With a new baby for Prince William and Kate Middleton, and a grand royal wedding right around the corner for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it might seem like the British royal family is growing exponentially day by day. But don’t expect it to stop here. If Prince Harry gets his way, there will be more additions in the near future.
Royal expert Katie Nicholl, author of Harry: Life, Loss, and Love, spilled the beans on the couples’ baby plans, and it sounds like it won’t be long until Harry and Meghan grow their family further.
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“My sources are saying that Prince Harry, particularly, is very keen to start a family, pretty soon after the royal wedding,” Nicholl told Entertainment Tonight. “He’s made no secret about wanting children.”
The couple even addressed the possibility of having kids in their post-engagement interview, where Harry was asked if they had plans to start a family. “Not currently, no,” Harry replied, garnering a laugh from Markle. “Of course, one step at a time and hopefully we’ll start a family in the near future,” he added.
That desire to have children of his own stems primarily from interacting with his nephew Prince George and niece Princess Charlotte, as it turns out.
“I think that moment [for Harry] really kicked in when his brother, Prince William, of course, settled down with Kate Middleton,” Nicholl said. “That has definitely gotten Prince Harry pretty broody.”
As evidenced from the multitude of pictures of Harry playing around with kids, it’s not entirely surprising that he wants to be a family man himself. It sounds, too, like he’s found the perfect partner to achieve that with.
“The reason he wanted Meghan to meet Prince George and Princess Charlotte was so she could see that—this would be hopefully replicated by them, that they would go on to have children,” she said. “That you marry into the royal family, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a regular family with cute children, and here are George and Charlotte to show that that can happen. That was really important to him.”
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For her part, Markle’s a total natural when it comes to kids, and she can’t wait to be a mom. Her former agent Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne said in a new documentary Harry and Meghan: A Love Story that kids are definitely on Meghan’s mind.
“She said to me, ‘I would absolutely love to have children, and I can’t wait to be a mother,'” Nelthorpe-Cowne reportedly said.
Markle even dropped a baby hint of her own during an official royal visit to Ireland with Harry on March 23. While looking at hypoallergenic baby products, she pointed to them and said, “I’m sure at some point we’ll need the whole thing.”
“Meghan is very doting with children,” Nicholl confirmed. “She is very maternal and she was thrilled to meet George and Charlotte. I think one of the lovely things, anecdotes that I discovered [while writing] the book was, it was actually a moment involving children, when Meghan really fell for Prince Harry.”
The moment Nicholl is referring to happened after news of Harry and Meghan’s relationship went public in October 2016. The prince was actually visiting Markle in Toronto at the time, and they hid out at her friend Jessica Mulroney’s house to wait out the media storm. Jessica and her husband Ben have three young children, and Harry brought a bag of toys and played with the kids. According to Nicholl, seeing how great Harry was with them really sealed the deal for the Suits star.
As if Prince Harry wasn’t already enough of a catch.