Is it just me, or does it feel like Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have always been together? They're practically the same entity at this point: MeghanandHarry, all one word. But once upon a time, they were just two strangers going on a blind date, and Harry had a different leading lady in his life.
Harry and Meghan were set up on their first date by a friend in July 2016.
"We were introduced actually by a mutual friend," Harry explained in a BBC interview after their engagement announcement.
You'd think it'd be nerve-racking to go on a date with a literal prince, but Meghan says she asked the friend only one question: "Well is he nice?"
Obviously he was, because now they're happily married with children.
But Harry was actually dating someone else when he first met Meghan, says royal biographer Angela Levin. Angela wrote all about Harry's little-known ex in her book, Harry: Conversations With the Prince, per Cosmopolitan.
Meghan and Harry opened up about their love story in an interview with the BBC after they announced their engagement.
They revealed that they were set up on a blind date by a mutual (anonymous) friend.
Meghan wasn't sure what to expect when it came to her date with Prince Harry.
"Because I’m from the States, you don’t grow up with the same understanding of the royal family," she said.
"I didn’t know much about him, so the only thing that I had asked [our mutual friend] when she said that she wanted to set us up, was, 'Well is he nice?' Cause if he wasn't kind, it just didn’t seem like it would make sense," she explained.
What the couple didn't mention in the interview, though, is that Harry was actually seeing someone else at the time. (Casually, though — he didn't cheat on anyone with Meghan!)
According to royal biographer Angela Levin, Harry was dating a woman named Sarah Ann Macklin.
Who is Sarah? Per her website, she is a model who has appeared in Vogue and now works as a registered nutritionist. She lives in London.
Angela explains that Harry and Sarah Ann met at a private party and hit it off. They exchanged numbers and went on a few dates in 2016.
Their relationship never evolved into anything serious, though.
"It turned out to be just a fling," Angela wrote.
They weren't exclusive, which is why Harry was fully free to say yes to a blind date with Meghan. And thank goodness he did, or we would never have gotten to meet baby Archie!
Who knows? Maybe we'll find out Meghan was also seeing someone casually just before she met the love of her life. She was previously married to director/producer Trevor Engelson.
Harry has also been linked to other women from his pre-Meghan days. He used to be quite the partyer — remember that Harry?!
There was Chelsy Davy, a businesswoman from Zimbabwe. They dated for years, from 2004 until 2011.
And there was Cressida Bonas, another model from England. They dated from 2012 to 2014, and they are apparently still on good terms, as she attended Harry's wedding to Meghan.
Rumors say that Cressida left Harry after she was "spooked" by the intense coverage of Prince William and Kate Middleton's first royal tour with their son Prince George. It's a lot of pressure to sign up for that level of scrutiny for the rest of your life.
And as we all know, it hasn't been easy on Meghan, but she's stayed strong in the face of intense criticism. And hey, true love is worth it.
