Unless you’ve been living under a rock—or have been relentlessly avoiding TMZ and The Daily Mail, which, how?!—you probably know that tomorrow is the Royal Wedding, between Prince Harry of Wales and Meghan Markle of Suits.
But, if you’re like me, that’s more or less where your knowledge of the whole grand affair ends. Who cares if Prince George and Princess Charlotte have “big roles” in the wedding? So what if Meghan’s dad has been coyly staging paparazzi photos of himself at internet cafés, looking up photos of his daughter and the Prince? Is Harry the ginger one or the balding one? These are the kinds of questions the answers to which I have not sought out.
Until last night. I admit, I was curious. How was it even that a bona fide Prince met a beautiful and distinguished, yet only minor, American television actress? I had to know. Or, I didn’t have to know. I just sort of kind of wanted to. And instead of turning to the news like a normal person, I decided I’d get my facts straight from a source: Lifetime’s latest scripted feature film, Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance.
Certainly, I was skeptical: as a serious journalist, could I really trust a network responsible for such gems as A Very Cool Christmas to deliver me an unvarnished account of Harry and Meghan’s love story? Also, wasn’t this whole thing kind of a hat-on-a-hat? Leave it to Lifetime to make a Lifetime movie based on a media story that is already pretty much a Lifetime movie.
Concerns aside, after a few glasses of wine, fiction blurred into fact, and Parisa Fitz-Henley blurred into Meghan Markle. So this is how it actually went down, huh, I thought to myself, as Harry and Meghan bonded over “that time Morgan Freeman did that poem.”
Herewith, the most definitely true facts about the royal romance I gleaned from A Royal Romance.
In 1997, a young Prince Harry stared down a roaring lion in Botswana, and was only mildly afraid.
Turns out, this lion was actually his mother, Princess Diana, not in a big lion suit playing a practical joke, but, like, her soul had left her body and found a lion, which then found Harry. Or something. It's a frickin' thematic device, alright?
Meghan Markle knows the name of the show she stars in.
It's Toronto, 2016. Meghan is on set. She has a complaint about the next scene, where, for no reason at all, her character is supposed to be wearing nothing but a towel. A bit gratuitous, no? She asks the director, suggesting something else she wear instead. "How about a suit? It's the name of the show." Wow!
Prince Harry has a surprisingly small bedroom.
Not to mention, a framed picture of a helicopter photo he found on Getty Images.
The only quality Meghan Markle cares about in a man is whether or not he's nice.
Somehow, Meghan Markle's assistant on Suits is friends with Prince Harry—either that, or Harry has a mole at every television show in America, on the prowl for potential mates. Meghan Markle told this assistant that she's going to London, and said assistant offered to set her up with a guy she knew there.
"He's rich, well-connected and, unlike his older brother, he still has hair," the assistant said.
"I don't care about any of that," Meghan Markle responded. "Just tell me one thing: is he nice?"
On their first date, in London, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry bonded over "that time Morgan Freeman did that poem."
Then Harry recited the poem, "Invictus," by Nelson Mandela, and they almost made out. Wow, turns out he IS nice.
Harry "Botswana'd" Meghan Markle on their second date. Below was Princess Charlotte's stunned reaction to that news:
Apparently, Prince Harry has this move where he takes chicks he likes to Botswana, and he's used this move so much that his brother, Prince William, uses the phrase "Botswana'd her" like it's a colloquialism we should all know. This is why people hate the elites.
The way Meghan Markle and Prince Harry first had sex was she disrobed in front of a luxurious tent in the middle of Botswana and asked, "You joining me?" And then they had sex.
Totally buy this.
Meghan Markle is extremely close with the hairdressers on the set of the USA Network television program, Suits. 
She gets back from Botswana, and her haidresser, Neil, is doing her hair, and she just casually spills the beans about who she's been going out with—i.e., Prince Harry—to Neil! Fucking Neil! It's like not even your best girl friends in the entire world know, but you're telling Neil?!?!
The members of Soho House Toronto are a bunch of royal-hating goons.
Prince Harry surprised Meghan Markle in Toronto, and she took him to a Halloween party at Soho House Toronto, where this bozo at the bar recognized him and started giving him shit about whether or not he actually flew the apaches during his time in the military. How did he even know this? Why did he even care? What would prompt a fuckwad in a pirate costume to say to Prince Harry, "Your Grandma can kiss my ass"?
The only conclusion is that the members of Soho House Toronto are a bunch of crown-hating goons.
There's a person in Harry's inner circle named Annabella who has no fucking clue what the hora is.
In reference to Meghan Markle's wedding to her first husband, she simply calls it "the Jewish chair dance."
Prince George is charming AF.
The first thing George said upon meeting Meghan Markle is that she's pretty. Spoken like a kid after his uncle's own heart.
Meghan Markle once stopped Prince Harry on the tarmac at an airport in Toronto in order to profess her love for him and make out a bunch.
This is visual proof.
I'm sorry but someone has to say it: Princess Camilla fucks.
Upon first meeting Meghan Markle, at the wedding of Kate Middleton's sister, Harry ventured off to get Meghan Markle her usual drink: a dirty martini. To which Camilla said, "I love a dirty martini," and slyly winked. The sexual innuendo itself is unclear; the fact that she was making one is not.
God save the Queen.
All photos courtesy of Lifetime.
