to the Invictus Games, where the duchess supported her husband in his biggest project.
However, it was a private visit to have tea with both the queen and separately Charles and Queen Camilla.
It was not until Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee that Harry and Meghan stepped out together in public on U.K. soil. They endured being booed as they left St. Paul’s Cathedral after the service of thanksgiving.
That September, the queen passed away at Balmoral in Scotland, sending the royal family into mourning and making Harry’s father king.
In grief, Harry and Meghan put on a show of unity, appearing in public with William and Kate as a foursome for the first time since their exit more than two years earlier.
Some suggested succession might renew the possibility of their half in, half out plan for their royal lives, but Charles did not redraw the relationship.
By December, they released their long anticipated Netflix show Harry & Meghan, which included never before seen pictures and video of their private lives.
Among them was footage of the couple on the plane to America which Harry called the “freedom flight.”
2023
January saw the release of Harry book Spare, which put family secrets into the public domain but also released new details of their love.
The memoir also triggered ridicule, predominantly over Harry’s decision to reveal he experienced frostbite on his nether region, which he sought to alleviate using his mother’s favorite Elizabeth Arden ointment.
Exclusive polling for Newsweek showed the couple had plumetted in U.S. popularity following the release of the book among both Trump and Biden supporters.
In June, it emerged their multiyear deal with Spotify had disintegrated after just one series, Meghan’s show Archetypes. Spotify executive Bill Simmons fired a parting shot, calling them “f****** grifters.”
2024
Meghan Markle announced her new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard, with a new Instagram account and a round of celebrity endorsements.
Chrissy Teigen, Meghan’s Suits co-star Abigail Spencer, Kris Jenner and Mindy Kaling were all among those who posted photos of her homemade jam on social media.
And Prince Harry made a big return to Britain to mark 10 years of his Invictus Games tournament for wounded veterans before the couple then began a tour of Nigeria.
Still to come, they have new Netflix projects ahead of them, including Meghan’s lifestyle show, and Prince Harry is making a documentary about polo.
Do you have a question about Charles and Queen Camilla, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer?
