Sussexes’ film credits paparazzi agency that ‘caused family rift’
THE agency that collaborated with Thomas Markle to stage paparazzi photographs in the lead-up to the Royal wedding was given a credit in the Duke and Duchess of Sussexes’ Netflix documentary.
Days before the 2018 wedding, it emerged pictures of Mr Markle exer- cising in public, reading a book called Images of Britain, being measured for a suit, and looking up photographs of his daughter in an internet cafe were set up.
The retired former lighting director, 78, who lives alone in Mexico, was then unable to travel to Britain as he was taken to hospital with heart problems.
The third episode of the six-part series shows the controversial images as well as newspaper clippings of them printed on the front pages of British tabloids.
Discussing the fallout, Harry, 38, says: “Of course it’s incredibly sad what happened. She had a father before this and now she doesn’t have a father.”
But despite playing a part in the family breakdown, the Los Angeles agency Coleman-rayner, which took and sold the pictures, was given a credit at the end of the third episode.
The agency is listed with other companies in the archive credits at the end of the documentary, that states: “archival materials courtesy of ”.
It is not known whether the firm, set up by British journalists Mark Coleman and Jeff Rayner, was paid by Netflix to use the images.
In the hour-long episode, Harry says: “It’s amazing what people will do when offered a huge amount of money… 50,000, 100,000, to hand over photographs, to create a story.”
Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother, said she was “absolutely stunned that Tom would become part of this circus”, adding: “I felt sad that the media would run with this. That he would capitalise. Certainly as a parent it’s not… that’s not what you do. That’s not parenting.”
It comes as Mr Markle denied Meghan’s claim that someone else used his phone to send Meghan, 41, texts days before the wedding.
Text messages between Meghan and her father, in which she asked Mr Markle to stop speaking to the press and accused him of not returning more than 20 phone calls, were shown in the programme.
Mr Markle’s response was also displayed, which read: “I’ve done nothing to hurt you Meghan or anyone else I know nothing about 20 phone calls I’m sorry my heart attack is there [sic] any inconvenience for you”.
Meghan said she was suspicious as she knew her father “used a lot of emojis and a lot of ellipses and dot, dot, dot” in his texts. Mr Markle denied allegations his phone had been compromised.
Archewell and Coleman-rayner were contacted for comment. Netflix last night declined to comment.