Everything Prince Harry Revealed About Archie, Meghan Markle, and Stepping Back From ‘Toxic’ Royal Life

From ELLE

Prince Harry is already opening up about his family life and decision to step back from his senior royal family role permanently—and the world didn't even have to wait until his March 7 interview with Oprah. Harry appeared on James Corden's famed Carpool Karaoke segment last night (rebranded to "An Afternoon with Prince Harry and James Corden," as singing wasn't the focus) where the two discussed a lot about Harry's largely-private California life now.

Harry spoke candidly about why he and his wife Meghan Markle stepped back from their senior working royal family roles a year ago. It was a mental health decision and to protect his family, above all. As he explained to Corden, “It was never walking away—it was stepping back rather than stepping down. It was a difficult environment, as I think as lot of people saw. We all know what the British press can be like, and it was destroying my mental health. I was like, 'This is toxic.' So I did what any husband and father would do—I was like, 'I need to get my family out of here.'”

“But we never walked away,” he stressed. “As far as I'm concerned, whatever decisions are made on that side, I will never walk away. I will always be contributing. My life is always going to be about public service. And Meghan signed up to that. The two of us enjoy doing that—trying to bring some compassion and trying to make people happy, and trying to change the world in whatever small way we can.”

Otherwise, Harry shared a lot about Meghan, their nearly two-year-old son Archie, and their life together. Hello! pulled together all his reveals about his family and life and Cali, but below are highlights about Meghan and Archie specifically.

• Harry's nickname for Meghan is "Meg." He called her this throughout the segment.

• The Queen gave Archie a waffle maker for Christmas. "Interestingly, my grandmother asked us what Archie wanted for Christmas and Meg said a waffle maker, she sent us a waffle maker for Archie...so breakfast now, Meg makes up a beautiful organic mix, in the waffle maker, flip it, out it comes, he loves it. Archie literally wakes up in the morning and says 'waffle.'"

• Archie is talking and full of personality now: "My son is now over a year and a half. He is hysterical; he's got the most amazing personality; he's already putting two, three words together; he's already singing songs." Soon enough he'll be on Carpool Karaoke.

• Archie's first word wasn't mama or dada: "His first word was 'crocodile', three syllables."

• Meghan's nickname for Harry is "Haz." While passing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air mansion on the tour, Corden FaceTimed Meghan. She asked her husband, "Haz, how's your tour of LA going?" When Corden expressed surprise at the nickname ("I didn't know we were calling you that "), Harry responded, "Well, you're not my wife."

• Harry started to realize Meghan was the one two dates in: "The second date, I was starting to think 'wow this is pretty special.' The way we hit it off with each other, we were just so comfortable in each other's company."

• Harry detailed what it's like dating a royal, telling Corden that he and Meghan weren't able to go on public dates until later in their relationship. "Dating with me, or with any member of the royal family I guess, is kind of flipped upside down. All the 'dates' become dinners, or watching the TV or chatting at home. And then eventually once you become a couple, then you venture out to dinners, or the cinema and everything else. So everything was done back to front with us. We got to spend an enormous amount of time just the two of us, rather than going to friends' houses or out for dinner where there were other distractions. There were no distractions, and that was an amazing thing. We went from zero to 60 in the first two months."

• Harry's typical night with Meghan is pretty much like everyone's else in quarantine: "Meg might cook a meal, we might order a takeaway, go upstairs, sit in bed, turn the TV on, watch some Jeopardy, maybe watch a little bit of Netflix."

Harry also shared his real opinion on The Crown. You can take all that and more in below:

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