Impressing the royal family! Prince Harry shared that Meghan Markle was complimented on her curtsying skills after she met Queen Elizabeth II for the first time.
In his upcoming memoir, Spare, the Duke of Sussex, 38, recalled the moment when the Suits alum, 41, initially met his grandmother and the impromptu curtsy lesson from Sarah Ferguson that occurred moments before.
“We entered the large front sitting room and there she was. Granny. The monarch. Queen Elizabeth II,” Harry wrote in his debut book — which will be released on Tuesday, January 10 — of the 2016 meeting. “Standing in the middle of the room. She turned slightly. Meg went straight to her and dropped a deep, flawless curtsy.”
The BetterUp CIO went on to recount the late monarch’s first interaction with the “Archetypes” podcast host, including the moment she asked the California native about Donald Trump. Following the meeting, Harry penned that “everyone complimented Meg on her curtsy, ”praising how it was “so good” and “so deep” despite not having an advanced tutorial prior.
Moments before the monumental moment occurred, Harry penned that Ferguson, 63, asked Meghan if she knew how to curtsy. The Duchess of York “demonstrated once” and the former Tig blogger “imitated her.” Harry noted that they didn’t have time to practice more since they “couldn’t keep Granny waiting.”
As the trio walked into the Royal Lodge in Windsor, England, to greet the queen, Ferguson and Harry offered Meghan more tips on how to properly address the monarch. Prince Andrew, Princess Eugenie and Eugenie’s now-husband, Jack Brooksbank, were also in attendance.
In the couple’s December 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, the former actress joked that the curtsying lesson was “like going to Medieval Times.”
“There wasn’t some big moment of like, ‘And now you’re going to meet my grandmother,’” Meghan recalled. “I remember being in the car and [Harry] was like, ‘You know how to curtsy right?’ and I just thought it was a joke.”
While the Sussexes — who married in 2018 and share son Archie, 3, and daughter Lilibet, 19 months — chose to step down as senior members of the royal family in 2020, both Harry and Meghan have been candid about their strong bond with the longest-reigning British monarch, who died in September 2022 at age 96.
“It’s incredible, I think, you know, a) to be able to meet her through his lens, not just with his honor and respect for her as the monarch, but the love that he has for her as his grandmother,” the Duchess of Sussex said of Elizabeth during her and Harry’s joint engagement interview in 2017. “All of those layers have been so important for me so that when I met her I had such a deep understanding and of course incredible respect for being able to have that time with her. And we’ve had a really — she’s an incredible woman.”
After the queen’s passing in September 2022, both Harry and Meghan were in attendance at Her Majesty’s funeral. The Bench author donned pearl earrings that were gifted to her by the queen and gave her casket one final curtsy.
Spare will be released on Tuesday, January 10.
