Meghan Shares Her ‘Sentimental’ Father’s Day Gift to Harry in First Interview Since Oprah

The inspiration behind Meghan Markle’s new book came straight from her first Father’s Day gift to Prince Harry.

In a new interview with NPR Weekend Edition—her first since that Earth-shattering Oprah Winfrey interview, per People—the Duchess of Sussex opened up about the origin story of her children’s book, The Bench. While the beautifully illustrate best-seller was inspired by a poem she wrote to Prince Harry after welcoming baby Archie in 2019, that was only part of the gift. The poem, she explained, was engraved on a plaque on the back of a bench, which reads, “This is your bench/Where life will begin/ For you and our son/ Our baby, our kin.”

“As most of us do, you go, what am I going to get them as a gift?” Markle told NPR shortly before the birth of her second child, Lilibet Diana. “And I thought I just wanted something sentimental and a place for him to have as a bit of a home base with our son.” 

“I often find, and especially in this past year, I think so many of us realized how much happens in the quiet,” she continued. “It was definitely moments like that, watching them from out of the window and watching [my husband] just, you know, rock him to sleep or carry him or, you know … those lived experiences, from my observation, are the things that I infused in this poem.”

This year, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will be celebrating Father’s Day as parents of two. “Lili was born on Friday, June 4, at 11:40 a.m. in the trusted care of the doctors and staff at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, CA. She weighed 7 lb. 11 oz. Both mother and child are healthy and well, and settling in at home,” the couple shared in a statement a few days later. “Lili is named after her great-grandmother, Her Majesty the Queen, whose family nickname is Lilibet. Her middle name, Diana, was chosen to honor her beloved late grandmother, the Princess of Wales.”