Harry’s anger is clear — but his response is risky
The prince’s happiness has made his anger burn brighter, as he seeks justice for the women he loves,
BEFORE last Tuesday, when Prince Harry issued his emotional and angry statement in defence of his wife, Meghan, many would have forgotten the letter at the heart of their legal action against the Mail on Sunday.
The letter, written by Meghan to her father after her May 2018 wedding to Harry, was published in February. These days, our memories are short. As far as public perception goes, things were going swimmingly for the Sussexes, who seemed to be basking in good press for their trip to Africa.
What his statement last Tuesday proves, however, is that Harry’s memory is not short. Harry’s memory is long, and Harry’s attitude is angry.
His words, on the sussexofficial.uk website which contains nothing other than his statement, burn with anger. The recent past of the last few weeks is all well and good, but his anger at the perceived press treatment of his wife in the last year is not dimmed.
Further, Harry’s anger at the perceived press treatment of his late mother burns equally bright. So bright, in fact, that he compares Meghan to Diana in his statement.
“Unfortunately,” says the statement, after an introduction explaining the couple’s commitment to faithful reporting, “my wife has become one of the latest victims of a British tabloid press that wages campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences — a ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son”.
It goes on to say, in the first person, as written by Harry — though he makes clear this is a statement as a couple — that Meghan has been vilified and misrepresented, that they have not been able to correct various lies and that they now feel forced to take action. Specifically, legal action against the Mail on Sunday, which published Meghan’s letter to her father, Thomas, an action of offence rather than defence against the media at large.
“I have been a silent witness to her private suffering for too long,” it went on. “To stand back and do nothing would be contrary to everything we believe in.”
It explained how the publication of Meghan’s letter wasn’t just a breach of her privacy, but misrepresented her by omission of words and sentences.
The statement came as a surprise, in its tone in particular. We take Harry to be happy now. The semi-orphaned boy, who became the party-loving prince, has found love with Meghan and become a father to Archie and this, we assumed, brought him some peace.
In reality, however, Prince Harry seems more angry now than he ever did in the past. Last Tuesday’s statement seems to offer some answer to why he might seem thus, but it’s not just that he perceives Meghan to be victimised — and victim is their word — by the press.
There is the alleged rift with William and Kate, to whom Harry was once so close. Then there was the guarding of Archie’s birth, which seemed excessive to many. It was hard to understand why a public figure, steeped in this sense of duty to his public, would refuse to immediately announce the birth or have a photo of the newborn, even if Meghan preferred to not be subjected to a shoot post-partum.
Harry wants privacy, he’s been very public about that. But he wants a profile, too. Both he and Meghan do. They want to be game-changers, she through empowering fashion enterprises and her guest-editorship of Vogue, which she presented as championing women who challenge the status quo.
In Africa, they have both talked the talk of empowerment and holding on to your dreams. They want to be people who are listened to and, perhaps, looked up to.
But they don’t want the rest. With attention like that, there is always a flipside. If you court attention, you get the bad stuff, too. Like the focus on Meghan’s estranged family, who have not helped matters by talking to the press about her and, in her father’s case, actually handing over her personal letter to him. And like the focus on their private air travel, her lavish US baby shower and her trip to watch Serena Williams play in the US Open, allegedly chosen over a trip to Balmoral.
There is a degree to which Harry and Meghan have drawn attention to themselves and it’s not always good attention. He with his somewhat churlish demands to be treated with kid gloves, and she with her behaviour that is more that of a celebrity than a fuddy-duddy royal.
And herein may lie the reason Meghan is getting a rougher ride than Kate Middleton. William and Kate may be rather more boring than Harry and Meghan, but it’s boring that keeps you out of trouble.
William and Kate are on an even keel of duty and smiling at all times and saying the right things and seeming utterly wholesome and fitting for their roles. Harry and Meghan are more exciting and with exciting, the rough comes with the smooth.
Harry compares Meghan to his mother in last week’s statement. “Though this action may not be the safe one, it is the right one. Because my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces,” the statement goes.
There are echoes of Harry’s uncle Charles’s eulogy of Diana, comparing her to the goddess of the same name and hunted to death. Clearly, Harry shares this opinion. Clearly, Harry remains very angry about it, but this does not allow for how Diana famously played with the press, provided stories and photo opportunities and then, as she did with many people close to her, cut them off when they did something to displease her or that did not chime with her world and her self-view.
Harry is right when he says his statement may not be the safe option.
It is a tricky thing to make Meghan out to be a victim. Further, to compare her to his mother, whom the rest of the world might perceive as a more complex character than he, her grieving son.
Harry loves both of these women, though, and he lost one of them. He is entitled to be angry about that loss and he is entitled to feel fiercely protective of what he has now.
To plunge into public, slating statements and legal cases which will open old wounds and potentially involve Meghan’s unpredictable family, seems more than unsafe, however, and anger can often be as blinding as love.
‘To compare Meghan to his mother seems misguided’