If you're a fan of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's epic love story, then you're probably
obsessed with Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance.
But even though the Lifetime movie is based on the real Duke and Duchess of Sussex, it's
not exactly a biopic.
Here's what the film got wrong.
In Lifetime's Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, when Prince Harry arrives to meet Meghan Markle
on their blind date, he's extremely late.
Meghan ribs him for not being on time and jokingly shows him how to use his watch.
"I'm gonna actually need you to hold off on the compliments until you have apologized
for being 40 minutes late."
While it's technically possible that the real prince could've shown up late to the couple's
first date, it's highly unlikely.
Royal biographer Andrew Morton detailed in his book Meghan: A Hollywood Princess,
"As they say in the movies, they had each other at 'hello.'
[Meghan] was immediately sensitive to [Harry], aware that this was a man who, beneath the
banter and the surface chatter, was looking for a safe harbor.
[...] They were mesmerized by one another, Harry enthralled by her beauty, sophistication
and perceptiveness.
She understood him as a man, not a title.”
Basically, there's no indication that their real date got off to a rocky start.
In the first ten minutes of Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, Meghan is depicted as a hardworking
actress and Harry is portrayed as a party boy.
It is true that Harry had a reputation for partying during his bachelor years.
For instance, Biography.com revealed,
"[I]n 2012, when he was photographed gallivanting naked in Las Vegas after a rollicking game
of strip billiards with friends [...] Needless to say, the royal family was highly unamused,
and the Prince apologized for his actions."
But Harry's party boy days were long behind him by the time he met Meghan in 2016.
Harry reportedly transformed himself after joining the military and serving two tours
in Afghanistan.
In 2014, he became a staff officer in London, and began aligning himself with charities.
By the time Harry was set up on a blind date with Meghan, he was no longer a party animal,
but a charitable and responsible member of the royal family.
When the movie's Prince Harry tells Prince William and Kate Middleton all about Meghan
Markle in Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, Kate reminds her brother-in-law of the American
socialite whose marriage to King Edward VII led to his abdication as king.
"She's American.
She's divorced.
Her mom is black.
She makes Wallis Simpson look like Dame Judi Dench."
Kate explains all of the backlash she and William received because of the prince's decision
to marry a so-called commoner.
However, there's no evidence that this conversation, or any other like it, actually happened.
We don't know what conversations took place behind closed doors of course, but Kate has
always been publicly supportive of the couple.
When asked about Harry and Meghan's engagement back in November 2017, Kate told the Associated
Press,
"William and I are absolutely thrilled.
It's such exciting news.
It's a really happy time for any couple and we wish them all the best and hope they enjoy
this happy moment."
According to Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, Meghan Markle attempted to break up with Prince
Harry via FaceTime, only to have him show up on the Suits set where she was working.
In the movie, Meghan views her Botswana trip with Harry as a fling because they live so
far apart.
According to Hello! magazine, the real Harry did end up visiting Meghan on set before their
relationship went public, but it wasn't because they were close to breaking up.
Later in the movie, Meghan breaks up with Harry after he issues a statement about their
relationship.
In true Lifetime fashion, she runs to his plane to stop him from leaving and they, of
course, get back together.
This dramatic made-for-TV moment appears to have no truth to it though, and there's no
record of Harry and Meghan ever breaking up in real life.
You might think Prince Harry's time in Toronto, and those Halloween party scenes, were totally
fabricated for Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, but apparently they weren't.
Royal expert Omid Scobie told Good Morning America,
"It was definitely a cloak and dagger visit.
Harry had been planning this for some time and made sure it was done totally undercover,
arriving at the airport with one security guard and going straight to her apartment.
[...] He got to meet her friends, spend time at her house, bond with her dogs.
It was just like a couple just hanging out at home."
Despite the fact that Toronto's The Star revealed that the two attended a Halloween party together,
there's sadly no proof that Meghan rocked a Hillary Clinton mask or that Harry was spotted
in that embarrassing frog costume.
After Lifetime's Harry and Meghan break up and get back together, a downtrodden Harry
attends the wedding of Kate's sister, Pippa Middleton.
In an exchange between Harry and Kate, the prince explains,
"Meghan took a redeye from Toronto so she could be my date to this wedding.
Suddenly, she was benched."
In the movie, Kate responds,
"It's no ring, no bring.
That's all."
In reality, Meghan wasn't suddenly barred from attending the wedding.
She just simply wasn't invited to Pippa's wedding ceremony from the get-go.
However, Meghan was invited to attend the evening reception with Harry, and that's exactly
what she did.
We wish this part weren't real, but the blackamoor brooch does exist.
BBC News reported that many view Blackamoor figures, which were popular in the 1800s and
1900s, as racist.
As Harry explained in Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, it is a symbol of European "imperialist
domination in Africa."
Unlike what took place in the Lifetime movie, a Blackamoor brooch wasn't worn to Pippa Middleton's
wedding, and it wasn't worn by anyone called Lady Victoria, because she's just a fictional
character.
However, in late 2017, Princess Michael of Kent was photographed wearing a blackamoor
brooch ahead of a visit to Buckingham Palace.
Although wearing the brooch would've been seen as inappropriate no matter when it was
worn, the princess donned it to attend a Christmas banquet where she would be meeting Harry's
then-fiancée Meghan.
As such, many thought it was worn as a personal affront.
Princess Michael of Kent's spokesperson insisted,
"The brooch was a gift and has been worn many times before."
The spokesperson also told BBC News,
"[Princess Michael of Kent] is very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence."
In Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, Prince Charles invites Meghan to Pippa Middleton's
wedding reception, a somewhat strange turn of events considering the fact that he isn't
the bride.
The future king dramatically tells his son,
"And If anyone has a problem with that, they can talk to the first in line."
In real life, Charles and Meghan didn't meet at Pippa's wedding reception.
Us Weekly reported that Meghan actually met Charles much earlier than that, at Harry's
32nd birthday event in 2016.
By Pippa's wedding in May 2017, Meghan and her future father-in-law would've been pretty
familiar with each other already.
When Kate orders a virgin drink at Pippa's wedding in Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance,
she admits to Meghan that she's pregnant with baby number 3.
She confesses that her ladies-in-waiting don't even know yet, which makes Meghan among the
first to be informed of the pregnancy.
This scene worked well in the Lifetime movie, but it would've been physically impossible
in real life.
Pippa's wedding took place on May 20, 2017.
Kate's third child, Prince Louis, was born on April 23, 2018.
Even if Kate became pregnant on the day of her sister's wedding, that would've made her
over 11 months pregnant by the time Louis was born.
Had she waited a month to break the news to her future sister-in-law, that would've made
for a year-long pregnancy.
Either Kate is superhuman or this scene didn't actually take place in real life.
We're going to go with the latter.
"I think it's really impressive."
Lions play a bigger role in Lifetime's Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance than you probably
would've expected.
In the film, Harry's first experience with a lion is in Africa after the death of his
mother, Princess Diana.
Harry did really go to Africa at that time.
The prince told Town & Country in 2017,
"I first came in 1997, straight after my mum died.
My dad told my brother and me to pack our bags [...] we were going to Africa to get
away from it all."
Among the many things Harry told the publication about his love for the continent, he revealed,
"This is where I feel more like myself than anywhere else in the world."
However, Harry never mentioned preventing his father from shooting a lion like he does
in the film.
This more than likely would've come up in his interview with Town & Country as he helped
replace two lions' tracking collars during his time with the interviewer.
In the film, Harry believes lions embody his mother's spirit, but there's no evidence to
support that Harry actually feels this way in real life.
"You're not going to start quoting Lion King again, are you?"
In a bit of a throwaway conversation in Lifetime's Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, Meghan tells
Harry that their trip to Botswana has so far been better than the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland.
Harry reveals to Meghan that he went to Disneyland when he was 8 years old, and that it was his
mother's idea to take him and William there.
"[I] rode Splash Mountain like 14 times.
Bloody love that place."
While Harry did, in fact, ride Splash Mountain, the movie's conversation is adapted nearly
word for word from an interview Harry gave to Good Morning America.
"[Going to Disney World is] one of my very, very happy memories.
I went on 'Space Mountain' 14 times.
I was like, 'This is absolutely fantastic.
This is the best thing ever.'"
It's relatively minor to change Disney World to Disneyland, but it does make you wonder
why the change was made.
When Meghan Markle meets Queen Elizabeth II in Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance, she immediately
bonds with the queen's corgis, and the meet-and-greet goes off without a hitch.
We have no reason to doubt that, either.
However, the following scene is what gives us pause.
The Queen says she wants to show Meghan something down the hall.
Revealing a painting, Queen Elizabeth tells Meghan and Harry,
"I've always loved this portrait of our ancestor Queen Charlotte because the painter, Ramsey,
didn't try to hide her African heritage."
With confused expressions, Harry and Meghan look over at the queen who says,
"Oh, yes.
You're of mixed-race, Harry.
So am I.
Many of her portraits tried to hide that fact, but this one is most authentic."
It's a touching moment, but not all of it is true.
Or, at the very least, it hasn't been confirmed.
Queen Charlotte was the great-great-great grandmother of Queen Elizabeth.
And Sir Allen Ramsey did indeed paint the most realistic portraits of Queen Charlotte.
But the late queen's heritage isn't fully known.
As Time reported on the matter,
"Historians aren't really sure."
Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance features two proposals.
Harry first proposes to Meghan while in Botswana.
Meghan immediately says yes, but, as the proposal was a spur-of-the-moment thing, Harry doesn't
present her with a ring.
"Just need you.
Will you marry me?"
Harry's second proposal is still informal, but more official.
This time around, the movie repeats events as they happened in real life.
There's a chicken dinner, a beautiful ring, and a happy couple.
During the couple's first official interview with BBC News, Harry revealed that he had
proposed at his apartment in Kensington Palace while the couple was preparing dinner.
And as for her answer, Meghan explained,
"Yes!
As a matter of fact, I could barely let you finish proposing.
I said, 'Can I say yes now?'"
While the second proposal is depicted accurately in the Lifetime movie, there's really no reason
to believe that Harry proposed to Meghan twice.
As far as the public knows, the London proposal is the only time Harry asked Meghan to marry
him.
Plus, it wouldn't have been such a surprise to Meghan if he'd already proposed, would
it?
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