Harry bristles as trolls target girlfriend
‘Racist, sexist’ online attacks infuriate prince
LONDON • Prince Harry fears his girlfriend Meghan Markle will be driven away by the intense scrutiny she is under, friends said Tuesday, as he issued an unprecedented plea for “racist and sexist” online trolls to leave her alone.
Prince Harry, 32, accused both mainstream and social media of “crossing a line” in comments on their relationship as he warned, “This is not a game.”
The statement was the first official confirmation from Kensington Palace that the prince is in a relationship with the American actress. It also confirmed the couple have been together for “a few months.”
Until now, Kensington Palace had adopted a strict “no comment” policy on all inquiries about Markle, 35. But insiders said Prince Harry felt he finally had to speak out because “a wave of abuse and harassment” in recent days meant “it was no longer tolerable for his voice not to be heard.”
Markle has also contacted the U.K. media, through her lawyers, to ask that her privacy be respected.
Prince Harry was particularly upset by a “smear” on the front page of a national newspaper, understood to be an article last Friday reporting clips of Markle’s sex scenes from the U.S. legal drama Suits had been uploaded to a pornographic website.
He also took exception to an article speculating about her 2013 divorce from film producer Trevor Engelson. He was outraged by what he described as “the racial undertones of comment pieces and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”
Markle, who has a black mother and a white father, has talked in the past about being a victim of racism.
A source close to the prince said he fears that any potential wife will be scared off by the intense scrutiny.
“If this is the price someone has to pay for being Harry’s girlfriend, why would they do it?” asked the source. “He is not naive, he knows he is not waving a magic wand and he knows articles will still be written about her, but he is not prepared to accept a campaign to destroy her reputation.”
The prince’s previous longterm relationship, with model and actress Cressida Bonas, was killed off by the constant attention she received, but the prince feels Markle’s situation is “worse than anything before,” a source said.
He said two factors are to blame: The ever-increasing influence of social media, and the fact that at his age, every girlfriend is inevitably regarded as a possible bride.