Prince Harry and Meghan Markle "Snuck Out" for a Halloween Date Night Before They Went Public as a Couple
Costumes made for the perfect disguise.
Halloween offers the perfect excuse to dress up, but for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, their costumes served a much greater purpose in 2016. Way before becoming the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the two were just trying to soak up most of their days out of the public eye. Once they learned the news of their relationship would be out soon, the spooky holiday was just around the corner and it was time for their last disguise.
In the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, the couple reminisced over the early days of their romance. They shared previously unseen photos, including a few from their first Halloween in 2016 when they attended an apocalypse-themed party with Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank.
At the time, Meghan was filming Season 6 of Suits in Toronto so Harry had flown out to see her with his cousin and her then-boyfriend. During his visit, he was informed by former palace communications secretary Jason Knauf that the news of their relationship was about to go public, causing them to “pull the pin on the fun grenade.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attend an apocalypse-themed party for Halloween in 2016.
While appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in November 2021, the Duchess of Sussex remembered, “He came to see me in Toronto and our friends and his cousin, Eugenie, and her husband Jack, they came as well, and the four of us snuck out in Halloween costumes to have one fun night on the town before it was out in the world that we were a couple."
“It was a post-apocalypse theme, so we had all of this very bizarre costuming on, and we were able to just sort of have one final, fun night out,” she added.
In his 2023 memoir Spare, Prince Harry recalled that night at Soho House Toronto. He wrote that he borrowed his friend’s Mad Max costume, which kept his face completely covered and unrecognizable.
Prince Harry, Princess Eugenie and Meghan Markle "snuck out" for Halloween in 2016.
“The party was loud, dark, drunk—ideal. Several people did double takes as Meg passed through the rooms, but no one looked twice at her dystopian date,” Harry wrote. “If that’s the Apocalypse, I thought, bring on the end of the world.”
Although the Duke of Sussex expressed desire to stay in disguise “every day,” it wasn’t long after that their relationship became public and their lives were thrust into the spotlight.
