Since leaving the royal family in 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made explosive revelations about their life and experiences. But some of their supposed ‘truths’ have been called into question, including this week when a new royal biography claimed their insistence that the late Queen was delighted they’d called their daughter Lilibet was, in fact, a lie.

In June 2021, Harry, 39, and Meghan, 42, announced their daughter’s birth and said in a statement that she was named after the Queen, whose childhood nickname was Lilibet. However, royal writer Robert Hardman has said the late Queen was “as angry as I’d ever seen her” after the couple stated she had been “supportive” of the name.

The book, Charles III: New King, New Court, reads, “One [member of palace staff] privately recalled that Elizabeth II had been ‘as angry as I’d ever seen her’ in 2021 after the Sussexes announced that she had given them her blessing to call their baby daughter ‘Lilibet’, the queen’s childhood nickname.”

But it’s not the first time the couple have had their claims challenged…

When the biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family was released in 2020, it revealed insight into the couple’s life, such as Meghan giving a speech at her 2018 wedding to Harry.

Meghan had always claimed that she did not co-operate with the authors of the book, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand. But during Meghan’s privacy case against the Mail on Sunday in late 2021, the Appeal Court heard she had asked one of her key aides, Jason Knauf, who she knew was in touch with the book’s authors, to pass on “briefing notes” to the authors of a biography.

The Duchess of Sussex apologised to a court, claiming she “forgot” about emails sent by her and Harry regarding their unofficial biography.

In May 2023, Prince Harry, Meghan and her mother Doria Ragland were involved in a “near catastrophic” car chase after being followed by paparazzi for more than two hours, according to the couple’s spokesperson.

But the taxi driver who picked up the three of them up played down the incident. He said, “I don’t think I would call it a chase. I never felt like I was in danger.”

He added, “It wasn’t like a car chase in a movie. [Harry and Meghan] were quiet and seemed scared but it’s New York – it’s safe.”

Julian Phillips, the deputy commissioner of the New York Police Department, reinforced his view and said, “There were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests.”

During the 2022 Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, the Duchess told viewers she never wore colour as a royal. Meghan said, “Most of the time that I was in the UK, I rarely wore colour. There was thought in that. To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same colour as Her Majesty, if there’s a group event. But then you also should never be wearing the same colour as one of the other more senior members of the family.So I wore a lot of muted tones, but it also was so I could just blend in.”

However, images show her wearing bright colours throughout her time as a senior royal, including a bright yellow Brandon Maxwell dress to a Commonwealth youth event, a red coat and purple dress at a 2019 outing, another purple dress at the One Young World Summit opening ceremony in London and a green embellished coat and dress at the 2019 Commonwealth Day.

Meghan told US chat show host Oprah Winfrey that her passport, keys and drivers’ license were taken away from her by palace officials, until she and Harry stepped down from royal duties and moved to the US.

She revealed, “When I joined that family, that was the last time – until we came here – that I saw my passport, my driver’s license, my keys. All that gets turned over. I didn’t see any of that anymore.”

In February 2019, Meghan flew to New York to host her baby shower with 15 guests including Serena Williams and Amal Clooney. During her time as a royal, she also travelled to Toronto solo and her and Harry jetted off on 13 holidays together, including Ibiza, Nice and Amsterdam.

In May 2023, Prince Harry, Meghan and her mother Doria Ragland were involved in a “near catastrophic” car chase after being followed by paparazzi for more than two hours, according to the couple’s spokesperson.

But the taxi driver who picked up the three of them up played down the incident. He said, “I don’t think I would call it a chase. I never felt like I was in danger.”

He added, “It wasn’t like a car chase in a movie. [Harry and Meghan] were quiet and seemed scared but it’s New York – it’s safe.”

Julian Phillips, the deputy commissioner of the New York Police Department, reinforced his view and said, “There were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests.”

Meghan also claimed she and Harry had their own secret wedding with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby before the world watched them say ‘I do’ at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle in May 2018.

“Three days before our wedding we got married. We called the archbishop, and we just said, ‘Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us,” she said.

“The vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury,” she told Oprah. Both Harry and Meghan said it was “just the three of us”.

However, Justin Welby confirmed he did not marry them before the ceremony at St George’s.
“The legal wedding was on the Saturday. I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offence if I signed it knowing it was false,” he said.

In Harry’s 2022 explosive memoir Spare, he claims that he was in school at Eton when he found out his great-grandmother, the Queen Mother, died in March 2002. But photos from the days leading up to Queen Elizabeth’s death and the day afterward showed that the prince was actually on a ski trip in Switzerland. He also claims Princess Diana had bought him an Xbox for his 13th birthday and it was given to him by his late mother’s sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, after the princess tragically died.
However, Xboxes did not exist until 2001 and they were not sold in England until a year later.

Another claim was that he offered to buy his wife Meghan Markle’s father, Thomas Markle, a first class ticket from Mexico to the UK on Air New Zealand.
“We told him, leave Mexico right now: A whole new level of harassment is about to rain down on you, so come to Britain. Now,” the duke wrote. “Air New Zealand, first class, booked and paid for by Meg.”

However, a spokesperson for Air New Zealand said the airline has “never operated flights” between Mexico and the UK and that they only offer Business Premier fares, not first class.

Meghan claimed she was told by a male South African cast member at the premiere of the Lion King in 2019 that her marriage to Prince Harry sparked celebrations similar to those when Nelson Mandela was freed from jail.

However, Dr John Kani – who played Rafiki and says he was the only male South African actor in the movie – has claimed she must be “misremembering” events. He explained that not only did he not meet the royal, he wasn’t even at the event.

“I have never met Meghan Markle. This seems like something of a faux pas by her,” he said.