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By James Crawford-Smith
Royal Reporter
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Meghan Markle has recounted her first meeting with Kate Middleton and Prince William while she was dating Prince Harry, in an interview shown in her new Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan.
As a TV actress who began dating the royal in 2016, Meghan discusses the challenges of press intrusion and fitting in with the royals during the second installment of the six-episode season, released as part of a multi-million-dollar content creation deal with Netflix.
Discussing her early relationship with Harry, Meghan told series viewers: "It's so funny if I look back at it now, because now I know so much and I'm so glad I didn't then. Because I could just authentically be myself without so much preparedness."
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On this theme, the duchess offered her first meeting with future brother- and sister-in-law, Prince William and Kate Middleton, as an example.
"Even when Will and Kate came over and I met her for the first time, they came over for dinner and I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot," she said, before going on to intimate that the royals may not have warmed to her informal greeting.
"It's like I was a hugger, I've always been a hugger," she said. "I didn't realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits."
This discussion continued as clips of William and Kate are shown.
"I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through to the inside...that there is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door, and you go 'Oh...ok we can relax now.' But that formality carries over on both sides and that was surprising to me."
Meghan's relationship with Kate has been closely watched and widely speculated on over the past six years, with 2019 reports of a royal rift between the sisters-in-law marking what Meghan later deemed a turning point in her public image in Britain.
In her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan rebutted stories that she had made Kate cry at a bridesmaid fitting before her wedding to Harry, instead explaining that Kate had been the one to make her cry and that an apology had been made by Kate which she accepted.
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Later in the episode, Meghan also described her first meeting with Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.
"It's surreal," she said. "There wasn't like some big moment of 'and now you're going to meet my grandmother.' I didn't know I was going to meet her until moments before."
"We were in the car," she continued. "We were going to royal lodge for lunch and he [Harry]'s like: 'oh my grandmother's here, she's going to be there after church.'
"I remember we were in the car and driving up and he said 'you know how to curtsy right?' and I just thought it was a joke."
After recounting her first curtsy experience, a clip of Harry discussing the wider royal family's reaction to his dating Meghan is shown.
"I remember my family first meeting her, being incredibly impressed," he said.
"Some of them didn't quite know what to do with themselves because I think they were surprised...Maybe surprised that a ginger could land such a beautiful woman and such an intelligent woman but the fact that I was dating an American actress was probably what clouded their judgment more than anything else."
The first three episodes of Harry & Meghan are available to stream globally only on Netflix now. The final episodes will be released on December 15.
Newsweek approached Buckingham Palace for comment.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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