Netflix chooses oddly specific date to start streaming Meghan Markle starring Suits

Markle played high-powered attorney Rachel Zane on the series for seven years

Suits is set to return to Netflix on the day of King Charles III’s birthday parade.

All nine seasons of the legal drama starring Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, as the high-powered attorney Rachel Zane will be available on the streamer as of Saturday (17 June) in the US.

Markle, 41, played Zane – the love interest of the show’s lead Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) – from 2011 to 2018 during which time she met and dated Prince Harry before their marriage in 2018.

Also on Saturday, Charles will join the first birthday parade of his reign on horseback. The annual Trooping of the Colour has marked the official birthday of the Sovereign for more than 260 years.

It will be the first time the reigning monarch has ridden a horse at the event since 1986 when Queen Elizabeth II last rode.

Suits’ producer, USA Network, announced that Markle would be leaving the show following her engagement to the royal in November 2017.

“From all of us at USA Network and Universal Cable Productions, we want to send our most heartfelt congratulations to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on their engagement,” the company’s statement said.

“Meghan has been a member of our family for seven years and it has been a joy to work with her. We want to thank her for her undeniable passion and dedication to Suits, and we wish her the very best.”

The relationship between the Sussexes and the rest of the immediate royal family has reportedly been fraught since the 2022 release of Harry and Meghan’s eponymous Netflix docuseries about their exit from royal life and Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare, in which he made a number of disparaging claims about members of his family.

Tensions are thought to have consistently worsened since Harry and Meghan decided to step back from royal duties in 2020, and moved to Los Angeles.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Harry and Meghan’s daughter, Princess Lilibet Diana, turned two this month; however, there was radio silence from senior members of the royal family.

Last year, the official Twitter accounts for the royal family, King Charles and Queen Camilla, plus that of the Prince and Princess of Wales all wished Lilibet a happy first birthday.

But on 4 June, neither of the three Twitter accounts publicly sent their birthday wishes to the young royal, who is the only daughter and second child of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Harry returned to the UK this month to give evidence in his High Court phone hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

He is suing for damages after alleging that journalists at its titles had resorted to phone hacking and other underhand methods to secure stories about him and his family.