I sort of forgot this happened, but Finding Freedom confirms a story I never completely believed: the Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited George and Amal Clooney in Como, Italy in the summer of 2018. This would have been about three months after Harry and Meghan’s wedding, and remember, H&M did a lot of events immediately following their wedding, then they took a summer break and traveled and we didn’t know all of the places they went. George and Amal had gone to their wedding, and no one exactly knew the connection between the two couples. As it turns out, the connection was between Harry and George Clooney, and they met each other way before Harry met Meghan. FF details H&M’s arrival in Italy and details how George and Amal had been hosting guests throughout the summer, like always, including Cindy Crawford and Rande, the Beckhams and… Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank. Remember, Jack is a Casamigos ambassador (Casamigos is Clooney’s tequila label).

During the three-day visit, a source said, “Meghan and Amal spent a lot of time relaxing by the pool and playing with the twins while George and Harry checked out George’s motorbike collection. Harry took one of them out with one of his protection officers. George recently had an accident, so he wasn’t back on his bike yet.”

The duke and duchess weren’t the only guests that weekend. Eugenie and her fiancé, Jack Brooksbank, were already at the villa when Harry and Meghan arrived, their visits overlapping briefly. To maximize security, the group stayed in every night, well fed by rotating chefs. On the final night of Harry and Meghan’s stay, George hired the chef from Il Gatto Nero, one of his favorite local restaurants, to prepare an Italian feast for fifteen. The party, including neighbors and their houseguests, dined at long trestle tables in the landscaped gardens. As live music echoed over the estate, guests enjoyed the gathering until the early hours.

Harry and George had been friends long before the prince met Meghan. After connecting at a charity event, the two men discovered that despite their age difference, they had a lot in common, including their love of motorbikes. George had collections of bikes in Lake Como, LA, and Sonning.

[From Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan, and the Making of a Modern Royal Family]

That’s interesting to me that the connection is Harry & George, not Amal and Meghan. But it sounds like Amal and Meghan hit it off, and the Clooneys hosted the Sussexes in the Clooney’s palatial English country estate in Sonning. George is such a “host,” and honestly, what Amal wants, Amal gets. She wanted to cozy up to the British aristocracy and royal family and George gave that to her.

Oh, and FF also says that Serena Williams and her husband Alexis Ohanian stopped by the Sussexes’ rented country house the summer of 2018, just before Serena played at Wimbledon.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red, Backgrid.