Prince Harry wooed new flame Meghan Markle on posh weekend in pal’s Hollywood mansion
LOVESTRUCK Prince Harry won over his sexy American girlfriend Meghan Markle after a dirty weekend at a Hollywood mansion, The Sun can reveal.
The royal whisked the actress off to Los Angeles for a make-or-break hook-up to decide whether their flirtation would become something more serious.
The prince borrowed his chum’s luxury mansion high in the Hollywood Hills in mid-July — where he convinced her to become his girlfriend.
A pal said: “Harry sealed the deal in style. Before they went to LA she’d been flattered about being chased by a prince.
“She is very outgoing and chatty and was basically giggling about it all.
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“But after that break Meghan became very secretive and shut down any mention of Harry. It had suddenly got serious.”
Meghan’s response was a huge boost to Harry, who was about to go on a two-month trip to Africa, while Meghan had European travels planned.
Knowing she was in it for the long-haul kept him calm, say pals.
As they went their separate ways after the LA break, the couple were determined to keep their romance low-profile and did not see each other again until mid-September.
But it was then that Meghan, 35, was invited to meet Prince Charles at his Scottish home on the Balmoral estate for a shooting party to celebrate Harry’s 32nd birthday.
I never wanted to be a lady who lunches - I always wanted to be a woman who works
Meghan
There could be no clearer indication that Harry was indeed serious.
She has met his cousin and good pal Princess Eugenie and her boyfriend Jack Brooksbank, enjoyed typically English country pub lunches and is liked by Harry’s mates.
But after being successfully kept under wraps for months, their love match exploded on to the front pages this week. The secret was out.
Harry was holed up in her Toronto home between October 27 and Tuesday this week, sneaking back in to the UK on Wednesday as the world digested the news of the romance.
But while Harry and Meghan will doubtless be annoyed that their cover has been blown, friends say the fact they have managed to pull it off this long is proof the relationship has legs.
Those close to them are delighted and say the sassy Yank with a love of the showbiz limelight as well as humanitarian causes is a perfect match for Harry.
Now, almost unbelievably, whispers of engagement are doing the rounds of the pair’s friends.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said one. “It does seem very soon, but it’s certainly a possibility,” said another.
“Harry is pretty serious about her and she feels the same way.”
Marrying Meghan would be the shot in the arm the Royal Family needs. Ultimately, they stand or fall by their relevance.
The Queen, 90, is the most popular royal ever, but her advancing years have seen a carefully managed retreat from public life.
Charles, 67, has waited all his life to be king but many people feel he’s not in touch with the man and woman on the street.
His obsessions with organic farming, classical architecture and alternative medicine do not chime with those struggling to make enough for a weekly shop in Aldi.
Heir to the heir Wills continues to prove a fairly reluctant royal, while Kate concentrates on her family.
“Harry makes the royals relevant,” says one friend. “He’s the younger prince and has more connection with ordinary Brits.
“He’s known as the fun one. No one begrudges him that so why shouldn’t he have someone fun on his arm?
“He and Meghan would make a thoroughly modern couple and that would do the Royal Family a world of good.”
The big question is, as ever, whether Harry can convince Meghan that becoming a royal — with its enormous profile — is a gamble worth taking.
He has spoken previously of the “massive paranoia that sits inside me” with the scrutiny any girl he speaks to in public must endure.
“If, or when, I do find a girlfriend, I will do my utmost...to ensure that me and her can get to the point where we’re actually comfortable with each other before the massive invasion that is inevitably going to happen into her privacy,” he has said.
So with this in mind, that weekend in Los Angeles was make or break. Harry was keen, Meghan wasn’t sure.
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The daughter of a studio lighting director, she has grown up in the celebrity world.
However, both she and Harry know that dating a royal brings a whole different level of scrutiny.
Harry’s two previous loves — posh blondes Chelsy Davy, 31, and Cressida Bonas, 27, — both dumped their prince due to the circus of royal life.
Fortunately Meghan is well-schooled in maintaining the difficult balance of fame and a private life.
With a huge following from US TV drama Suits and a million followers on Instagram, no aspect of her life seems to go uncharted.
I’ll do my utmost... to ensure me and her can get comfortable with each other
Harry
But she also uses her celebrity for good, much like Harry’s late mother Diana.
The Pippa Middleton lookalike was recently appointed a United Nations advocate for women and has visited Rwanda to work on a clean water project.
She has said: “I am consistently asked how I keep a foot in two contrasting worlds — one in the entertainment industry, predicated on wealth and indulgence, and the other in humanitarian work.
“To me, it’s less a question of how you can do this and more a question of how can you not.”
And unlike the Middleton sisters, she believes in work.
“I’ve never wanted to be a lady who lunches,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be a woman who works.”
Of course, Meghan will raise eyebrows in the fusty royal corridors of power. If they had issues with middle-class Kate — the daughter of a flight attendant and descendant of coal miners — imagine a mixed-race American divorcee.
And that’s even before you get to her bankrupt dad, dreadlocked yoga teacher mum and family outcasts such as estranged half-sister Samantha Grant, who has called her a “pushy social climber”.
But that’s exactly WHY Meghan works. For millions, their relationship has more in common with modern Britain, where the perfect 2.4 family no longer exists.
Princess Kate, 34, is the perfectly inoffensive yet bland consort and mother, always afraid to put a step wrong. She is not the role-model modern wife.
Meghan, with her divorce, ethnic background and fake-it-til-you-make-it work ethic, is much more the 21st century woman. As Meghan has said, she lives by the maxim: “Don’t try to win the part, win the room.”
Hopefully she can keep winning the room.
The future of the Royal Family may depend on it.
Additional reporting: JAMES BEAL in Toronto