LONDON — The newest chapter within the drama surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan’s remedy by the tabloid media was a lot ado about one thing.
But precisely what occurred Tuesday evening in New York when the royals left a gala occasion and had been adopted by a gaggle of photographers will not be fully clear. No fender was bent. No site visitors citations issued. Nobody was harm.
What is clear is that the royal couple was shaken and the pursuit will probably additional gas Harry’s fury on the media in addition to his best worry that his spouse might meet the identical destiny as his mom, Princess Diana, who died in a automobile crash whereas being chased by paparazzi.
The couple’s representatives claimed that they had been pursued by photographers in a “near catastrophic car chase” by means of the streets of Manhattan. Police mentioned the pursuit was comparatively quick, led to no accidents, collisions or arrests and warranted no additional investigation. And a photograph company later contended it was Harry and Meghan’s safety guards who acted recklessly.
Harry’s notion of what occurred — and his complete relationship with the media — is undoubtedly coloured by his mom’s deadly crash when he was simply 12 years previous.
“My mother was chased to her death,” Harry mentioned within the psychological well being docuseries “The Me You Can’t See,” discussing his fears about Meghan being hounded by the media. “And now look what’s happened. You want to talk about history repeating itself? They’re not going to stop until she dies.”
Harry’s battle with the information media has taken two shapes: talking out in opposition to his perceived mistreatment, a part of what he calls his life’s mission to reform the press, and taking tabloid publishers to courtroom in London, the place one case is at present on trial.
Security for Harry and Meghan has been a difficulty for the reason that British authorities stripped them of safety once they moved to California in 2020, and it figures in three of his authorized circumstances in opposition to the federal government and tabloid press. The couple have mentioned they fund their very own safety.
The New York run-in occurred the identical day a lawyer for Harry argued in a London courtroom that he ought to have the ability to problem a authorities determination denying him the best to pay police for his personal safety within the U.Ok.
Harry, the youthful son of King Charles III, has argued his security was “compromised due to the absence of police protection” throughout a brief go to to the U.Ok. in July 2021, when his automobile was chased by photographers as he left a charity occasion.
On Tuesday, Harry and Meghan, also called the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and her mom, Doria Ragland, had been leaving the Ms. Foundation Awards in Manhattan when photographers performed a “relentless pursuit” that resulted in “multiple near collisions,” in line with a spokesperson for the couple.
At one level, the couple sought refuge in a police station earlier than trying to evade the photographers in a yellow cab. The cab driver who drove Harry and Meghan mentioned the photographers “were following us the whole time,” although he wouldn’t name it a chase.
The account led New York Mayor Eric Adams to sentence the paparazzi pursuing them as “reckless and irresponsible.”
A photograph company issued a press release denying the freelance photographers concerned had finished something fallacious and insisting that that they had “no intention of causing any distress or harm.”
On the opposite, Backgrid USA mentioned the photographers current reported that a part of Harry’s safety escort “was driving in a manner that could be perceived as reckless.” But Backgrid additionally mentioned it took the couple’s issues critically and would examine.
The bulk of Harry’s lawsuits are in opposition to the British tabloid press. Three circumstances focus on a telephone hacking scandal that dates again greater than a decade.
The lawsuits — together with an ongoing trial in opposition to the writer of the Daily Mirror through which the duke is meant to testify subsequent month — are offering recent reminders of the unscrupulous techniques employed by some journalists and personal eyes employed by the papers.
Harry and different high-profile claimants within the circumstances, together with Elton John and actor Elizabeth Hurley, allege nefarious practices that went so far as bugging, wire tapping and utilizing deceit to get medical information.
The newspapers have typically denied wrongdoing and say the claims had been introduced too late.
In transferring to the U.S., Harry and Meghan have tried to take management of the narrative. They stepped down as working royals in 2020, citing what they described because the insufferable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media towards Meghan, who’s biracial.
They sat for a two-hour TV interview with Oprah, launched a six-part sequence on Netflix about their life collectively, and Harry launched his best-selling memoir, “Spare.”
The media blitz has been met with sympathy and contempt. British tabloid headlines concerning the couple are sometimes damaging.
On Wednesday, The Sun’s principal story on the incident was titled “Harry Fears” and partially quoted the cab driver — who solely witnessed a little bit of the pursuit — in a headline that claims “chase claims are ‘exaggerated’ and there was ‘no reason to be afraid.’”
The Mail Online’s prime royals story was a column roasting Meghan for specializing in a “woke set of radical feminist priorities aimed at rescuing her reputation while getting richer.”
In the U.S., the TV present “South Park” spoofed the couple in an episode known as “The Worldwide Privacy Tour” through which the “prince and princess of Canada” — cartoonish Harry and Meghan lookalikes — jet across the planet in a publicity spree to get folks to cease speaking about them.
The episode was extensively talked about within the aftermath of the so-called chase, with hecklers saying the sequel had simply been written.
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