‘MAKE IT GO AWAY’
Meghan says palace planted stories to avoid negative press
THE final chapter of Harry & Meghan accuses the palace of waging a “war” against the Duchess of Sussex to protect more senior members of the royal family.
After Prince Harry and Meghan Markle threatened in the first trailer for Volume II to reveal “lies” told to protect Prince William, the couple enlisted a celebrity lawyer to double down on their allegations in the final three episodes of the series.
“There was a real kind of war against Meghan,” said Schillings partner Jenny Alfa, the London lawyer hired by the duchess in her privacy battle against British press.
“And I’ve certainly seen evidence that there was negative briefing, from the palace, against Harry and Meghan, to suit other people’s agendas,” added Ms Alfa, who has represented stars such as Elton John, Adele and Brad Pitt in his divorce from Angelina Jolie.
Prince William, among the main targets of the second part of the Netflix series, sees the relationship with his brother as damaged beyond repair.
While the royal family has remained silent, friends of the Prince and Princess of Wales told The Daily Beast it was “incredibly sad” to see the relationship with Prince Harry completely “over”.
“William will never forgive Harry for selling out his and Kate’s secrets. Harry knows, more than anyone, how much their privacy means to William and Kate because he felt the same. It was one of the things that drew them together. It’s just sickening to (William) that Harry, who knows exactly how distressing it will be to him, is now selling them out to the media,” the friend told the Beast.
“The relationship between the brothers is over and it doesn’t make a great deal of difference what is in the films released this week. The general feeling is that it won’t be anything they haven’t said before.”
The second trailer tried to ramp up the drama of the so-called “war against Meghan”, her friend Lucy Fraser saying the duchess became a scapegoat for the palace.
Ms Fraser claimed the palace would feed stories about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to the media, “whether they were true or not”, to avoid other stories being printed.
The trailer for the final three episodes showed Ms Markle directly allege the palace planted negative news about her in the British media.
“You would just see it play out,” Ms Markle said.
“Like a story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute, and they’d go, ‘got to make that go away’.”
“But there’s real estate on a website homepage, there’s real estate there on a newspaper front cover, and something has to be filled in there about someone royal.”
As Ms Markle alleged underhanded tactics by Kensington and Buckingham Palace, the trailer overlayed images of British media headlines such as “Meghan made Kate cry” and “Royal Race Row”.
Ms Alfa, who won a token £1 ($1.81) settlement from the publishers of the Mail On Sunday for printing a letter Ms Markle wrote to her father, said there was a “campaign of negative, nasty coverage” about the duchess.
“This barrage of negative articles about the breakdown of the relationship with her father was the final straw,” Ms Alfa said in the trailer.
Disputed reports of bullying in the palace, leading up to the Sussex “Megxit” to California, were expected to form the basis of the final three episodes, released last night.
A Hollywood insider close to the Netflix production said the couple would allege they were “victims of the palace media machine”.
Ms Markle was also expected to address allegations she bullied palace staff. Despite suggestions the royal family was behind some of the negative press, Buckingham Palace has kept private the findings of an investigation into allegations of bullying against Ms Markle.
While the royal family are expected to keep a dignified silence on their strained relationship with Prince Harry and Ms Markle, it has been revealed that the Houses of Sussex and Wales are exchanging Christmas gifts for their children.