Prince William had a very non-regal response when he was first told about Meghan by his excited brother Harry.

Prince William had a very non-regal response when he was first told about Meghan by his excited brother Harry.

Today, the siblings are estranged following the Sussexes’ explosive exit from royal life and their subsequent attacks on the family. But there was a time when Harry was close to both William and Kate, and when he met Meghan he was keen to share his happy news.

Harry and Meghan started dating in July 2016 after being set up on a blind date by a mutual friend in London. They embarked on a clandestine relationship and managed to keep their romance a secret for several weeks before news broke in October 2016, with Harry confirming it in a statement shortly after.

While the relationship wasn’t public knowledge, Harry did of course share the news with his loved ones, including William and Kate. And, according to the Mirror’s royal editor Russell Myers, the future king had a very surprising reaction.

In his new biography, William and Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story, Myers lifts the lid of the couple’s life behind closed doors – including their introduction to Meghan.

It was 30 October that news of Harry and Meghan’s romance broke. In a world exclusive, Camilla Tominey wrote that the Prince was ‘secretly dating’ Meghan Markle, a US actress, human rights campaigner and, controversially, a divorcee.

Before then, though, Harry plucked up the courage to share his secret with his brother and sister-in-law. “F*** off!” was William’s initial reaction, according to Myers. In his memoir, Spare, Harry also spoke about the moment he shared his news with the Prince and Princess.

“Their mouths fell open. They turned to each other. Then Willy turned to me and said: ‘F–k off?'” Harry wrote. “I was baffled until Willy and Kate explained that they were regular — nay, religious — viewers of Suits. ‘Great,’ I thought, laughing. I’ve been worrying about the wrong thing. All this time I’d thought Willy and Kate might not welcome Meg into the family, but now I had to worry about them hounding her for an autograph.”

There have been inconsistencies from the Sussex camp when it comes to the details of Meghan’s first meeting with William and Kate. In Harry and Meghan’s engagement interview, the prince said: “William was longing to meet her, and so was Catherine. So, you know, being our neighbours, we managed to get that in a couple of — well, quite a few times now, and Catherine has been absolutely…” “She’s been wonderful,” Meghan interjected.

However, in their tell-all Netflix series, Meghan described their first meeting as “jarring”. She said: “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.”

Harry also spoke about that first dinner in his book, Spare. He said that Meghan cooked and all seemed to be going well as they chatted about Wimbledon and the legal drama Suits.

“The only possibly discordant note I could think of was the marked difference in how the two women dressed, which both of them seemed to notice. Meg: ripped jeans, barefoot. Kate: done up to the nines. No big deal, I thought.”

Elsewhere in the book, Harry recounted a number of other occasions when his future wife seemed at loggerheads with his sister-in-law in the early days of their romance. He says the two women had a row over bridesmaid dresses in the lead-up to his wedding that left Meghan in tears, and that Kate “grimaced” when the duchess borrowed her lipgloss.

Harry further speculated that Kate was likely “on edge”, understanding that she was now “going to be compared to, and forced to compete with, Meg”.

In an ITV interview with Tom Bradby in January 2023, Harry admitted Kate and William didn’t get on with Meghan “from the get-go”. Asked why the relationship got off on a bad note, Harry said there were “lots of different reasons”.

He went on: “I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan, who had, you know, a very successful career. There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening, that I was guilty of as well, at the beginning.”

Pushed on what he meant by that, Harry continued: “American actress, and that was playing out in the British press in the media at the time as well. I had that in the back of my mind, and some of the things that my brother and sister-in-law – some of the way that they were acting or behaving definitely felt to me as though unfortunately that stereotyping was causing a bit of a barrier to them really sort of, you know, introducing or welcoming her in.”

Asked specifically what he meant, Harry added: “Well, American actress, divorced, biracial – there’s all different parts to that”