Revelations from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's new biography

 In August, royal reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand released their much anticipated biography on two of the most famous people in recent years. 'Finding Freedom' tells the story of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship and departure from royal life, from their side (according to the writers). The book certainly gives an intimate and sympathetic look into their budding relationship and struggles to find peace within their roles.

Above all, it's a fascinating peek into the inner workings of royal life and the couple's relationships with their families, the court, and the media. Click through the gallery to see what was revealed. 

Memorable Dialogue: Garland tells a story about getting Mick Jagger to do a quick “I Want My MTV!” for his promo. Jagger thought it was an ad, but Garland called it a “promo.” “But it’s an ad,” retorts Jagger, who is looking to be paid. So Garland digs into his pocket and drops a wrinkled dollar bill and offers him that. Garland claims Jagger said, “I like your style” and did the spot for a cool dollar.

Sex and Skin: The role of image, sex, and objectifying women is discussed. Madonna is hailed, of course, as she used the visual medium to her advantage. But the hair metal bands’ use of bikini-clad “hot babes” were criticized. Bret Michaels is unashamed, saying it was an “over the top” depiction of “sex, drugs and rock & roll.” And he’s right; we never thought all that deeply about things when we watched “Hot For Teacher” when we were 13.

Our Take: What we appreciated about Biography: I Want My MTV is that it didn’t gloss over things. Its 2-hour running time (90 minutes without commercials) gives the filmmakers more than enough room to go through the channel’s earliest days — with the help of some really good animation from Lobster Studios — as well as its struggles to get traction in its first few years. It doesn’t shy away from the fact that all of the network’s early executives were white, and the footage of David Bowie questioning Goodman about why the network didn’t play more Black artists was remarkable to watch again after almost 4 decades. Goodman is so chagrined by his response in his modern-day interview, the regret is palpable.

We appreciated that superstars of the time, like Sting and Billy Idol, along with Mothersbaugh, REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin, Run DMC’s Darryl McDaniels, Fab 5 Freddy, spoke to the filmmakers and gave their perspective. Some of the newer musicians, like Jack Antonoff, give more of a “looking back when we were kids” perspective that makes the documentary more contemporary, but their contributions could have been cut out completely.

We wish that Quinn and Blackwood participated, but were happy with Goodman and Hunter’s perspectives. Footage of the early, scripted VJ patter seemed so creepy in retrospect; we had seen some of it back in the day and in retrospectives since, but it comes off even weirder almost 40 years later, given how anarchic the network eventually became.

Did we learn things about MTV we didn’t already know? Yes, but it was mostly fun facts, like the seat-of-their-pants way the logo — and the fact that artists were free to modify it — came to be. The stories about how people like Jagger and Pete Townsend came to do the “I Want My MTV” ads were funny. And MJ, Quincy Jones and Epic Records pulling the switcheroo in order to get “Billie Jean” on the network was fascinating. But the big points were already known. We appreciate, though, how well explored they actually were.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Biography: I Want My MTV should have more than enough material for MTV experts as well as noobs who don’t even remember a time that MTV actually played music.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.