Prince Harry’s Reaction to Seeing Meghan Markle on Instagram: ‘My God’
TL;DR:
- Prince Harry first saw Meghan Markle on their mutual friend Violet von Westenholz’s Instagram account in July 2016.
- Meghan Markle looked “confident” and “free,” Prince Harry recalled in Spare.
- Later, the pair had a “marathon conversation” via Instagram and text before going on their first date in London, England.
After opening up about how they met in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan, Prince Harry shared more details on meeting Meghan Markle in his Spare memoir. In the pages of his book the Duke of Sussex recalled seeing his now-wife for the first time online and how it compared to later seeing her in person.
Prince Harry saw Meghan Markle on a mutual friend’s Instagram and thought he’d ‘never seen anyone so beautiful’
In Spare Part 3, titled “captain of my soul,” Harry recalled how the Duchess of Sussex entered his life. He’d been at Nottingham Cottage scrolling through Instagram when he came upon a video in his feed (via Penguin Random House).
A “young woman” and his friend, Violet von Westenholz, “had dog ears, dog noses, long red dog tongues hanging out” thanks to a filter.
“This woman with Violet…my God,” Harry wrote. “I watched the video several times, then forced myself to put down the phone. Then picked it up again, watched the video again.”
He continued, saying Meghan’s face stood out among the many people he’d seen in his life.
“For thirty-two years I’d watched a conveyor-belt of faces pass by and only a handful ever made me look twice,” he wrote. “This woman stopped the conveyor-belt. This woman smashed the conveyor-belt to bits. I’d never seen anyone so beautiful.”
He went on to describe Meghan as having “an energy about her, a wild joy and playfulness.”
“There was something in the way she smiles, the way she interacted with Violet, the way she gazed into the camera. Confident. Free,” Harry wrote. “She believed life was one grand adventure, I could see that. What a privilege it would be, I thought, to join her on that journey.”
Getting “all of that” from her “beautiful, angelic face,” Harry added seeing Meghan made him consider her face might be the “only one” for him.
Prince Harry texted Meghan Markle so much his ‘thumbs were cramping’
Harry then messaged von Westenholz about Meghan. In the process, he learned he’d been one of six others to ask. Later, after von Westenholz gave Meghan Harry’s Instagram handle, the then-Suits star messaged Harry.
“Hello!” Harry remembered Meghan saying. “She said she’d got my info from Violet. She complimented my Instagram page. Beautiful photographs.”
Eventually, the two exchanged phone numbers and continued talking via text for hours. “I couldn’t type fast enough. My thumbs were cramping,” Harry recalled. “There was so much to say, we had so much in common, though we came from such different worlds.”
“She was American, I was British,” he wrote, calling Meghan “well-educated” and himself “decidedly not.” “She was free as a bird, I was in a gilded cage. And yet none of these differences felt disqualifying or even important,” he continued. “On the contrary, they felt organic, energizing.”
Harry also made note of the timing. He and Meghan started their “marathon conversation” on July 1, 2016, the day Princess Diana would’ve turned 55. In between texts, Harry Googled Meghan before asking to meet in person.
Meghan, he recalled, rejected his suggestion to meet at Nott Cott. “Your place? On a first date! I don’t think so,” he remembered Meghan replying. So, at her suggestion, they decided on Soho House’s 76 Dean Street location.
Prince Harry worried Meghan Markle was going to leave because he’d been running late for their first date
While Meghan wondered if Harry routinely made women wait for him, the now-38-year-old thought his now-wife was going to leave before he even got there.
Harry “ran into every conceivable obstacle” on his way to the restaurant, thinking Meghan would leave.
“Red-cheeked, puffing, sweaty, half an hour late,” he arrived to find Meghan waiting. “I apologized. Profusely. I couldn’t imagine how many people had been late for this woman,” he wrote.
Upon seeing Meghan in person, Harry called her “heart-attack beautiful,” saying he found himself having trouble speaking.
