In the final episode of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, it was revealed that they named filmmaker Tyler Perry the godfather of their daughter Lilibet Diana. The docuseries that aired on December 15 shined a light on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s relationship with Perry; the couple reportedly has an invaluable friendship with Perry that began in 2019. 

Tyler Perry sent Meghan a note before her wedding to her now husband, and she admitted that she didn’t talk to him until her son went to Canada for six weeks at the end of the year. She said, “I called him — finally — after years at that point, the first time we ever spoke, and I was just a wreck. I was just crying and crying. Sometimes it’s easier to just open up to someone who knows nothing at all, and that was that moment with Tyler and me.” She continued to explain that amidst the stress of her and Harry leaving as working members of the royal family and becoming stuck in Vancouver at the start of the COVID-19 shutdown, she confided in Tyler Perry often. 

“We stayed in touch, and then when all this happened, when we needed to go, he said, ‘What can we do to make it easier? How can I help you?’” Meghan recalled. The award-winning playwright came through for the Sussexes; he sent his private jet to Canada to bring them back to Los Angeles, where he then allowed them to stay safely in his mansion.

Megan continued

, “[He said,] ‘My house is safe, and I’ll make sure you have security. And you can take your time.’ I was like, ‘If we could stay for a week, then we can find somewhere we can live,’ and he’s like, ‘You’re not gonna stay a week. You’re going to stay as long as you need. I’m going to get you there safely, and I’m going to keep you there safely until you have somewhere to go.’” Harry and Megan stayed at his home for six weeks before purchasing their own. 

In 2021 when their daughter Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor was born, Perry was their most obvious choice as her godfather.

Perry described the Sussexes asking as a serious endeavor that took a while to sink in. He explained, “They were pretty serious on the phone. I go, OK, what’s going on?’ [They said,] ‘Well, we’d like for you to be Lili’s godfather.’ I had to take a minute to take that in, and I thought:

I’d be honored. I’d be absolutely honored.” He admitted that after the call ended, he called them right back in his excitement, “I call them back, I go, ‘Uh, hold on a second. Does this mean we got to go over there and do all that in the church with the royal family and get all that out? Because I don’t want to do that. Maybe we can do a private ceremony here and let that be that, and if you have to do it there, then it’s OK.’”

Harry & Meghan consists of six episodes, offering an exclusive insight into the Duke and Dutchess’s life.