General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

Harry & Meghan

Harry & Meghan is a six-episode Netflix documentary series in which Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, tell the story of their courtship, marriage, and 2020 withdrawal from their roles as working members of the British royal family.¹ Directed by Liz Garbus, a two-time Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, it was released in two volumes: the first three episodes on December 8, 2022, and the final three on December 15, 2022.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Six-episode documentary series, Netflix, rated TV-MA, first three episodes released December 8, 2022³
Director	Liz Garbus; executive producers include Garbus, Dan Cogan, Jon Bardin, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle³
Audience record	81.55 million hours viewed in the first four days of release, the highest documentary debut for Netflix at the time⁴
Critical scores	45% Tomatometer and 19% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes; Metascore 59 ("mixed or average") on Metacritic³^•⁵
Production timing	A title card states all interviews were completed by August 2022, before Queen Elizabeth II's death that September²
Producer	Archewell Productions, the couple's media company, which began collaborating with Netflix in 2020⁶

Spoilers

Content of the series

The series moves chronologically through the couple's relationship. The first three episodes cover their early courtship, which Harry says began when the two met on Instagram, up to the eve of their wedding; the later episodes address the wedding, Meghan's mental health struggles, her miscarriage in 2020, the role Tyler Perry played in the couple's move to the United States, and the negotiations with Harry's father and brother over the couple's departure from England.⁷^•²

The couple frame the series as a response to press coverage. Harry describes the project as being about "duty and service," saying he felt it his duty to "uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media."⁸ The series presents the couple's account of press intrusion and racism, including racist commentary directed at Meghan, who is biracial, and what they describe as a double standard in how her behavior was judged compared with that of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.⁹^•¹⁰ Meghan also describes having had nobody to teach her royal protocol, saying she had to Google the British national anthem.⁸

Interviews with friends, family, and historians run through the series. Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, gives her first sit-down interview, saying "the last five years has been challenging" and that she was ready to have her voice heard.² Historians including David Olusoga and Afua Hirsch appear in segments placing the monarchy's history and the British Commonwealth in context.¹¹ In the final episode, Meghan reads aloud from her phone the speech she delivered at the couple's wedding reception.⁹

Director Liz Garbus described the film as made in partnership with its subjects rather than as an investigative documentary, saying viewers "came for the love story, or the hot gossip, but were able to stay for other provocative and important stuff," such as the history of colonialism.¹²

Reception

The series set a viewership record for a Netflix documentary debut, with 81.55 million hours viewed in its first four days.⁴ Critical reception was mixed. Rotten Tomatoes recorded a 45% Tomatometer from 31 reviews and a 19% Popcornmeter audience score from more than 5,000 ratings; its critics consensus called the series "one of the most intimate glimpses yet into the famous couple" but judged that it "offers more overexposure than genuine illumination."³ Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 59, with 8 positive, 8 mixed, and 1 negative review among 17 counted.⁵

Reviewers divided along recognizable lines. Positive assessments praised the account of the couple's treatment by the press; The Guardian wrote that the series "still lands a punch" through its material on palace officials leaking stories, death threats, and social media frenzies.⁵ Negative assessments focused on the one-sidedness of the account: the Financial Times reviewer wrote that "this is the Sussexes' side of the story, their truth, and that seems incompatible with journalism," and The Independent found "no major revelations here, nothing so incendiary that it will cancel King Charles's coronation."¹³^•⁷ Public reaction in Britain was likewise mixed, with some viewers praising the couple's candor and others criticizing them for releasing the documentary after leaving royal life over privacy complaints.¹⁴

Context within the couple's media projects

The documentary was the most prominent product of Archewell Productions, the company the couple founded after stepping back as senior working royals in 2020 and moving to California.⁶ It followed Harry and Meghan's March 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which they described what they called an "invisible contract" between the media and the monarchy, under which choreographed public exposure to royals is exchanged for privacy at other moments.¹⁵ Harry's memoir Spare (2023) continued the same project of self-narration; a scholarly analysis of the series and the memoir describes both as an effort to "reclaim and redeem the narrative" in response to media reports about the couple.¹⁶

Production of the series was difficult. According to a Variety account, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos personally appealed to Liz Garbus to shepherd the project after earlier production arrangements proved challenging.⁴

In August 2025 the couple announced a multiyear, first-look extension of their Netflix partnership. The collaboration had by then also produced the documentary series Polo, Heart of Invictus, and Live to Lead, along with Meghan's lifestyle series With Love, Meghan and her lifestyle brand As Ever.⁶

Royal status after the series

The series coincided with, and fed into, an unresolved dispute over the couple's standing in the royal family. Harry has rejected the term "non-working royal," maintaining that he was born into the family and still wants to dedicate his life to service; a friend of the couple told The Times that "'working members of the Royal Family' is a really lazy phrase," arguing that engagements such as the couple's 2026 visit to Nottingham are done not in the name of the institution but because "Harry is the son of The King."¹⁷

In September 2026, after the couple confirmed they were moving back to the UK with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, King Charles III sent a letter through the Lord Chamberlain to government and military officials reaffirming that there was "no change to the current status of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex": their styles as His and Her Royal Highness remain in abeyance, their charitable work is undertaken in a private capacity, and their position is "akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests."¹⁸^•¹⁹ The family rift remains visible: according to a 2026 report on Harry's interview with GQ, the brothers have not spoken in four years, even after Harry returned to the UK with Meghan and their children.²⁰

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Documentary, docudrama, and lifestyle series › Music, arts, and biographical docuseries

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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