While feeding their rescue chickens at their Montecito, California, home, Markle, 39, told Winfrey that Archbishop Canterbury married her and Harry, 36 in their backyard, and that experiences like that were important to the couple to be able to “live authentically.” She said of her royal wedding, which was viewed by over 1 billion people, “It was like having an out-of-body experience I was present for.” She added that she slept through the night before their wedding, possibly because she had already legally tied the knot. She said of the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony, “This wasn’t our day, it was a day that was planned for the world.” In her first sitdown interview since her engagement to Harry in 2017, Markle admitted it was a relief to finally be able to speak her truth now that she is no longer a working royal. “We’re on the other side of a lot of life experience that’s happened and we have the ability to make our choices,” she said, adding that while she was a royal she wasn’t permitted to do press without authorization from the Palace. “As an adult who lived a really independent life to then go into this construct that is, um, different than what I think people imagine it to be, it’s really liberating to have the right and the privilege in some ways to be able to say, ‘Yes, I’m ready to talk’ … to be able to make a choice on your own and just speak for yourself.” The spectacle of the wedding wasn’t necessarily what they wanted, and the media frenzy was a preview of what was to come. “Everyone in my world was given clear directive since Harry and I started dating to always say ’no comment,’” Meghan said, adding that she was told that she would be protected. “It was only once we were married and everything sort of started to worsen that I realized I wasn’t being protected, but that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family but not tell the truth to protect me and my husband.” Next, find out everything there is to know about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Netflix partnership.
