- Meghan Markle and Prince Harry said they told the royal family they wanted to move to Canada in 2020.
- Meghan said they wanted to avoid scrutiny and a move would also give the family more tabloid coverage.
Prior to stepping back from the royal family and leaving the UK, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle seriously considered moving to Canada, they said in their Netflix docuseries.
On Thursday, Netflix released Volume II of "Harry & Meghan," a docuseries about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's romance as well as their experience with the royal family.
In episode five, Harry, 38, said he called his father, Charles, and told him they had come up with a plan to move to Canada in December 2021. At the time, he and Meghan had temporarily moved to Vancouver Island in Canada with their son Archie.
The couple said they had decided to spend time away from the UK to escape scrutiny from British tabloids following Meghan's decision to sue Associated Newspapers — the parent company of the Mail on Sunday — over the misuse of private information, infringement of copyright, and breach of the Data Protection Act 2018. Meghan filed the suit after the Mail on Sunday published excerpts of a private letter she had sent her father, Thomas Markle; Meghan went on to win the privacy claim in 2021 and was awarded a nominal £1 ($1.23) in damages.
"What's important is the pack of the royal rota is based there in London," Meghan said, speaking of their idea to move and referencing the royal-rota system that gives outlets like The Sun, the Daily Mirror, and the Daily Mail access to the British royal family. "If we're not there, they can't cover what we're doing."
Meghan, 41, added that by removing herself and Harry from the reach of British tabloids, there would be more space in newspapers for coverage of other members of the royal family.
"You guys can be on the front pages of all the papers," she said. "You can have it exactly the way you want it."
Harry said that he and Meghan's offer to move to Canada was "years in the making." Previously, he said that they'd contemplated moving to New Zealand in 2018 and later South Africa in 2019.
"The family and their people knew that we were trying to find a different way of working for a minimum of two years," he said.
Harry shared that they even got approval from the Queen's office, Charles' office, and Prince William's office to move to South Africa, with them signing off on an "internal document."
But that document was then leaked to The Times in April 2019, which led the move to get called off.
"Then that whole plan was then scrapped because it's now become a public debate," Harry said. "Once plans like that become public debates, nine times out of 10, it's gonna fail."
When he proposed the move to Canada to Charles, Harry said Charles requested Harry send him a plan in writing, which Harry was hesitant to do because of the previous leak. But Harry said his father told him "I can't do anything unless you put it in writing," so Harry sent him emails with details on the plan on January 1, 2, and 3, 2020.
Days later, Harry and Meghan said, the proposal was leaked. The Sun published a story about their potential move on January 7, 2020.
In March 2020, the couple moved with their son Archie to California, where they continue to reside and where their daughter Lili was born in June 2021.
Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.