How did Prince Harry and Meghan Markle meet?
Couple went on a blind date in 2016
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In February, Prince Harry gave a rare interview to US TV host James Corden, in which he recalled the early stages of dating Meghan, telling Corden: “We got to spend an enormous amount of time just the two of us.”
Harry continued: “There were no distractions, and that was great, it was an amazing thing. We went from zero to 60 in the first two months.”
Read more: Follow live updates on Oprah’s interview with Harry and Meghan
The 36-year-old went on to say that he knew things were going to be serious with Meghan early on.
“The second date I was starting to think wow this is pretty special,” he told Corden.
But how did the couple meet? And how long did they manage to date under the radar, before the media found out? Here’s everything you need to know.
How did Prince Harry and Meghan Markle meet?
Harry and Meghan were introduced by a mutual friend, a detail that Harry first revealed during the couple’s first sit-down interview with the BBC following their engagement announcement in 2017.
Since then, it has been speculated that the person to introduce the duo to one another was Ralph Lauren public relations director Violet von Westenholz.
The couple are said to have gone on their first date in July 2016 at Soho House on Dean Street in London.
“I was beautifully surprised when I walked into that room and saw her,” Harry said of their first meeting in the BBC interview.
“I was like, Okay, well, I’m really gonna have to up my game!”
Meghan explained that, upon hearing she was being set up with Prince Harry, she simply asked the mutual friend: “Is he nice?”
“I didn’t know much about him, and so the only thing that I had asked her when she said that she wanted to set us up, was, I had one question. I said, ‘Well is he nice?’” she recalled.
Meghan went on to say that if he “wasn’t kind”, then “it didn’t seem like it would make sense”.
She continued: “So, we went and met for a drink, and then I think very quickly into that we said, ‘Well what are we doing tomorrow? We should meet again.’”
The couple then went on a second date the following evening.
How did their relationship progress?
Just a few weeks after their first meeting, Harry and Meghan went away together to Botswana. The trip is thought to have taken their relationship to the next level.
As Harry explained in the BBC interview: “It was I think about three, maybe four weeks later that I managed to persuade her to come and join me in Botswana,” he said.
“The couple camped together for five days. “So then we were really by ourselves,” Harry added. “Which I think, which was crucial to me to make sure we had a chance to get to know each other.”
The couple got engaged a little over a year later. And the rest, so to speak, is history.
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