How Exactly Did Prince Harry Meet Meghan Markle?

Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex's relationship with Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex has long piqued the interest of the public. Between their highly publicized royal wedding and their subsequent break from the royal family, the couple has given us plenty to talk about over the years. However, folks may still be curious about how this famous coupling came to be. While an American actor and a beloved prince coming together may have been a romance fit for a fairytale, it's still difficult to imagine just how these two found each other. As it turns out, while their love story has been anything but ordinary, Harry and Meghan met like any normal couple: on a blind date ... sort of.

So, how does someone manage to have a blind date with Prince Harry? Well, during the couple's engagement interview back in 2017, Meghan explained that when a mutual friend set them up in 2016, she wasn't as starstruck as others would have been. "Because I'm from the States, you don't grow up with the same understanding of the royal family and so while I now understand very clearly, there's a global interest there. I didn't know much about him," she explained.

Maybe that was to their advantage, as the two hit it off right off the bat. "[We] met for a drink, and then I think very quickly into that we said, 'Well what are we doing tomorrow? We should meet again,'" Meghan recalled. Interestingly, though, Harry did know a bit about Meghan before they first met.

It's clear that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's first date was one to remember, yet thanks to one surprising revelation from Netflix's 2022 docuseries "Harry & Meghan," we now know that Harry had a bit of a hand in organizing their first date. In the series' first episode, Harry recalled when he first laid eyes on Meghan. It wasn't actually on their first date; it was on Instagram. "I was scrolling through my feed and one of my friends ... had this video of the two of them, like a Snapchat," Harry explained, per People. "I was like 'who is THAT?!'" he added. It's worth noting that in the momentous video that caught her future hubby's attention, Meghan had the then-ultra-popular dog filter on. So, you could say it was puppy love at first sight. 

The mutual friend did what any good friend would do and told Meghan that Harry had expressed interest in her. Meghan who didn't know much about him, in turn, checked out his Instagram. "That, to me, was the best barometer," Meghan explained in the docuseries. "So I went through and it was just like beautiful photography and all these environmental shots, and this time he was spending in Africa," she said. In their engagement interview, Meghan explained that she did ask their friend for one important bit of intel, recalling, "I had one question. I said, 'Well is he nice?'" And, the rest is history.