Stereotyping caused a “bit of a barrier” to the Prince and Princess of Wales welcoming Meghan, despite Prince Harry having high hopes that the four of them would get along.
Prince Harry shared his recollection with ITV’s Tom Bradby in the first of four prime-time shows about his controversial memoir Spare, to be launched on Tuesday.
Bradby said the impression was that the Duke of Sussex's brother Prince William and sister-in-law Kate did not get on “almost from the get-go” with Meghan, to which Prince Harry replied: “Yeah, fair.”
“[There were] lots of different reasons … I had put a lot of hope in the idea that it’d be Prince William and Kate and me and whoever.
“I thought the four of us would bring me and William closer together. We could go out and do work together, which I did a lot as the third wheel to them, which was fun at times but also, I guess, slightly awkward at times as well.
“I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get … into a relationship with someone like Meghan who had a very successful career.”
The Princess of Wales is celebrating her 41st birthday on Monday, a day before her brother-in-law’s bombshell memoir goes on sale.
Her birthday comes after intimate details about Harry's life and family, including claims about his sister-in-law, emerged in the book.
They include an “awkward moment” when his wife asked Kate to borrow some lip gloss ahead of their Royal Foundation Forum appearance in 2018.
“Kate, taken aback, went into her handbag and reluctantly pulled out a small tube,” Harry writes.
“Meg squeezed some on to her finger and applied it to her lips. Kate grimaced.”
The duke wrote that the four “should've been able to laugh” about the moment but the press “sensed” it was “something bigger” and so Kate was “on edge” that she was now “going to be compared to, and forced to compete with, Meg”.
Before meeting Prince Harry, Meghan starred in US legal drama series Suits, in which she played paralegal-turned-lawyer Rachel Zane.
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, through the years — in pictures
Harry laughed when he was told that the Prince and Princess of Wales were Suits “fans”.
“Who would’ve thought? I never knew that,” he said.
Prince Harry suggested there was a lot of “stereotyping” about his wife that even he was “guilty of” at the beginning.
“The fact that 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 introducing or welcoming her in,” he said.
When asked what exactly he meant by stereotyping, Harry said: “American actress, divorced, biracial.
“There’s all different parts to that and what that can mean but if you are, like a lot of my family do, if you are reading the press, the British tabloids at the same time as living the life, then there is a tendency where you could actually end up living in the tabloid bubble rather than the actual reality."
Anticipation builds ahead of the release of Prince Harry's book — in pictures
Prince Harry said the idea of himself, his wife and the Prince and Princess of Wales being the “fab four” was “something the British press created” and it “creates competition”.
“The idea of the four of us being together was always a hope for me,” he said.
“Before it was Meghan, whoever it was going to be, I always hoped that the four of us would get on.
“But very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate.
“And that, when it plays out so publicly, you can’t hide from that, right? Especially when within my family you have the newspapers laid out pretty much in every single palace and house that is around.”
Prince Harry said his brother “raised some concerns” about his marriage to Meghan before their wedding in May 2018.
“He never tried to dissuade me from marrying Meghan, but he aired some concerns very early, and said ‘this is going to be really hard for you’ and I still to this day don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about,” he said.
“Maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was going to be.”
Harry: The Interview is available to view on ITVX.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Anna and the Apocalypse
Director: John McPhail
Starring: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Mark Benton
Three stars
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
Married Malala
Malala Yousafzai is enjoying married life, her father said.
The 24-year-old married Pakistan cricket executive Asser Malik last year in a small ceremony in the UK.
Ziauddin Yousafzai told The National his daughter was ‘very happy’ with her husband.
Indoor cricket World Cup:
Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23
UAE fixtures:
Men
Saturday, September 16 – 1.45pm, v New Zealand
Sunday, September 17 – 10.30am, v Australia; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Monday, September 18 – 2pm, v England; 7.15pm, v India
Tuesday, September 19 – 12.15pm, v Singapore; 5.30pm, v Sri Lanka
Thursday, September 21 – 2pm v Malaysia
Friday, September 22 – 3.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 3pm, grand final
Women
Saturday, September 16 – 5.15pm, v Australia
Sunday, September 17 – 2pm, v South Africa; 7.15pm, v New Zealand
Monday, September 18 – 5.30pm, v England
Tuesday, September 19 – 10.30am, v New Zealand; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Thursday, September 21 – 12.15pm, v Australia
Friday, September 22 – 1.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 1pm, grand final
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
HWJN
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12%20restaurants%20opening%20at%20the%20hotel%20this%20month
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THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Profile box
Company name: baraka
Started: July 2020
Founders: Feras Jalbout and Kunal Taneja
Based: Dubai and Bahrain
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $150,000
Current staff: 12
Stage: Pre-seed capital raising of $1 million
Investors: Class 5 Global, FJ Labs, IMO Ventures, The Community Fund, VentureSouq, Fox Ventures, Dr Abdulla Elyas (private investment)
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
The British in India: Three Centuries of Ambition and Experience
by David Gilmour
Allen Lane
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