NEED TO KNOW
- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle first met after being introduced by a friend in 2016.
- The couple got married on May 19, 2018, at St George’s Chapel in London.
- Harry and Meghan share two children, Archie, six, and Lilibet, four.
- The family live in a Montecito mansion after moving to the US in 2020.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been through a lot together since going public with their relationship in 2016. But through it all, their love for one another has remained steadfast despite the challenges thrown their way.
They rarely talk about one another in public, but now, Meghan, 44, has given fans another glimpse into their relationship.
On January 17, Meghan decided to hop on the 2026 is the new 2016 trend, by sharing a sweet comparison on their relationship over the last decade.
“When 2026 feels just like 2016….you had to be there,” she wrote on Instagram, with a black and white video of her dancing with Harry in their backyard. Sweetly, the video was also taken by their daughter, Princess Lilibet.
She also shared a sweet throwback of them embracing on their holiday in Botswana.
Before that, the Duchess of Sussex revealed that nobody loves her more than Harry does, and revealed why she was initially drawn to him when they first met through mutual friends.
“He loves me so boldly, fully, and he also has a different perspective because he sees media that I wouldn’t,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in November 2025.
“No one in the world loves me more than him, so I know he’s always going to make sure that he has my back.”
“[Harry is] who just has this childlike wonder and playfulness. I was so drawn to that, and he brought that out in me. That’s translated into every part of our lives. Even in business, I want us to play and have fun and explore and be creative.”
Harry and Meghan have been married for seven years and share two children, Archie, six, and Lilibet, four, and they are still as loved-up as ever.
Proving as much, Meghan revealed the story behind her and Harry’s sweet nicknames (M and H) for one another in her first-ever podcast interview in April 2025.
She told host Jamie Kern Lima that it stemmed from a code they shared when they were initially keeping their relationship secret.
“I couldn’t tell anyone who I was dating, so we were just on a letter basis,” she explained, adding that the nicknames eventually “stuck.”
“I like it. I love nicknames,” she continued. “H, that man loves me so much, and you know, look what we’ve built. We have built a beautiful life, and we have two healthy, beautiful children,” she added.
“[My husband is] just constantly doing whatever he can to make sure our family is safe and protected and that we are uplifted – and still make time for date nights.”
These new quotes about their relationship came only a month after Meghan shared rare insight into her marriage with People Magazine, where she spoke of the “honeymoon period” she and Harry were in again.
“We’ve been such a close team for so long that we’re just in it beat by beat with each other. And I love that. To be able to be a female founder [of As Ever] and do that with my husband’s support means everything,” she told the publication.
On the Drew Barrymore Show, Meghan also described her husband as the “funniest, sweetest, most charming” man and an “amazing father” – how sweet!
Scroll on for everything else we know about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s relationship…
Prince Harry and Meghan’s long history of supporting each other
When they first got together, prying eyes around the globe were desperate to observe and scrutinise the couple’s every move. But throughout all the attention and backlash, Harry and Meghan have remained in each other’s corners.
Prince Harry, now 41, and Meghan Markle, 44, officially confirmed their relationship back in 2016. Up until December 2022, we didn’t know all the details of how they met. But in the couple’s Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, they revealed that it was actually social media that brought them together.
“Meghan and I met over Instagram,” Harry said. “I was scrolling through my feed, and someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them, it was like a Snapchat.”
The duchess then explained it was a Snapchat filter in the footage, saying: “That whole thing, the dog ears. That’s what he saw of me.”
“That was the first thing,” Harry confirmed. “I was like, ‘Who is that?’”
Well, it didn’t take long for the duke to find out, and Harry and Meghan fell hard and fast. They married on May 19, 2018, just two years after confirming their relationship.
The following year, the forever-besotted couple gave birth to their first son, Archie, on May 6th, 2019. Two years later, on June 4th, 2021, Meghan gave birth to their second child, and first daughter, Lilibet Diana.
Without context, it seems like an almost mundane love story. But, of course, it is far from it.
Throughout their relationship, the controversial couple has had to navigate a swarm of backlash from the press, royal fans, and even the monarchy itself.
While failing to get a relationship blessing from a large portion of the population would threaten to undo a lot of couples, it seems to have ignited a spark within Harry and Meghan, whose love remains unyielding as they battle the backlash together.
Harry and Megan Vs the British press
When we said from the moment Harry and Meghan started dating they were already fighting a battle, we meant it.
On November 8th, 2016, Prince Harry confirmed he was dating American actress Meghan Markle in an official statement published on the royal family website.
But rather than being a sweet, changing your Facebook status to “in a relationship” type moment, the press release read more like a reprimand to the prying press who were crossing lines left, right, and centre to get a scoop.
The statement read: “His (Prince Harry’s) girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment”.
It went on to cite some of the public harassment Meghan was receiving, including the “racial undertones of comment pieces” and the “sexism and racism of social media trolls”, as well as the private “nightly legal battles to keep defamatory stories out of papers”.
The statement continued: “Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her. It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms. Markle should be subjected to such a storm. He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game’. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game – it is her life and his.”
The end of the message acknowledged the “unusual” nature of issuing a press release of this nature but insisted that Harry wanted it to be published regardless.
So, from day dot, Harry was commissioning protocol-breaking statements to protect his girlfriend, proving he had no qualms about breaking royal rules for his love.
Harry and Meghan Vs. Prince William
After barely four months of dating Meghan, Prince Harry decided it was time for his new girlfriend to meet his family – a scary step regardless, but even more so when your grandmother is the Queen of England.
From here, things took a turn for the worse. While Harry was besotted with Meghan, apparently William had his reservations about how quickly things were moving between the couple – and he told his little brother as much once Meghan had returned to her home country of Canada.
According to The Sun, a well-placed source revealed: “William told his brother that they knew nothing about her background, her intentions, what she was really like.”
“He just wanted to stress that becoming part of the Royal family is a massive undertaking, and the pressure and scrutiny are unrelenting. Was Meghan the right one?”
Suffice it to say, William’s reservations didn’t go down too well with Harry. The same source claimed: “He accused his brother of trying to finish his romance before it had begun. The brothers’ relationship has not really recovered.”
In fact, in Prince Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare, the relationship is non-existent, Harry alleging that his brother physically assaulted him in a row over Meghan and had called Meghan “difficult, rude and abrasive.”
He describes William as “grabbing me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and knocking me to the floor.”
The pair did briefly reunite, however, at the coronation of their father, King Charles III, on May 6th, 2023.
King Charles’ III’s cancer treatment in 2024 has also given Harry pause for thought, with some reporting he had hoped his father could “mend those broken bridges” but that the health scare had raised questions about the King’s eventual death.
Harry and Meghan’s shunning of traditional royal names
If you’ve ever wondered why there have been multiple Queen Elizabeths and King George’s in the British royal family tree, it’s not because the monarchy lacks creativity. No, it’s because they are quite the fans of tradition.
But perhaps Harry and Meghan had been burned by a George or a Charles or a William in the past, as they couldn’t quite bring themselves to name their son after one of these recycled names.
Instead, the couple chose the name Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor for their baby boy. And royal observers were stunned, to say the least.
“I don’t think any of us saw either of these names coming,” the managing editor of Majesty magazine, Joe Little, said. He explained that, as far as he was aware, the names Archie and Harrison had no British royal connotations.
Upon the birth of their second child, Harry and Meghan announced their little one’s name to be Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor; Lilibet, Lili for short, being an ode to Her Majesty The late Queen’s nickname and Diana being a tribute to Harry’s late mother.
By granting their children such royally unconventional names, the Sussexes further distanced themselves from the traditional way of doing things, proving they were intent on making their own rules.
Harry and Meghan Vs. royal duties
After spending 35 years in the only job he’d ever known, along with Meghan’s four years in her new role as a royal, the couple handed in their resignation letters at the same time.
Indeed, in an official statement shared on the royal family’s website in January 2020, it was announced that Harry and Meghan were stepping back from their royal duties – a move which has colloquially come to be known as “Megxit”.
“With the Queen’s blessing, the Sussexes will continue to maintain their private patronages and associations. While they can no longer formally represent The Queen, the Sussexes have made clear that everything they do will continue to uphold the values of Her Majesty,” the statement read.
“The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family.”
The press release also stipulated that Harry and Meghan would “no longer receive public funds for Royal duties”.
With a slash to their bank account, the Sussexes were left to their own devices as they jetted to California to forge their own way.
The Sussexes Vs. the monarchy
Since arriving in the land of the free, Harry and Meghan have been exercising their independence – most notably in March 2021 when they spilled what life is really like behind the Buckingham Palace curtains to their long-time pal Oprah Winfrey.
In the 90-minute tell-all interview, the ex-royals bared all to the TV icon. At first, it was just Meghan who sat down with her long-time friend, dropping bombshells left, right, and centre.
It started with the former actress claiming that a year-old rumour that she made Kate Middleton cry over a flower girl dress was completely fabricated; in fact, it was the other way around.
From there, it got progressively darker, with the former Duchess opening up about her harrowing mental health battle, and Prince Harry eventually joining to talk about his estranged relationship with his brother William.
Despite all of these allegations, the world was taken with one accusation in particular.
When Meghan claimed to Oprah that there had been “concerns and conversations about how dark (her son Archie’s) skin might be when he was born”, the TV presenter’s stunned facial expression mirrored the reaction of viewers everywhere.
At the end of the interview, some people were Team Sussex, some Team Royals, and others were still somewhere in the middle. But one thing was clear: Meghan and Harry felt isolated from the Palace and chose to speak out, alone but together, to get their story heard.
And adamant about getting their story heard even further, Prince Harry produced a “definitive account” of his life in his chart-topping memoir Spare, which was released in January 2023.
Before its publication, the father of two said he hoped to set the record straight.
“My hope is that in telling my story—the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned—I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think,” Harry said in a statement announcing the venture.
You can unpack the biggest bombshells and revelations from Spare here. Rumours are also rife that Meghan is currently in the process of writing a memoir of her own.
Since day one, it has been Prince Harry and Meghan Markle against the prying press, royal observers, and even the monarchy itself.
In the memoir, Harry claimed that his father’s “silence” over Meghan’s perceived treatment whilst in England was the “ultimate betrayal.”
Despite all the backlash and speculation the couple receives, it seems clear that the Sussexes continue to forge their own path.
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