Although Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are now more comfortable in California than in Britain, it wasn’t always this way.
Prior to Megxit, the couple knuckled down like the rest of the Royal Family and attended regular engagements around the country.
But one of these trips may have revealed that the Sussexes could have had their sights set on the glitzy lights of Hollywood all along.
Rediscovered footage from their visit to the Lion King premiere in London in July 2019, six months before they left The Firm, seemingly shows Harry asking for acting work.
He asked the film’s director Jon Favreau: ‘If anyone needs any extra voiceover work…’ before Meghan interrupted and joked: ‘That’s really why we’re here – it’s the pitch!’
Harry then said ‘… just not Scar’ – a reference to the evil uncle in The Lion King who tries to steal the kingdom from Simba.
Another separate clip showed Harry touting his wife’s voiceover skills to Disney boss Bob Iger at the event.
During the hushed conversation, caught on camera by a fan, the Prince gestured to Meghan and said: ‘You do know she does voiceovers?’
Iger can be heard replying: ‘Ah, I did not know that.’ Harry responded: ‘You seem surprised. She’s really interested.’ The Disney chief then said: ‘We’d love to try. That’s a great idea.’
Months after the event it was announced that Meghan had signed a voiceover deal with the Walt Disney Company in exchange for a donation to Elephants Without Borders, a wildlife charity that helps to track and protect the animals from poachers.
The seeming celebrity networking by the couple occurred while they were both still working royals and forbidden from making money from commercial activities.
Although perhaps the slew of powerful executives and celebrities at the event proved too tempting, as they brushed shoulders with other big names including Beyoncé and Princess Diana’s friend Sir Elton John.
No doubt the most powerful person there was Mr Iger, who is one of the most powerful people in Hollywood due to his long-running reign as Disney chief executive.
However Harry’s remarks at the event seemed to take even Mr Iger’s wife, former TV presenter Willow Bay, by surprise.
While Ms Bay’s comments are unclear, she appears to ask her husband about the conversation moments after Prince Harry moves on.
Mr Iger gestured towards the Prince and appeared to fill his wife in on their exchange, which resulted in her pulling a surprised face.
The video clips were first revealed by The Mail on Sunday in January 2020, just after the Sussexes shocked the world by announcing their intention to step back as senior royals, blindsiding the Queen with their decision.
The couple had just announced their decision to ‘become financially independent’ and rumours were swirling about what that would entail.
But the bombshell video clip was picked up by news outlets around the world, with Canadian author and commentator Mark Steyn calling it ‘the lowest point’ in royal history since the abdication of Edward VIII.
He told Fox News at the time: ‘That’s the absolute lowest point of the monarchy in the last 100 years.
‘I think of all the pathetic things that the Duke of Windsor did after he abdicated when he entertained wealthy Americans and gave them a sort of pseudo glimpse into Royal life.
‘That’s nothing like actually touting your wife as available for Lion King 7 or whatever it is.’
Media personality Piers Morgan also blasted the clip, accusing Harry of ‘hustling’ the boss of Disney to get his wife voiceover work.
Morgan said that the Prince, who was Captain General of the Royal Marines, missed a memorial to honour victims of an IRA bomb in 1989 at the Royal Marines base in Deal, Kent.
However Kensington Palace denied that Harry had ever been invited to the memorial event.
Despite the row surrounding the overheard conversation at the Lion King premiere, Meghan brought up the occasion again in her August 2022 interview with magazine The Cut.
She said: ‘I just had Archie. It was such a cruel chapter. I was scared to go out.’
Megan also gushingly described a moment at the premiere when a South African cast member pulled her aside for a poignant moment.
She said: ‘He looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, “I just need you to know: when you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison”.’
However, the Duchess’s account was seen by some as another example of varying recollections.
Despite the media and royal fans trying, the mystery identity of the South African creative who compared her marriage to the freeing of Mandela remains unsolved.
John Kani, who played Rafiki in the film, admitted he was ‘baffled’ by Meghan’s account, saying he was the only South African cast member but had never met the Duchess.
The actor told MailOnline in 2022 that he did not believe that the people of South Africa celebrated Meghan’s wedding on the scale of Nelson Mandela’s release.
‘In my memory, nobody would have known when she got married, when or what,’ he said.
‘We had no South African link to the wedding or to her marrying Harry.
‘I am truly surprised by this. For me it is a non-event, the whole thing.’
The South African composer, Lebo M, who met the Duchess of Sussex at the Lion King premiere, also did not recall speaking to her about Nelson Mandela
Lebo M, whose real name is Lebohang Morake and created the African vocal and choir arrangements for the live action film, spoke to the Duke and Duchess for around one minute at the Leicester Square event in 2019, but did not remember the details of their brief conversation.
Despite the rows over what was said to Meghan by the cast, it seems the networking aspect of the trip was a success for the Sussexes.
Shortly after the clip was released, Netflix’s then-chief content officer Ted Sarandos admitted that the streaming giant would be interested in working with them.
Prince Harry had signed a deal in April 2019 for a six-part series on mental health for Apple TV+, which he produced with Oprah Winfrey, so competition for the Sussexes between the streamers was fierce.
During tense talks before Christmas 2019, senior members of the royal family accused the pair of already agreeing to a deal with ‘firms including Disney’, according to one report.
There were reports that the couple were having quiet conversations with Apple, Disney and Netflix in 2020.
And once the footage came out, questions were raised about the point at which the couple decided to step down from their roles as senior royals and whether they were already considering alternative work months before.
Eventually the couple signed an £80million five-year deal with Netflix in September 2020.
Prior to that, Meghan had snagged a relatively minor role in the legal drama Suits, but the big cheque would give her and Harry the chance to star in their own productions.
However their Hollywood careers have been hit and miss, with their 2022 ‘docuseries’ about their decision to leave the Royal Family being a ratings smash, but all of their other shows flopping.
The documentary about social justice Live To Lead in 2022, another in 2023 about the Invictus Games, and one in 2024 about the sport of polo – all failed to draw audiences.
The jury is still out on Meghan’s latest venture, the lifestyle cooking show ‘With Love, Meghan’. But if it goes well there may soon be an upcoming plethora of lifestyle content from the couple.
According to their Netflix docuseries, while Meghan was growing up in Los Angeles she always felt destined to become a rich and famous star.
Now she might finally have achieved her dreams of Hollywood success with a Prince for a husband.
But looking back, it might have unexpectedly begun at the 2019 premiere for The Lion King.
