Duchess of Sussex: Joining the Royal family was nothing like The Princess Diaries

Joining the Royal family is nothing like the film The Princess Diaries, the Duchess of Sussex has said, as she complained that she was not offered lessons in etiquette.

Despite being an actress used to red carpet appearances, Meghan tells Netflix viewers that she was not taught how to dress or curtsey, and Prince Harry says it was "ridiculous" that she was not given help with her wardrobe.

In the third episode of the six-part series Harry & Meghan, the Duchess describes her experience of becoming a member of the Royal family, and expands on previous accusations that she was not given enough help.

"I needed to learn a lot, including the National Anthem," she says, adding that she ended up learning it by looking it up on Google.

The Duchess says: "Joining this family, I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done, and, do you remember that old movie Princess Diaries with Anne Hathaway? There’s no class and some person who goes 'sit like this, cross your legs like this, use this fork, don’t do this, curtsey then, wear this kind of hat', - doesn’t happen."

In the 2001 Disney film, Hathaway, a gawky American teenager, discovers she is heir to the throne of a European country, and is taught how to be a princess by her estranged grandmother and the reigning queen, played by Julie Andrews.

Meghan says she had no idea what a royal walkabout was, and Prince Harry complains that his wife-to-be was given no advice on how a female member of the Royal family was expected to dress for such an occasion.

"I never saw pictures or videos of a walkabout, [I was] like, what’s a walkabout?," Meghan says.

Prince Harry tells viewers: "I could talk her through as much as I knew, but the piece I really didn’t know about was the style, how a woman needed to dress."

Describing the couple’s first walkabout in Nottingham in December 2017, Meghan says on the morning of the event she was asking: "Shall I wear these earrings? These are a British designer, I just ordered these online, wait, is this good? cut my [price] tag [off]..."

Prince Harry interjects: "And then the zip breaks, and it's like, 'ohhh!'"

"OK, do we have a safety pin?" Meghan continues, before Prince Harry moans: "I mean the whole thing was just ridiculous."

Later in the episode the Duchess is shown getting ready for an event after the couple have moved to America, with four people helping her into a dress.

She says that when she joined the Royal family she wore muted tones of white, beige and camel so she would not stand out.

"I’m not trying to stand out here. There is no version of me joining this family and trying to not do everything I could to fit in. I don’t want to embarrass the family," she said.

She is also asked if she had to learn how to wave, and says: "I guess you don’t want to wave like an American. Everything is just smaller."

The episode opens with the couple’s 2017 official engagement interview, conducted by the BBC's Mishal Husain, in which Meghan describes how the Royal family had been "so welcoming".

But she now describes the interview as an "orchestrated reality show", adding: "We weren't allowed to tell our story because they didn't want..."

Husain has hit back by borrowing a phrase from the late Queen when she responded to previous accusations made by the couple, saying: "We know recollections may vary on this particular subject but my recollection is definitely very much, asked to do an interview, and do said interview."