LONDON — For weeks, British newspapers have speculated fervently about who would be most harmed by the claims of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, in a highly anticipated marriage . six-part documentary series premieres Thursdays on Netflix.
It turned out to be the papers themselves.
At least for the first three available episodes of “Harry & Meghan,” the biggest perpetrators are not members of the British royal family as many would expect, but the London newspaper publishers, whom the couple alleges have hunted them down, especially Meghan , because of insatiable greed and hard-to-hide racism.
“This has always been a lot bigger than us,” said Harry of the toxic tensions that led the couple to part with the House of Windsor in 2020 and move to Southern California. “We know the whole truth. The organization knows the whole truth and the media knows the whole truth because they were involved in it.”
Harry seems to suggest that not only is involved in it, but is primarily responsible for it. Time and again, “Harry & Meghan” returns to the sin of the media, which he says watched his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to her death and then directed the light. glared at his new wife, an American-born bisexual actress.
There’s a vivid old footage of Diana begging the photographers to leave her sons alone on a ski vacation. There is a new video that shows Harry and Meghan being driven through Manhattan, anxiously looking out the window of their SUV as the paparazzi are pursuing them like they were after his mother.
There’s also a sense of how well prepared the couple is for their new life, from the selfie videos they recorded shortly after the family split to the messages they exchanged when they were budding in their lives. romantic love.
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The newspapers reacted with predictable disdain. “Netfibs,” Rupert Murdoch’s Sun states on its website, pointing to alleged inconsistencies in their story. The Times of London said, “William and Kate can breathe a sigh of relief – for now, it’s all the media’s fault.”
“Fury Palace at Megflix,” said the Daily Mail, though how hot-tempered the royal family was is still controversial. The Daily Express claims the family is breathing a sigh of relief as Harry and Meghan’s Netflix show backfired.
Buckingham Palace had no response for the film; A palace official stated that the filmmakers had not reached out to King Charles, Prince William or any other member of the royal family for comment. That contradicts an onscreen message at the beginning of the first episode, which said, “Members of the Royal Family have declined to comment on content in the series.”
An executive at Netflix said the filmmakers were in contact with Charles and William’s media representatives. The palace’s statement became more shaky when officials there later admitted to receiving an email from someone in the production company. Unable to verify the person’s identity, they did not respond, according to officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, according to palace protocol.
The sniping is a side show, as the first episodes of “Harry & Meghan” just skim the royal family’s behavior (the last three will stream next Thursday and are likely to focus more into the family as they would refer to the couple’s sharp split from the rest of the royal family).
Meghan described her first meeting with William and Catherine as stiff and formal, which she initially appreciated about her British personality. Harry said family members did not sympathize with the merciless attention Meghan received from the tabloids after she started dating him.
“The difference here is the racial factor,” he said.
For now, the series may increase the rift between the couple and parts of the country rather than between them and the royal family. “Harry & Meghan” offers an unbiased look at Britain’s colonial and slave trade past. Two prominent black British commentators featured in the film, David Olusoga and Afua Hirsch, say that legacy has certainly adorned the reception Meghan has received in the media.
For some, it’s a worthwhile and overdue discussion. But others complain that it caricatures recent developments such as Brexit, unfairly implying that millions of Britons are motivated by racism. As it happens, ordinary Britons whose clips were used in the series almost unanimously hailed Meghan’s entry into the royal family as a blow to racial diversity and a modernizing impetus for the nation. an ancient institution.
However, there is no doubt that the popularity of the couple, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, has declined in the UK since they bitterly parted ways with the royal family and left the country. Once the most popular members of the family after Queen Elizabeth II, they are now regularly ranked bottom in opinion polls.
Much of that can be attributed to the drumbeat of negative news the couple received in the media. Broadcaster and former tabloid editor Piers Morgan has been particularly harsh, at one point accusing Meghan of dishonesty by saying that the callous treatment at the hands of the royal family made her think suicide – the statements she made in a now famous interview she and Harry gave it to Oprah Winfrey last year.
Mr. Morgan was later forced to leave his ITV show, “Good Morning Britain,” after he stormed off the set following an argument with a co-host over his allegations of abuse. Meghan’s dishonesty. But Mr Morgan is now back on television and his taunts on Twitter against the pair’s appearance on Netflix were widely covered by the tabloids on Thursday.
In a column for Sunhe dismissed it as a “predictable, cliché, simple flattery snooze festival that fueled their tiresome tale of a ruthlessly oppressed couple being oppressed kicked out of the UK by a nasty racist media, a nasty racist Royal and an upset racist public.”
While the right-wing media are relentlessly scathing, centre-left newspapers like The Guardian are not at all upset. Its movie review comes under the headline “It’s Horrible – I Almost Bring Up My Breakfast.”
Lucy Mangan, reviewer, wrote: “In the end – what are we left with? Exactly the story we’ve always known, told the way we expect to hear it from the people who are telling it. It is difficult to know who, other than the media, the villains of the work, will really benefit from this? A period of silence should be welcome.”
Harry and Meghan have sued newspaper publishers in the UK with some success. In February 2021, a Supreme Court judge ruled that one of them, The Mail on Sunday, had invaded Meghan’s privacy by publishing a private letter she had sent to his estranged father.
But settling into a comfortable new life with the kids in Montecito, Calif., doesn’t seem to soften the bitterness the couple feel, nor their determination to re-litigate the counter-examples. treat in the past.
At one point, Harry described, in detail, the workings of the royal rota, the rotating contingent of reporters tasked with covering the public events of family members. He derided the title of “royal correspondent”, describing it as a way for newspapers to print unsubstantiated information about the royal family with a look of credibility.
Meghan must sum up their ordeal. “No matter what I do, they will find a way to destroy me,” she said.
