This Is Why the Original Director of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix Docuseries Quit the Project

Marie Claire reported yesterday that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s docuseries on Netflix—their first offering with the streaming giant after signing a multi-million-dollar deal to produce content back in 2020—will drop next month. (!) The docuseries is directed by Liz Garbus, who has also directed 2012’s Love, Marilyn (about the late actress’ writings), 2015’s What Happened, Miss Simone? about the iconic singer, and 2020’s Ariana Grande concert film Excuse Me, I Love You. But Garbus wasn’t the docuseries’ original director—that was Garrett Bradley. As OK reports, “not long into the process, trouble started brewing.”

“Garrett wanted Harry and Meghan to film at home, and they were not comfortable doing that,” a source says. “There were a few sticky moments between them, and Garrett left the project. Harry and Meghan’s own production company captured as much footage as they could before Liz Garbus was hired.”

That is why, the outlet reports, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been spotted with two different film crews over the past several months. The Sun reports that the project cost 88 million pounds (!) to film, and, even though Bradley was replaced by Garbus, according to Meghan’s own words—speaking to Variety in a recent interview—there are creative differences there, as well.

“It’s nice to be able to trust someone with our story—a seasoned director whose work I’ve long admired—even if it means it may not be the way we would have told it,” Meghan said. “But that’s not why we’re telling it. We’re trusting our story to someone else, and that means it will go through their lens.”

After will-they-or-won’t-they rumors plagued the docuseries' release, it seems as though Netflix is all systems go to release the project next month, with a source saying “Netflix has been keen to have the show ready to stream for December. There’s a lot of pressure on [Netflix CEO] Ted Sarandos, who has the relationship with Harry and Meghan, to get this show finished.”