Prince Harry Almost Dated a Kardashian Before Meeting Meghan Markle in 2016
Before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's courtship began in 2016, the royal was almost set up with another American TV star.
When the world got to know about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's romance, their love story seemed like something right out of a fairytale. A British prince falling in love with an American TV star, it felt unreal. However, even before he started dating Markle, Harry was almost set up with another American TV star - Kourtney Kardashian.
In 2016, sometime before Harry and Markle’s courtship began, comedian Katherine Ryan had run into the eldest Kardashian sister at a party at British-Irish comedian Jimmy Carr’s home. Incidentally, Kardashian was accompanied by Harry’s cousin, Princess Beatrice. “I walked in and saw Kourtney Kardashian with Princess Beatrice. I went straight over to her because I knew who she was. I’m so invested in the Kardashians and their reality show,” Ryan said via InStyle.
At the time, Kardashian was in an on-and-off relationship with Scott Disick, prompting Ryan to say, “You need to leave Scott.” To which the reality TV mogul responded, “How can I? He’s in my house right now.” Continuing the back and forth, the comedian told Kardashian, "I told her, ‘Don’t go back to the house. You need to leave him (Disick)." The California resident then asked who she could even date instead, and Ryan responded, “Prince Harry, maybe?”
Ryan later clarified why she tried to play matchmaker, “(Kardashian) was right there in the UK. It seemed obvious,” she said. It is unclear whether Harry and Kardashian ever met or even spoke to each other, but the former met his future wife soon after. In the summer of 2016, Harry and Markle met face-to-face for the first time, when the Suits star was in London for Wimbledon, after the prince spotted her in a mutual friend's social media post. The future Duke and Duchess of Sussex reportedly texted a lot before meeting for the first time.
Their whirlwind romance solidified when they went camping in Botswana on their third date, where they said ‘I love you’ to each other for the first time, marking the start of a long-lasting union. In late 2017, the couple got engaged before tying the knot a few months later on May 19th, 2018, in a fairytale ceremony at St. George’s Chapel. The pair has weathered the most turbulent storms in the form of public vitriol and has stuck by each other for almost a decade now. Harry and Markle recently celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary in their sprawling mansion in Montecito, California, with their two kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Kardashian, on her part, parted ways with Scott Disick eventually. The former couple had three children, Mason, Penelope, and Reign, together and are reportedly co-parenting them. She is now married to Blink 182 drummer, Travis Scott, with whom she shares one kid, Rocky.
