Yahoo News Harry describes uncomfortable meeting with Royal Family shown on TV - 'It looked cold, it felt cold'
Prince Harry has spoken about the "cold" reception he says he felt from the Royal Family during his and Meghan Markle's last official event before leaving royal life the UK.
Tensions were running high as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended the annual Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey in March 2020 - the first time the Sussexes had seen the rest of the family in some months.
It followed the bombshell 'Megxit' announcement earlier that year when the couple announced they would be stepping back from their duties as senior royals to start a new life together in North America.
In the couple's new Netflix documentary series, Harry & Meghan, the duke claims William "screamed and shouted" at him during a crisis summit at Sandringham in January 2020 to discuss the Sussexes' future.
Harry and Meghan told the show how they could still feel the fallout from the emotional strain at the Commonwealth Day service, which they attended right before catching their flight to Canada.
Watch: Harry and Meghan attend Commonwealth Day service in 2020
"We were nervous seeing the family because all the TV cameras and everybody watching at home and everybody watching in the audience," said Meghan.
"It's like living through a soap opera where everybody else views you as entertainment."
Harry added: "I felt really distant from the rest of my family, which was interesting because so much of how they operate is about what it looks like, rather than what it feels like. And it looked cold, but it also felt cold."
Read more: Harry and Meghan joke about royal cottage being 'so small' in Netflix documentary
At the time, the tense meeting of the royals was widely picked up by multiple news and media outlets.
According to the authors of Finding Freedom, by Omid Scobie - Yahoo News UK's royal executive editor, and Carolyn Durand - there was a perception that the then Duchess of Cambridge had ignored Meghan.
“Although Meghan tried to make eye contact with Kate, the duchess barely acknowledged her,” the authors write.
In a separate interview with The Times, Scobie added: “I don’t think it left a great taste in the couple’s mouths.”
In the documentary, Meghan goes on to recall racing to catch her flight immediately after the service, adding: “We were cutting it so close, but I wanted to get back home to Archie."
On the plane, she says a member of the crew came up to her, knelt next to her seat, took his hat off out of respect and said: “We appreciate everything you did for our country."
The American former actress went on: “It was the first time that I felt like someone saw the sacrifice, not for my own country, for this country.”
After landing in Canada, Meghan says she collapsed into the arms of one of the couple's security guards and crying.
Read more: Video resurfaces of Meghan making claims that royal staff 'lied' to protect others
Overwhelmed by how much she struggled for acceptance in Britain, she recalls telling the guard, "I tried so hard", to which he replied, "I know you did ma’am, I know you did."
In the final three episodes of Harry & Meghan, launched this morning, Harry also claims Meghan suffered a miscarriage due the stress she felt from negative media coverage.
Recalling his crunch meeting at Sandringham, Harry tells how he was given five options about how he and his wife were going to move forward as non-working royals.
The duke said these ranged from “all in, no change” to “all out”, and that he chose option three – “half in, half out”.
However, he claimed it soon became "very clear very quickly that goal was not up for discussion or debate" as William reacted with fury.
"It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say tings that just simply weren't true, and my grandmother, you know, quietly sit there and and sort of take it all in," Harry said.
"But you have to understand, from the family's perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and and her ultimate sort of mission, goal, slash responsibility is the institution."
He added: "People around her are telling her, 'By the way, that proposal, or these two doing X, Y, Z, is going to be seen as an attack on the institution,' then she's going to go on the advice that she's given."
Harry also denied claims he “blindsided” the Queen with the couple’s social media statement on stepping back as senior royals, dubbed "Megxit" by some in the press.
Meghan said that, as they suspected contents from Harry’s letter to his father had been leaked, they could “could feel the ticking clock from that point”.
Read more: The palace DID brief against Harry and Meghan - what's the point in denying something so obvious?
She added: “So with our team we decided that we were going to put out a statement to say that we were going to, sadly, be stepping back, not stepping down, but to just have a reduced role.”
Harry added: “For my whole life the purse strings have been controlled by my father. Within a family, it’s normal to have that financial control over other members of the family.”
Yahoo News UK understands that neither Buckingham nor Kensington Palace will comment on the documentary.
