By Michael Holden
LONDON, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Prince Harry and his wife Meghan piled fresh criticism on the British royal family in new episodes of their Netflix documentary series released on Thursday, accusing their aides of being part of media attacks.
In the first tranche of episodes released last week, Harry and Meghan launched fierce attacks on the media over their treatment, some of which they said had been racist, but the royals themselves escaped relatively unscathed.
However, there was greater criticism of his relatives and their aides in the final three episodes, accusing them of not just failing to prevent negative coverage in the press, but actively encouraging it.
“It was already clear to the media that the palace wasn’t going to protect her. Once that happens, the floodgates open,” Harry said.
The couple were also shown talking about a former senior aide to his elder brother Prince William, the heir to the throne, who provided evidence in a legal action Meghan had brought against the Mail on Sunday newspaper that had published a letter she had written to her estranged father.
“It’s your brother. Not gonna say anything about your brother, but it’s so obvious,” Meghan said.
In his evidence the former aide, Jason Knauf, suggested Meghan had been aware at the time that the letter could leak.
“That’s why I’m now living in a different country because all the comms (communications) teams basically like try to outdo each other,” Harry said. “But this is the contract, the symbiotic relationship between the two institutions working the best that they can.”
Netflix included a statement from a representative for Knauf, which said the claims were “entirely false”.
The episodes were released just hours before King Charles, his wife Camilla, William and his wife Kate along with other royals will attend a carol service at London’s Westminster Abbey to “recognise the selfless efforts of individuals, families and communities across the UK”.
Below are quotes from the series:
HARRY ON TIES WITH HIS FAMILY
On a family meeting to discuss Harry’s royal departure:
“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in.”
On the royal household and the media:
“It is a dirty game. There’s leaking but there’s also planting of stories. So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principal. So the offices end up working against each other.
“William and I both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made an agreement we would never let that happen to our office.
“I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game, or this business of trading. To see my brother’s office copy the very same thing that we promised the two of us would never ever do, that was heartbreaking.”
On ties with William:
“The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother so he is now on the institution side. Part of that, I get. That is his inheritance. To some extent that is already engrained in him, that part of his responsibility is the survivability and continuation of this institution.”
On his feelings towards his family:
“I felt really distant from the rest of my family, which was interesting because so much of how they operate is about what it looks like rather than what it feels like. And it looked cold, but it also felt cold.”
MEGHAN AND HARRY ON THE MEDIA AND PRESSURE
Meghan on royals and the media:
“You would just see it play out. Like a story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute and they would go: ‘got to make that go away’.
“But there is a real estate on a website home page, on a newspaper front cover, and something has to be filled in there about someone royal.”
Harry on Meghan’s miscarriage:
“I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did,” he said, referring to the British tabloid newspaper. “I watched the whole thing.
“Now do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? Of course we don’t, but bearing in mind the stress that that caused, the lack of sleep, and the timing of the pregnancy – how many weeks in she was, I can say from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
Harry on pressure to show off son Archie after birth:
“The amount of abuse we got… for not wanting to serve our child up on a silver platter was incredible.”
Harry on Meghan and a missed opportunity:
“Anyone inside that system, whether it’s my family, whether it’s staff, whether it’s PR, whoever it is, has missed an enormous opportunity with my wife and how far that would go globally.”
Harry on support in the family:
“The issue is when someone who’s marrying in, and should be a supporting act, is then stealing the limelight or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this. That upsets people, it shifts the balance.”
Meghan on feeling suicidal:
“I was like, all of this will stop if I’m not here. And that was the scariest thing about it because it was such a clear thinking.”
“I wanted to go somewhere to get help but I wasn’t allowed to, they were concerned about how that would look for the institution.”
