Meghan Markle and Prince Harry weren’t really married 3 days before their wedding

Meghan Markle’s startling revelation to Oprah Winfrey that she and Prince Harry were secretly married three days before their extravagant royal wedding was contradicted by the couple’s legal marriage certificate, released by a British tabloid on Monday.

A representative for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex later confirmed to Daily Beast and NBC’s “Today” that there was in fact no legal early marriage but that “the couple exchanged personal vows within days before their official / legal marriage on May 19. “three years ago.

Markle told Winfrey in an interview broadcast on March 7 that she and her prince got married in the backyard of their home with the Archbishop of Canterbury apparently presiding over their wedding at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle .

“You know, three days before our wedding, we got married. Nobody knows, ”Markle said. “We called the Archbishop, and we just said, ‘Look, this thing, this show, is for the world. But we want our union between us. So the wishes we made in our bedroom are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Harry joked, “Just the three of us,” referring to the Archbishop, the Right Reverend Justin Welby.

Their backyard at the time was at Nottingham Cottage – their home then on the grounds of Kensington Palace.

But a copy of the couple’s marriage certificate obtained by The Sun reveals they were legally married on May 19, their public wedding day in Windsor.

The gap is significant because UK critics want to undermine the Sussexes interview, particularly the disturbing revelation that a member of the royal family has expressed ‘concerns’ about the color of their baby’s skin.

Former TV host Piers Morgan, a frequent critic of Markle, immediately jumped on the marriage question on Monday, asking in a tweet, “Should we still believe her?”

Reporters had previously cited sources as saying Markle was talking about private vows and not legal marriage, but this was far from clear in the interview.

The British press was immediately skeptical of the disclosure of the marriage after the interview because formal marriages require two witnesses, beyond “the two of us”.

Officials interviewed by British journalists first looked into the issue. An official said Markle was “confused”. Another source said the Archbishop of Canterbury “does not do private marriages,” adding: “Meghan is an American; she does not understand.”

But after The Sun got the marriage certificate, former bureau chief Stephen Borton told the newspaper: “I’m sorry, but Meghan is clearly confused and clearly misinformed. They did not get married three days earlier in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The “special license that I helped draft allowed them to get married at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor and what happened there on May 19, 2018, and [what] was seen by millions of people around the world was the official marriage recognized by the Church of England and the law, ”he added.

Borton said he suspected the couple exchanged a few “simple vows” in front of the Archbishop – or “more likely, it was just a rehearsal.” He said Nottingham Cottage is “not an authorized venue” for a royal wedding and furthermore they did not have enough witnesses.