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One of the godparents of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry ’s daughter is a famous Hollywood actor. Tyler Perry was revealed to be Lilibet Diana’s godfather in episode six of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan documentary series. The filmmaker opened up in the docuseries about how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex asked him if he would take on the role.
“We’ll call and we’ll chat and we’ll talk about silly things, and they were pretty serious on the phone, and I go, ‘Okay, what’s going on?’ They said, ‘Well, we’d like for you to be Lili’s godfather.’ I go, ‘Whoa.’ I had to take a minute to take that in,” Tyler recalled. “And I thought, ‘I’d be honored. I’d absolutely be honored.’”
During the episode, Tyler and Meghan revealed how their friendship first began. “I’m not a royal watcher, I don’t really pay attention to a lot of stuff. But I saw something about her father,” Tyler said. “I found it to be hurtful if he were my father. And I couldn’t even imagine this woman finding the man that she loved, the man of her dreams, and him being a Prince, and then to walk into all of that madness and need the security of family and then have, you know, your father do some horrible things.”
The A Madea Homecoming star admitted that he “immediately empathized” with Meghan. Before her and Harry’s royal wedding in 2018, the actor sent the Suits alum a note “just praying for her, just to be able to move through it and hold on, and let her know that everything in her life had prepared her for this moment, or so I thought,” he said.
The Duchess shared that she had never met Tyler before. However in his letter to her, Meghan revealed that the actor told her that if she ever needed anything “he would be there.”
The Duchess reached out to Tyler when she and Harry were in Canada. “Finally after years at that point, first time we ever spoke and I was just a wreck. I was just crying and crying,” Meghan said. “Like sometimes it’s easier to just open up to someone who knows nothing at all. And that was that moment with me and Tyler.”
Tyler helped the couple by allowing them to stay at his house in Los Angeles after they left Canada. In a video selfie taken during the Sussexes’ flight to Los Angeles in March of 2020, Harry tells the camera: “This is the current situation, thanks to another amazing friend who we’ve never met, but who believes in us and wants to help.”