Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Have a ‘Suits’ Cast Member to Thank for Life-Changing Advice
Advice from one of Meghan Markle’s Suits co-stars paved the way for her and Prince Harry’s 2016 trip to Botswana. Guidance the Duchess of Sussex received months before her first date with the Duke of Sussex and how it led to a “crazy” coincidence.
Meghan Markle left ‘room for magic’ on the advice of her ‘Suits’ co-star Gina Torres
On her defunct blog, The Tig, Meghan shared how Gina Torres, who played Jessica Pearson in the USA series, informed her 2016 New Year’s resolution.
In a Jan. 1, 2016, entry, Meghan shared where the resolution to “leave room for magic” came from. Torres, the now-41-year-old explained, “stopped” her as she made plans for Suits’ summer filming hiatus (via SheKnows).
“‘Meg, I will just say one thing,’” Meghan recalled he co-star telling her. “‘Make sure you leave room for magic.’”
So that’s what Meghan did. “My New Year’s resolution is to leave room for magic,” she told her Tig readers. “To make my plans, and be okay [sic] if they sometimes break. To set my goals, but to be open to change.” Meghan continued: “To let the magic know that there is an open door policy with me in 2016 and that it is always welcome to join the party.”
Meghan and Harry went to Botswana during ‘one small window’ of time they both had open
After their first date in London at Soho House 76 Dean Street, Harry and Meghan were back there having a “very frank discussion.” It was their second date and, as the duke shared in his Spare memoir, they tried to set up another one.
“Surely in the whole summer we could find one small spot of time,” Harry wrote in Spare (via Penguin Random House). Meghan, he explained, “was doing the full Eat Pray Love.” While looking at their calendars suddenly the then-Suits star smiled.
“‘What is it?’” Harry asked. “‘Actually, there’s one small window …’” Meghan replied.
“Recently, she explained, a castmate had advised her not to be so structured about her summer of eating, praying, and loving,” Harry said. “Keep one week open, this castmate said, leave room for magic. So she’d been saying no to all kinds of things, reserving one week, even turning down a very dreamy bike trip through the lavender fields of southern France …”
Upon a closer look at his calendar, Harry told Meghan he, too, had one week open. “‘How crazy would that be?’” Harry said when she remarked, “‘What if they’re the same week?’”
As it turned out, the pair had the same week free. From there, Harry proceeded to give Meghan his “best Botswana pitch.”
“Above all, it was the place where I’d found myself, where I always re-found myself, where I always felt close to – magic?” he said in Spare. “If she was interested in magic, she should come with me, experience it with me. Camp under the stars, in the middle of nowhere, which is actually Everywhere.”
At this, Meghan “‘stared.’” Harry’s response: “‘I realize it’s crazy. But all of this is obviously crazy.’”
Harry called his and Meghan’s Botswana trip a ‘revelation and a blessing’
The Duke of Sussex continued, recalling what happened during his and Meghan’s African excursion. Meghan, he remembered, traveled for 11 hours before finally reuniting with him following their London date.
“Meghan had every right to be grumpy. But she wasn’t. Bright-eyed, eager, she was ready for anything,” Harry said in Spare. “And looking like … perfection. She wore cut-off jean shorts, well-loved hiking boots, a crumpled Panama hat I’d seen on her Instagram page.”
They greeted each other with an ‘awkward’ hug and “set off” for a four-hour drive “straight into the sun.” The awkwardness quickly faded and they, as Harry said in their 2017 engagement interview, “really got to know each other.”
“Every moment of that week was a revelation and a blessing,” Harry recalled in his memoir.
The couple revisited their 2016 Botswana trip in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan docuseries. Meghan, for her part, admitted she’d had doubts about traveling with her now-husband after only two dates.
“What am I doing?” Meghan remembered asking herself. “What if we don’t like each other? “And we’re stuck in the middle of the bush in a tent!”
“Barefoot in Botswana” later became Harry and Meghan’s “dream wedding” with the pair ultimately exchanging vows at Windsor Castle in May 2018.
