Finding Freedom

by Omid Scobie

  While in Washington, Harry also visited Walter Reed National Medical Center to observe the groundbreaking work of the medical teams aiding many of the most severely injured veterans, including those missing limbs and suffering from TBIs (traumatic brain injuries).

  Harry then traveled to Colorado Springs to participate in and lend the Royal Foundation’s support to the Warrior Games, a competition for service members organized by the US Department of Defense, which became the inspiration for his Invictus Games. By the time Harry left the States, his goal to honor his fellow soldiers had crystallized into a specific plan to, as Harry put it, “steal” the concept of the Warrior Games for wounded, sick, and injured service members and bring them to London. It was a daunting task, but Harry was filled with a sense of renewed purpose having found his calling. The Invictus Games and the Invictus Games Foundation were born.

  William and Harry long had strong ties to the military community not just through their own service but also in their charitable efforts. In 2012, their Royal Foundation created the Endeavour Fund to inspire wounded servicemen and women to pursue physical challenges that supported their recovery. The brothers had also made public and private visits to Headley Court, the UK Department of Defence’s medical rehabilitation center, to meet with soldiers learning to live with new prosthetic limbs after being injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  In September 2014, Harry hosted the first Invictus Games. Aside from his two tours of duty, it was arguably his most important military legacy to date. The Paralympic-style event, in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, brought 400 competitors from 13 nations around the world to compete in twelve different adaptive sports. There was everything from wheelchair basketball to archery to wheelchair rugby, which was so fierce it was jokingly referred to as “murder ball.” The Games were a chance for people who had suffered from the traumas of war, both visible and invisible, to proudly represent their countries in a new and powerful way.

  Harry’s compassion often drew comparisons between him and his late mother. Whether cheering on a competitor struggling to finish a wheelchair race or offering words of encouragement to swimmers missing limbs hoisting themselves onto swimming blocks before a race, Harry appeared very much his mother’s son, the People’s Prince. The association with Diana has never been a burden on Harry; it drove him.

  In 2016, Prince Harry redoubled his efforts for the second tournament in Orlando, Florida. During a busy spring promoting Invictus, Harry turned to the president of the United States and Mrs. Obama to help drum up interest in their country for the Games.

  In April 2016, the Obamas made their last visit to the UK before the end of the president’s second term. They enjoyed lunch at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen’s ninetieth birthday and later made a private visit to Kensington Palace for an informal supper with William, Kate, and Harry. A week after their visit, the president and First Lady responded to a challenge Harry made to American athletes via Twitter to “bring it” at the Invictus Games.

  “Hey, Prince Harry,” Mrs. Obama said in the video. “Remember when you told us to bring it at the Invictus Games?”

  Laughing next to her, the president said, “Careful what you wish for!”

  “Boom!” a serviceman added as the coda.

  Oh, it was on.

  “Mrs. Obama came to us with the challenge and I genuinely, I didn’t know what to do. She dragged her husband into it, who happens to be the president,” he said. “Who can you call to top the president?”

  There was only one answer: his grandmother.

  “I didn’t want to have to ask the Queen because I didn’t want to back her into a corner,” admitted Harry, ever the gentleman. “But when I showed her the video and I told her, she said, ‘Right. What do we need to do? Let’s do this.’ ”

  And when Queen Elizabeth II says, “Let’s do this,” you do it.

  In their reply, Harry is seen showing his grandmother the Obamas’ challenge. The Queen, who has a wicked sense of humor, simply responds, “Oh, really. Please.” On cue, Harry looks at the camera, dryly smirking, and then: “Boom.”

  The video instantly went viral—and all in service of the Invictus Games in Orlando, where Mrs. Obama appeared at Harry’s side for the opening ceremonies.

  The 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto posed a whole new kind of challenge with Meghan’s introduction as the prince’s girlfriend.

  Rather than Harry and Meghan basing themselves at her home for the event, Harry’s protection officers insisted that the couple stay at a hotel where it would be easier to provide protection and privacy (including hiding the fact that Meghan’s mother, Doria, had also secretly flown in to join them for the Games).

  Harry and Meghan shared the Royal Suite at the Royal York Fairmont, where not only the Queen and Prince Philip but also Harry’s great-grandparents King George and the Queen Mother once stayed. Downstairs in the wood-paneled, marble-floored lobby, a portrait of his grandmother hung proudly. Hardly inconvenienced, the couple had a floor to themselves, except for Harry’s protection officers and staff, as well as Meghan’s mother. Doria had a suite on the same floor to allow the three to spend some quality time together. It was her first time seeing couple since they got engaged and there was much to celebrate.

  Although Harry had more than a full schedule hosting the Games, he still took time to visit the set of Suits to see Meghan’s workplace, since it was unclear if he would ever have another chance.

  For obvious reasons, things hadn’t been the same on set since Meghan started dating Harry. In the early months, Meghan whispered to some of her coworkers that the new boyfriend she’d been flying off to see was actually the prince and began speaking about their time together in code, once mentioning offhandedly to her on-screen dad, Wendell Pierce, that she had just arrived in from London. As of late, though, she had felt the need to pull back and act more reserved around the people she’d known for the better part of the decade.

  That hadn’t been easy for everyone. While Meghan was invited to her costar and friend Patrick J. Adams’s December 10 wedding to the actress Troian Bellisario—a whimsical weekend-long affair that saw guests sleeping in tents and attending a ceremony in the woods of Santa Barbara—she decided in the end that it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to attend. Paparazzi flying over the ceremony in helicopters to take pictures of her would have ruined the day for everyone.

  Meghan, who had her name excised from shoot schedules to avoid any paparazzi getting word of her location, also began showing up to set with discreet bodyguards. On top of that, crew members she’d toiled alongside for some seven years were issued stern warnings by production not to provide any information about Meghan to reporters and informed that should they disobey, they risked losing their jobs.

  While it was hard not to take offense, the team also understood why such precautions were necessary.

  “It did make things awkward at the beginning, and there was certainly a little jealousy from some people when she suddenly became the jewel in the crown of the show,” a Suits crew member said. “But to most of us she was still the same old Meghan, who would bring fun snacks to set to share or hang around after filming to chat with fans outside the studio.”

  Perhaps that was why, one afternoon before the Games began, castmates and crew were so gracious when the prince slipped into the closed set in the North York section of Toronto to meet the people who had helped keep a secret for the past year.

  “He came in quietly, and a lot of people didn’t even know he came until after the visit,” a production staffer said. “He kept saying how proud he was of Meghan, but he also just seemed curious to see how it all works. He wanted to see the props department, and Meghan was more than happy to take him on a little tour with some of her close friends from the show.”

  The day before the Invictus Games’ opening ceremonies, however, Harry had a packed schedule of official duties. His first stop was Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, which Pri
ncess Diana had visited twenty-six year earlier. He met with medical personnel to discuss post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and “invisible injuries” such as mental illness, which veterans, including himself, often struggled with when they returned from service. Harry also held meetings with the new First Lady, Melania Trump, who led the US delegation to the Invictus Games, and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

  Before the opening ceremonies, Harry did a walkthrough with aides, familiarizing himself with the facilities and practicing his speech on the teleprompter. While this was his third Invictus Games, tonight was special, as his love would be in the stands, making her first appearance at an official royal engagement.

  As Harry prepped for his speech that night, Meghan was figuring out the right look for her public debut with Jessica, who had traveled to the hotel through its underground entrance with numerous dresses for consideration. The good friends knew that every photographer in the Pan Am Sports Centre that night would have his or her lens trained on Meghan. The pressure was on.

  As with Kate before her, women around the world looking for style inspiration were turning to Meghan. The “Meghan Effect” was in full swing. That afternoon, she looked at several outfits with Jessica before settling on a burgundy Aritzia midi dress with chiffon pleats and a Mackage leather biker jacket draped over her shoulders. It ticked the right boxes—not too dressy, not too dressed down.

  Finally ready, Meghan left for the stadium. Her plus one for the evening was her good friend, Markus. It was only fitting that the man who had introduced her to many of her friends in Toronto, and helped organize some of those early dates with the prince would be on hand to witness such a special evening. Like Jessica, he was one of the few people to know the couple’s big secret.

  At the ceremony, Harry was seated with the other international dignitaries. But he snuck glances at his wife-to-be, who sat just eighteen seats away from him. (It would have been considered a breach of royal protocol for Meghan to join Harry while he was seated next to Melania Trump and Justin Trudeau.)

  As the Games continued for the next day and a half, the royal correspondents assembled there were beginning to wonder if the couple would actually make their public debut.

  Kensington Palace routinely communicates with the same group of approximately twenty reporters who cover the royal family about upcoming events. Much like the White House press corps, it’s a close but essential relationship. When William and Harry play polo for their charitable interest, it’s the Palace that will often guide the “pack” so the obligatory photos and information can be taken from a safe distance without any violation of privacy. There is a pool of print reporters, television correspondents, and photographers who rotate so that each event is covered by one person from each medium (filing back to other members of what’s called the “royal rota”). Naturally, everyone wants to be there for the magic moments—births, weddings, engagements, and, in this case, Harry and Meghan’s carefully choreographed coming out.

  But this time was different. Harry had instructed staff not to provide information to the press about Meghan’s appearance during the Invictus Games as he didn’t want a media circus to take away from the athletic competitions. To Harry, detracting from the stories that mattered the most was a no-no. He would sometimes even instruct aides not to put his name before others on press releases, “Because it’s not about me. It’s about them.”

  Still, the buildup to their big moment had been mounting since the opening ceremonies, and rumors went into overdrive when a somewhat agitated Ed Lane Fox breezed into the wheelchair tennis arena instructing officials to prepare two seats courtside. Was this the moment? If so, many of the royal photographers who followed Harry weren’t present at the tennis match. Only a few British reporters were even in the vicinity.

  At 1:45 p.m. on September 25, Rhiannon Mills from Sky News, one of Britain’s biggest news outlets, received a call from Jason.

  “Rhiannon,” Harry’s private secretary said, “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are going to make an appearance in ten minutes.”

  She was the only UK television journalist who had a crew near the tennis venue, but there was still barely enough time to get her crew in place and ready for what was arguably one of the biggest royal stories of the year.

  At 1:55 p.m., in sweltering eighty-six-degree heat, flanked by two protection officers and trailed by Jason, Harry and Meghan made their entrance, fingers intertwined, toward the tennis courts. With Harry’s aides meticulously planning their top secret entrance down to the most minute detail, the couples’ public coming out, designed to appear low-key, was anything but.

  Meghan was dressed casually in a pair of ripped MOTHER Denim jeans, Sarah Flint flats, a bag by Everlane, and, in a cheeky nod to their secret, a white pearl button-down blouse called “the husband shirt” designed by Misha. (Unsurprisingly, the $185 shirt from Misha’s collection instantly sold out, and the outfit quickly became a trending topic online.)

  Meghan gazed adoringly at her fiancée as they made their way to their seats, where they sat among the Aussie and New Zealand families cheering on the players. The couple were at ease as the cameras captured every move, from Meghan stroking Harry’s arm to his putting a protective one around her.

  Kylie Lawler, whose husband, Sean, was competing for the Australian team, joked that her spouse probably would never forgive her, because, seated next to Harry and Meghan, she said, “I missed half the match.

  “She was excited . . . and lovely,” Kylie said. “They seemed really relaxed as a couple.”

  Kylie had in fact learned about the couple’s attendance before the press. Informed by a protection officer a half hour before the couple’s appearance, she told her son to go change his shirt, since he was going to sit next to “a future princess.”

  Harry tried to make time for every veteran and every family member who stopped to thank him. He was gracious about taking photos with the teams. However, after a long day as the focal point of a major sports event, he had no interest in going to a restaurant that night to have people interrupt or stare. At the Invictus Games a year earlier in Orlando, he had spent much of his downtime in the privacy of his hotel rather than venturing out to the city’s restaurants and clubs. At this stage of his life, Harry had grown to prefer a night in with close friends, where he could be himself.

  So he was looking forward to an intimate dinner at the Mulroneys’ home with Justin and Sophie Trudeau as well. But just as Harry and Meghan were preparing to leave the hotel, they got a call about paparazzi staking out Ben and Jessica’s house. Local photographers had started to gamble on watching the Upper Canada property in case the couple paid a visit. The dinner was called off.

  At least the closing ceremonies were a celebration. Doria and Meghan joined Markus and Jessica in Harry’s skybox, where, after the prince delivered a speech, he joined them. He was spotted by photographers tenderly kissing the woman who had captured his heart and listening intently to his future mother-in-law, who later danced in the private box as Bruce Springsteen brought the audience to their feet.

  By welcoming Doria at an official royal engagement so publicly, particularly after all the ugly, racist commentary, Harry was consciously showing the world that this was what his future family would look like.

  As if the importance of Meghan in Harry’s life needed any more reinforcement, when Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Joe’s wife, Jill, attended the last day of the Invictus Games, the former president asked after the prince’s lady love.

  Hayley Stover, an eighteen-year-old student from Toronto who sat next to the prince at the wheelchair basketball game he attended with President Obama, overheard the former president letting Harry know that Meghan had watched the tennis matches with him.

  “Harry was really smiling when he said it,” Hayley said. “He looked really happy. It was cute.”

  President Obama wanted to know how things were going with Meghan’s work, and Harry asked how the First Lady was
doing. It was just an ordinary conversation between two men talking about their lives.

  Before they parted, Harry added, “Send my love to Michelle.”

  10

  Farewell Toronto

  Meghan was feeling a little emotional as she looked around the boxed-up living room of her Toronto home. With endless late nights on the Suits set and so many farewells, it took more than three weeks to pack her life into the boxes that now surrounded her in early November 2017. A moving team had just left, marking furniture with different labels for overseas shipping or storage, and sheets were wrapped around her white cotton sofas, leaving nowhere left to sit.

  With all the packing and changes in routine, her two beloved rescue pups, Bogart and Guy, were currently staying with a friend. Due to Bogs’s old age, Meghan was warned that flying seven hours to the UK with him could be dangerous and so he would have to stay behind in Canada with a close friend. (Three years on—and a few visits from his original owner later—and he is still “a very happy dog,” a pal shared.) The cozy corner where they slept every night was now empty. The house felt eerily quiet.

  Some of her best memories from living in Toronto were made in that space—Thanksgiving dinners with her costars, giggling into the early hours over rosé with girlfriends on warm summer nights, preparing al fresco dinners for Harry when they didn’t want to venture out.

  But now she’d hosted her last dinner party and marked her final day on the set of Suits, where, as her costar and pal Sarah Rafferty had pointed out, they’d all logged more time together than they had with any friends from high school or college.

  Although the news was not yet public, Meghan was exiting the long-running legal drama at the end of the season. Her costar Patrick later told The Hollywood Reporter that while a lot had gone “unsaid” with Meghan at the end of their run, they left on good terms.