Journalist says Harry and Meghan's unhappiness 'became obvious' while filming Africa doco

A journalist says Harry and Meghan's unhappiness 'obvious' during their southern Africa tour, three months ahead of their royal exit announcement.

Tom Bradby, who filmed the Harry and Meghan: An African Journey documentary with the couple during the 2019 trip, said the royals were "clearly in a difficult position and not feeling great".

"I realised the extent of that the more I was there," he told ITV's Alan Titchmarch on Love Your Weekend.

"I went thinking I was making a documentary about them resetting themselves in public life and it became increasingly obvious to me the depths of their unhappiness."

Bradby said looking back, he realised he was filming Harry and Meghan's exit from public life and drew from his own mental health struggle to make sense of the experience.

"If that hadn't have happened I suspect I would have gone on in a more traditional journalistic way," he said.

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"I called my wife one night, and she said, 'Stop being an idiot and start be a human being. They clearly aren't feeling great'."

During the documentary, Bradby asked Meghan how she was feeling in the midst of public scrutiny, and she thanked him for the question before admitting she 'wasn't okay'.

"Look, any woman, especially when they're pregnant, is really vulnerable and so that was made really challenging," she said.

"And when you have a newborn, you know. And especially as a woman, it's a lot."

Bradby, who is close friends with Prince William and Prince Harry, said he felt "deeply uncomfortable" being in the middle of the brothers' relationship troubles.

"I felt caught in the middle of them in that documentary, which is not a good place to be," he said.

Bradby speculated that since the officially resigned as senior working royals and relocated to the US, Harry and Meghan are "feeling better".

"There's been a huge amount that's happened this year that I can't talk about and that's not accurate and not right," he said. "The things they are doing, they are excited by."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex now live in Montecito, California with their son Archie, 20 months.

They have signed a number of lucrative commercial deals worth millions, including a production deal with Netflix and another with Spotify. This has allowed them to establish themselves as financially independent of the royals.