Ten years ago this month, Prince Harry’s secret romance with American television star Meghan Markle was exposed to the world after months of clues appeared across social media—including friendship bracelets, peonies and a pair of cuddling bananas.
The decade since has been eventful: a royal wedding, Megxit, two children, a highly publicised Oprah Winfrey interview, a breakdown in Harry’s relationship with his brother and the release of his bombshell memoir, Spare.
The couple’s relationship was announced on October 30, 2016, although Harry’s future wife, now the Duchess of Sussex, had already been leaving a trail of online hints about the high-profile romance for several months.
Harry and Meghan met on a blind date in July 2016 and agreed to see each other again the very next night.
According to Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand’s 2020 book Finding Freedom, the pair spent three hours at London’s Dean Street Townhouse drinking beers and martinis while immersed in “their own little world”.
While secretly dating the prince, Meghan, now 45, appeared unable to resist sharing cryptic clues with her followers about the new romance with the man who is now 42.
On July 1, 2016, Meghan posted a photograph of herself beside a huge display of pink and white peonies. “Swooning over these. #London #peonies #spoiledrotten,” she wrote.
Two days later, she shared an image of a single Love Heart sweet bearing the words “kiss me”, captioning it: “Lovehearts in #London” for her 2.4 million followers.
Harry later revealed that the pair had met only “twice” before sharing a tent, saying he was amazed Meghan agreed to join him.
Meghan said she was “swooning over these” peonies after receiving them in London in July 2016.
Around the time she posted the peonies, Meghan also reportedly shared details of the romance with American make-up mogul Bobbi Brown.
Months before Harry publicly confirmed their relationship in November, Meghan posted a July 17 photograph of two red-tipped matches arranged to form a heart. The caption read: “Sunday kind of love.”
She also shared an image of a card carrying the words “the foolish wait”. Soon afterwards, however, she flew to Botswana to stay with Harry.
During their engagement interview, Harry described the private trip, saying: “We camped out with each other under the stars.”
“She came and joined me for five days out there, which was absolutely fantastic,” he continued.
“So then we were really by ourselves, which was crucial to me to make sure that we had a chance to know each other.”
In their Netflix documentary series, Harry revealed that they had met only “twice” before sleeping in the same tent, adding that he was surprised Meghan had agreed to accompany him.
He later said the Botswana trip was where he decided Meghan was his “soulmate”.
On Meghan’s Instagram account, which she later deactivated, she posted a picture of two bananas appearing to cuddle, alongside the caption: “Sleep tight xx.”
An excited friend responded to the image with a simple comment: “Yay!”
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On November 1, Meghan posted this picture on Instagram, which she captioned ‘Sleep tight xx’
Meghan posted this picture on 21 October, wearing the notorious blue-and-white beaded bracelet that belonged to Prince Harry
On July 19, Meghan posted more peonies, with the caption: ‘Because I’m spoiled rotten. #thankyou #peonies #theynevergetold.’
Around the same time, Meghan revealed details of their romance to make-up mogul Bobbi Brown while the pair filmed a tutorial.
Meanwhile, Harry was going to great lengths to conceal their relationship, taking commercial flights to Toronto, where Meghan was filming Suits, and travelling with just one plain-clothed protection officer instead of his usual two. His girlfriend, however, was being much less careful.
During the make-up tutorial, filmed in the back of an Uber, Meghan revealed she was ‘dating a fellow from the UK’.
Luckily, the millionaire founder, now 69, was more subtle about this than Meghan herself, and chose not to delve deeper.
‘At the time of the shoot she was telling me about a fellow she had just started to date from the UK. I didn’t ask who,’ Bobbi later revealed in a birthday Instagram tribute.
Then there was Meghan’s more blatant revelation to fashion designer Roland Mouret, 65, whom she met in a lift at Soho House Istanbul in 2015.
The pair remained close and, in 2016, Meghan told him she’d met a ‘nice British guy’ on the phone.
Fashion designer Roland Mouret revealed in his biography that he already knew about Meghan dating ‘a prince’ before it was public
In excerpts from his new book I am Roland Mouret, serialised by The Times, he revealed: ‘I said, “What does he do?”
‘She hesitated. “He’s a prince.” I knew she was in love. It was the amount of breath mixed in with her words, finely balanced but revealing, just like a perfume.
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‘There was only one British prince. We knew who we were talking about.’
Mouret offered to send a selection of dresses to Kensington Palace for her, to which Meghan replied ‘yes please’.
She also slipped information to former Made In Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh, 37, whom she met at the same hotel opening in Istanbul.
Speaking on her Mumlemmas podcast in 2023, Millie said she was ‘ghosted’ by Meghan after the relationship went public, but they had once got on ‘like a house on fire’.
Millie even gave Meghan a ‘little black book’ of favourite spots and contacts in London after meeting her.
‘When she would come to London, she didn’t know London very well or know that many people,’ Millie said, adding they would go to brunch or yoga classes together.
The last time Made In Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh saw or spoke to Meghan was at Soho Farmhouse in September 2016
The last time she saw Meghan was in September 2016, during a girls’ weekend at Soho Farmhouse in the Cotswolds.
‘What I thought was going to be a day of yoga and chilling ended up being rosé and margaritas in the pool,’ Millie said.
She added that Meghan told her she had been messaging Harry on this day.
‘I didn’t ask too much of it, didn’t really think too much of it at the time,’ she said. ‘If only I had known.’
Not long afterwards, the relationship went public and Meghan ‘cut her dead’, Millie has claimed.
Elsewhere, Meghan gossiped about the relationship to her Suits co-star Abigail Spencer in public, in the tearoom at Bergdorf Goodman in New York, where they were ‘screaming’ with excitement.
On Netflix’s Harry & Meghan, Abigail, 45, revealed the Duchess said: ‘I think I met someone and I’m in love. It’s Prince Harry.’
Abigail added: ‘I could just feel everything in her body vibrating. We have a photo from that moment.
‘I was screaming because I could tell it was different… It was very clear from the moment she told me about him that they were in love and they were going to go to the ends of the earth to be together.’
Meghan gossiped about the relationship to her Suits co-star Abigail Spencer in public, in the tearoom at Bergdorf Goodman, where they were ‘screaming’ with excitement
Another Suits co-star Rick Hoffman revealed on the Today show that he heard the news of her relationship with Harry early on
Meghan also broke the news to another Suits co-star, Rick Hoffman, 56, shortly after meeting Harry.
He told the Today Show: ‘I had gotten the news early, and I was like, “You got to be kidding me”. And it was like, both of us in the trailer like, “Oh my. You’re going – you’re dating a prince?”’
Shortly before meeting Harry, Meghan had told friends she was looking for ‘a nice English gentleman to flirt with’, according to Finding Freedom.
In a much bigger clue to the identity of her new man, the actress posted multiple images of herself wearing Harry’s unique blue-and-white beaded bracelet.
In photos from a trip to Soho Farmhouse published on Instagram in mid-October, Meghan reached for a coffee table with her American passport on it, clearly showing the bracelet on her wrist.
In another image, she clutched a mug in her hand, once again exposing the bracelet.
Harry had been pictured wearing the bracelet since March that year, meaning people soon made the connection.
Meghan stopped wearing hers soon after the world found out about their relationship.
She continued to send messages with her jewellery, but stepped things up a notch price-wise.
In Finding Freedom, the authors claimed Meghan was left ‘frustrated and emotional’ after a Palace aide scolded her for wearing a 14-carat gold necklace with the initials H and M on it in December 2016.
‘She was advised that wearing such a necklace only served to encourage the photographers to keep pursuing such images – and new headlines,’ the authors wrote.
A source told the authors that Meghan spoke ‘very little’ on the call and later confided in a friend, saying ‘I can’t win’.
Meghan and Harry’s final secret date was at a post-apocalypse-themed costume party on October 29, after a press secretary told the couple their relationship was breaking in the papers the following day.
‘We went to this Halloween party together, where we could be completely dressed up and no one would know. Bandana and goggles, great costume,’ Harry, who covered his face for the party, told Netflix.
Meghan said: ‘We thought, “Well, this could be our last shot to just go out and have fun”,’ and Harry added: ‘Pull the pin on the fun grenade, which we did.’
His cousin, Princess Eugenie, 36, and her husband Jack Brooksbank, 40, were also at the party that evening.
