It’s been nearly one year since Meghan Markle and Prince Harry exchanged vows in their highly anticipated royal wedding at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, and what a year it’s been. In celebration of the Duke and the Duchess of Sussex’s first year as a married couple, CBS anchor Gayle King sat down with the high-profile pair’s inner circle to look back at this eventful year—not least of all the arrival of their newborn son Archie—for a TV special set to air Friday, May 17.
The former Suits star’s longtime friend and makeup artist Daniel Martin shed some new insight on the couple’s dynamic and how they were both made to be parents.
“When they were doing the family portrait after the wedding with everybody, he was on the floor playing with the kids,” Martin told King. “And that’s when I knew he was going to be the coolest dad… Their child is going to represent what the world is now. It’s the dawn of a new generation.”
The portrait session took place in Windsor Castle, where the couple exchanged vows at St. George’s Chapel. Royal wedding photographer Alexi Lubomirski previously explained the backstory behind some of the imagery, including how he had only 25 minutes to capture six images of the entire British Royal Family.
(Credit: Alexi Lubomirski / Handout)
Harry and Meghan recently returned to Windsor to make Frogmore Cottage their full-time home. Like Harry, the Duchess of Sussex is also exceptional with children. “Meghan and I have talked about her being a mother for over a decade,” Markle’s longtime friend and actress Janina Gavankar said. “She’s always wanted to be a mom.”
However, the sweetness is balanced with public scrutiny and assumption, much of which her friends have been trying to dispel since Markle first entered the family. “What’s so frustrating is that you hear these stories and there’s no truth to them,” Martin told King. “It’s not the same person. In the years I’ve known her, the years I’ve worked with her, she’s never had a diva fit, never. I know she doesn’t deserve all of this negative press.”
“She doesn’t read the bad or the good because she knows the metrics that you have for your own life cannot be based on a headline that somebody else wrote,” Gavankar noted.
At CBS’s Upfront presentation in NYC Wednesday, King told Entertainment Tonight that she learned a lot from sitting down the royals for a candid conversation, all of it positive.
“I learned [that] they’re two people in love, we all knew that,” she said. “But they have a baby coming in the first year and I think everybody loves a good love story. Meghan’s had some knocks in the media in the U.K., that’s certainly not the case here. So we’re going to hear from her friends who know her well, who were at her wedding. They’re not trying to defend her, but they just want people to know that there’s a whole different side to her that people don’t know.”
Meghan and Harry Plus One will air Friday, May 17, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. Secure your ideal wedding vision by starting with The Knot’s Style Quiz, here.