Prince Harry and Meghan Markle enjoyed a secret Halloween night out - but only after he made an unusual request to a celebrity friend.
Harry, 42, and Meghan, 45, are preparing to celebrate their first spooky holiday with their two children since their move back to the UK.
The couple have set up home in the Cotswolds with Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, and will no doubt have some fun plans for 31 October.
Harry and Meghan certainly know how to make the most out of Halloween. Even before they were married, they liked to celebrate the event in style - and the Duke previously revealed how he managed to go completely incognito on one occasion.
At the time, Harry and Meghan - then just dating - were in Toronto. They arranged to meet up with a group of close friends, including Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank, at the city's Soho House for an apocalypse-themed Halloween party.
The Prince decided to pull out all the stops, and reached out to a famous pal for help with his outfit.
He wrote in Spare: "For help with my costume, I turned to a friend, the actor Tom Hardy, before I left home.
"I phoned him to ask if I could borrow his costume from Mad Max. 'The whole thing?' 'Yes, please, mate! The whole kit!'"
When Harry later tried on the costume, which Tom wore in the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, in front of Meghan, she "roared with laughter".
"It was funny. And a little scary. But the main thing was: I was unrecognisable," he said. "Meg, meanwhile, wore torn black shorts, a camo top, fishnet stockings. If that's the apocalypse, bring on the end of the world, I thought."
Remembering turning up to the party in disguise, Harry wrote: "The party was loud, dark, drunk – ideal. Several people did double takes as Meg passed through the rooms, but no one looked twice at her dystopian date. I wished I could wear this disguise every day."
The following day, the story of their relationship was released in the press, after which "everything was changed forever".
Harry explained that the couple had received a heads-up that their relationship was due to leak the following day, writing: "We'd been tipped, before heading off to the Halloween apocalypse, that another apocalypse might be coming. More proof that the universe had a wicked sense of humour."
A year after their relationship was announced, the couple confirmed their engagement in November 2017. They went on to marry on 19 May 2018.
Harry and Meghan's Halloween with Archie and Lilibet
Meghan opened up about her first Halloween as a mom of two in her 2021 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
© Instagram"We wanted to do something fun for the kids, and then the kids were just not into it at all,” she told her host with a laugh, adding that Archie - then two - only wore his dinosaur costume for "about five minutes".
"Not even five minutes," interjected Ellen, who celebrated the holiday with the family of four. "Finally Harry talked him into putting the head on."
Lilibet, for her part - who was just under five months old at the time - dressed up as a skunk, "like Flower from Bambi," Meghan explained.
