Stress of legal action against Mail on Sunday caused Meghan’s miscarriage, Harry claims
The Duke of Sussex has claimed the stress of the Duchess of Sussex’s privacy action against the Mail on Sunday caused her to miscarry.
The prince also revealed his brother screamed and shouted at him during the fraught Sandringham summit that led to the couple quitting the UK and royal duties.
The prince claimed palace wars had left him heartbroken, suggesting Prince William’s office deliberately briefed against him and Meghan, despite a promise the brothers had made not to copy the same tactics allegedly used by Charles’s office.
In the final three episodes of the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, Harry said of Meghan’s successful legal action against the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online over publication of parts of her private letter to her estranged father, Thomas Markle.
“I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did. I watched the whole thing. Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that – course we don’t,” he said.
“But bearing in mind the stress 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.”
Speaking of the bitterness caused throughout the process of the couple’s departure as working royals, Harry said: “I mean, the saddest part of it was this wedge created between me and my brother so that he’s now on the institution’s side – and I get, part of that I get. I understand, right? That’s his inheritance, so to some extent it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and the continuation of this institution.”
In private video footage, Harry is seen sharing a text with Meghan from William, shown immediately after footage in which William denied the royal family were racist after the Oprah Winfrey interview. Meghan reacted with “wow” as she looked at the screen, then hugged Harry, as he said “I wish I knew what to do”.
In other revelations, Harry claimed a joint statement was put out without his permission in his and William’s name on the day of the summit denying a story that William had bullied him out of the royal family.
“No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that. I rang M and I told her and she burst into floods of tears, because within four hours they were happy to lie to protect my brother, and yet for three years they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”
Recounting what went on behind the scenes at Sandringham in January 2020, Harry said: “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.”
The allegations were aired as senior members of the royal family were preparing to attend the Princess of Wales’s carol service at Westminster Abbey on Thursday evening.
Both Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace declined to comment on the claims.
In a direct attack on Kensington Palace, Harry said: “William and I both saw what happened in our dad’s office, and we made an agreement that we would never let that happen to our office.”
But, he said, the relationship between the royals and the press was “a dirty game”.
“I mean, just constant briefings about other members of the family, about favours, inviting the press in.”
He said if the palace communications team for one royal “want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal [royal boss], they will trade and give you something else about someone else’s principal, so the offices end up working against each other”.
He added: “I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game, 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.”
His comments imply William and Kate’s aides briefed against the couple, as Meghan speaks of how she thought of taking her own life after a barrage of negative press coverage.
She said: “It was like all of this will stop if I am not here. And that was the scariest thing about it. It was such clear thinking.”
Harry said he was “devastated” and felt “angry and ashamed” things got to that stage saying: “I dealt with it as an institutional Harry as opposed to husband Harry,” which he now hated himself for.
Meghan said she “wanted to go somewhere to get help, but I wasn’t allowed to. They were concerned about how that would look for the institution”.
As footage of newspaper headlines about Kate and Meghan flashed on screen, including pictures of the two women touching their baby bumps when pregnant, Harry contrasted the coverage. “If you don’t see the difference and understand why it’s being reported in that way, or why, then I can’t help you, I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
Problems between the palaces had begun when Meghan began receiving more coverage than other royals, the couple claimed.
“The issue is when someone who is 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,” said Harry.
As coverage of Meghan then became increasingly negative, Harry said: “No one would have private conversations with the editors saying ‘Enough’”. He said he spoke to Charles. “My dad said to me: ‘Darling boy, you can’t take on the media. The media will always be the media.’ I said: ‘I fundamentally disagree.’”
He denied “blindsiding” the Queen over announcing the couple’s plans to move to Canada, and accused “the institution” leaking a letter about their plans to the press.
He also claimed the couple were at Tyler Perry’s house in California in 2020 for six weeks before anyone knew, adding: “My family still thought I was in Canada.”