Moment Harry's pals knew he'd turned 'woke' after marrying Meghan

Revealed: The moment Harry's inner circle realised the 'party prince' had turned into unrecognisable 'woke' Duke... and it all started with granola and some bewildering requests from Meghan Markle

• Some friends complain they don't see him now he's found 'his truth' in California 
• When they questioned Meghan's demands, Harry said : 'I know, but she's so hot'!

By Charlotte Griffith Editor At Large For The Mail On Sunday

Published: 17:27, 29 April 2023 | Updated: 17:27, 29 April 2023

It was the year he got married that the penny finally dropped for some members of Prince Harry's inner circle.

Standing before them in the 19th century St Luke's chapel in Chelsea in December 2018, at the annual carol concert held by the van Straubenzee family, Harry delivered not a festive reading as anticipated, but a solemn sermon about period poverty.

The importance of the issue was not in question, even if the topic felt jarringly inappropriate to the church's aristocratic audience.

But that it came from Harry - a man most had known since he was a boy, and who had more than earned his reputation as the irreverent 'Party Prince' - was what caused the greatest astonishment.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their wedding day in 2018 in Windsor

In his younger days, Harry was known for being a 'party prince' and a prankster

Good-humoured Harry cuts a shape with sprinting legend Usain Bolt in Jamaica, 2012 

Clearly delighted, Harry beats his brother, William, and sister-in-law, Kate in 2017

Harry, just six months after his wedding to Meghan Markle, was a changed man.

Indeed, there is little today that his once-close friends recognise at all in the figure they see interviewed on screen so frequently.

Nor is there much to remind them of the hedonistic charmer they once knew in the woke homilies he has been trotting out in the Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, and his autobiography, Spare, about the shortcomings of the Royal family, his hatred of the media, and his personal journey of grief and healing.

But as his friends have told The Mail on Sunday, the signs that a personal transformation was afoot were already there in the earliest days of the couple's relationship.

And it began with granola.

'We first noticed a proper change when he came down to the breakfast buffet during a shooting weekend and started squirreling away bowls of granola to take upstairs to his bedroom,' one source said. 'We asked why he wasn't tucking into the bacon and eggs with the rest of us.

'He said something about having been doing yoga at dawn with Meghan and they wanted breakfast together alone in their bedroom.'

A telling moment reveals just how much an entranced Harry was prepared to put up with. During a London dinner party in the early days of their relationship, friends told how Meghan 'went berserk' because she was not seated beside Harry, despite the British custom which dictates that couples should sit apart.

Harry is said to have simply shrugged off her behaviour - much to his friends' chagrin.

'She made quite a scene,' said one source. 'She wanted to sit next to Harry and felt offended she wasn't sitting with him.

'We looked to Harry for an explanation - he just said, "I know, but she's so hot".'

Further dinner party faux-pas followed, as Meghan is said to have treated social situations as if it were a Hollywood networking event.

Ahead of a casual dinner being hosted by Jack Mann, a polo-playing friend of Harry's and an usher at their wedding, a source says Jack was astonished to receive a list of demands in advance.

Harry with his late grandfather, Prince Philip in 2015. He knew the art of making people laugh

Some childhood friends claim Harry changed after his marriage to Meghan Markle

It is claimed that he simply acceded to her demands - to some friends' dismay

The former 'Fab Four' on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in 2018. Tensions had been brewing even by this point 

'Meghan wanted to know what designers the women would be wearing, what the seating plan would be, that kind of thing,' the source said. 'Jack was so gobsmacked he simply didn't respond. It was a bizarre request to receive ahead of a relaxed occasion.'

When Jack decided not to respond to the email, another missive was issued.

'In the second email it seemed Meghan was especially interested to know the names of the wives and girlfriends attending,' the source added. 'Again, Jack declined to tell her anything.

This wasn't a networking dinner for movie execs in the Hollywood Hills with George Clooney; it was wine and food with friends.

'In the end they both turned up, but Meghan seemed miffed - and she left before the dinner.'

By the time the pair married in May 2018, and attended the van Straubenzee's carol service together that Christmas, the transformation was complete.

Indeed, friends believe the period poverty speech was so out of character for Harry that he may not have even written it himself.

'It's a noble cause, and clearly one he learned about from Meghan,' one former friend in attendance that night recalled.

'But this carol service was not the time or place - he knew full well that the congregation was made up of old toffs who would be squirming in their seats. Harry had just decided to become an activist at the time, having had his eyes opened by Meghan. It didn't seem like he had written the entirety of what he was reading.'

In any case, most of the friends who were there that evening are no longer in touch with Harry.

It is certainly telling that none appeared in the Netflix documentary which told the couple's 'truth'.

One source suggests that Harry has even cut off Violet von Westenholz, the mutual friend who brought him together with Meghan. She was not mentioned by name in the Netflix show, and a photograph of Meghan and Violet together - the one uploaded to social media which prompted Harry to ask Violet to set him up on a date - cropped out her face.

The source adds: 'Harry literally and figuratively cropped Violet out of his life because of a silly tiff with Meghan.'

The bewilderment felt by Harry's former chums is all the greater because the colourful man they remember is very different to the one being portrayed in the film and the book.

Some of the most sensational revelations included details of his drug use, including taking cocaine as a teenager, smoking cannabis and using magic mushrooms in the home of Friends actress Courteney Cox, which caused him to hallucinate that a bathroom bin was talking to him.

But friends say even these stories are a carefully calibrated version of the reality.

'If this really was an exercise in "clearing his conscience", Harry could have owned up to much more,' says one acquaintance. 'Yes, it was more than we have ever read about a senior Royal before - but there was oh-so much more he could have said.'

There is, of course, debauchery in the book. A notorious trip to Las Vegas in 2012, in which Harry was photographed naked playing billiards following an all-day drinking session, is described in detail.

There is no mention, however, of the freebie suite Harry accepted from a generous hotelier.

And friends say there were many other equally hedonistic trips to Vegas which were omitted.

'The infamous strip-billiards trip was not a one off,' one source insists. 'Harry went a few times, and had some deal going with the hotel.

He got to know an American girl so well that he spent Thanksgiving at her family home.'

And the old Harry would 'revel' in overturning PC conventions.

'Harry was not afraid to say things which may cause offence,' one said. 'At dinners for example, he has a history of behaving like he's at the school canteen, mucking about making in-jokes and generally interrupting the flow of conversation.

'There was one time when we came down to a formal dinner to find he had rearranged a dozen Patrick Mavros animal figurines - wildly expensive silver table decorations - in the dining room to make it look like they were "mating".

Harry used to break the rules. Now he 'wants seating plans' before casual get-togethers, say friends.

Pictured with wife Meghan for Oprah Winfrey's bombshell interview  in 2021

Violet von Westenholz is said to have set up Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on a 'blind date' in 2016.

Here she is pictured with Meghan at Wimbledon the following year

Harry's best-selling memoir, Spare, was released in January.

It revealed intimate details of his life and made a series of complaints about the Royal Family

'It was more cringe than funny, as pranks go, from a grown man.

One does wonder whether all that tomfoolery stuff is still under the surface - though he says he has been changed for the better by his wife.'

Despite the Californian gloss and 'therapy-speak', there are some who still believe that the old Harry isn't too far beneath the surface.

It's been suggested, for example, that , amid the turmoil of whatever is in his head, there is some shred of remorse.

And that he came close to abandoning the book project entirely after taking advice from the Spencer side of his family.

Will his former self, the one so loved by the nation, return one day? That's what most of his friends are hoping. 

How Meghan sees it is another matter.