Meghan and Harry: from fairytale wedding to LA lifestyle

Their fairytale wedding was watched around the world, raising hopes of a new chapter in the royal family, reflecting a more diverse, modern Britain.

But after the dream turned sour and they quit last year, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan are now building a very different life. In Sunday’s CBS interview, the couple wore jeans to feed the hens they keep at their California home, and were seen playing with young son Archie on the beach. It’s a far cry from Harry’s previous regimented life and the formal duties Meghan was expected to embrace after their marriage in 2018.

Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales was born in 1984 into a life of unimaginable privilege, the youngest of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles’ two sons. His mother, princess Diana, died when he was 12. While at Eton, an elite boarding school, he failed to excel and was considered a loose cannon.

A photo that emerged of him in 2005 wearing Nazi uniform at a fancy dress party did little to help his image. He told Oprah Winfrey that losing his mother so young had "quite a serious effect on not only my personal life but also my work as well". Like older brother William, he joined the military, serving as an army captain in Afghanistan.

He called his time in uniform "the best escape I’ve ever had". Afterwards he took on more public roles, launching the Invictus Games for wounded soldiers and veterans and publicising mental health issues.

Meghan, born in Los Angeles in 1981 to a black social worker mother and a white lighting director father, could not have had a more different upbringing.

Her mother, Dora Ragland, and father, Thomas Markle, split when she was two. Meghan attended a private Catholic school, then studied theatre and international relations at university. She married film producer Trevor Engelson in 2011 -- the same year she got her breakthrough role in a Canadian legal drama, "Suits".

They divorced two years later. Harry and Meghan met in 2016 on a blind date. She said she did not know much about the royal family. Harry said he had never seen "Suits". But he told James Corden in a recent interview that he soon realised they had something "pretty special".

The couple soon went public, first at the Invictus Games in September 2017. Her beauty and style made an impact but some media openly questioned whether she was royal marriage material because of her mixed-race heritage and status as a divorce.

Yet, millions around the world were captivated by their unconventional royal wedding at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018. It included a gospel choir and a sermon by black US Bishop Michael Curry.

But her estranged father did not attend. Prince Charles led her down the aisle instead. It emerged from the Winfrey interview that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby married the couple three days earlier at a private ceremony.

Royal life seemed to go smoothly at first, with Meghan drawing cheering crowds and beaming with Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. But there were signs of trouble ahead, rumours of disquiet among staff, resignations, tears and tantrums, as well as unfavourable media comparisons with William’s wife, Kate.

William and Harry -- close since their mother’s death -- moved to separate their households and staff. Meghan’s father leaked a letter where she expressed sadness at the breakdown in their relationship.

Meghan was criticised in the press for not wearing tights, sitting the "wrong" way, eating avocados, cradling her pregnant stomach, or shunning the traditional post-birth royal photocall. The couple even issued a statement condemning what they saw as racist coverage, in the start of a battle with the media that has seen some sued, and others frozen out.