New ‘Harry & Meghan’ trailer alleges royal institution planted negative stories on Meghan Markle
Allies of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are speaking out in the “Harry & Meghan” docuseries, alleging there was a “war against” her in the press, and that she was a “scapegoat” for the royal institution.
In a new trailer for the Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan,” Meghan also speaks out about the negative press coverage she says she faced.
“You would just see it play out. Like a story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute, and they’d go, ‘We gotta make that go away,’ ” Meghan says in the trailer, released Wednesday. “But there’s real estate on a website homepage. There is real estate there on a newspaper front cover, and something has to be filled in there about someone royal.”
Lucy Fraser, identified in the docuseries as a friend of Meghan, alleges that stories about Meghan were fed to the press on purpose.
“Meg became this scapegoat for the palace,” Fraser says. “So they would feed stories on her, whether they were true or not, to avoid other less favorable stories being printed.”
The trailer does not give any additional context on Fraser’s allegation, nor does it make clear to whom she was referring: Buckingham Palace; the household of King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort; or Kensington Palace, the household of Prince William and Kate, the Princess of Wales.
Meghan’s husband, Prince Harry, who is fifth in line to the British throne, is Charles’ son and William’s younger brother.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, stepped down from their senior royal roles in 2020.
In the finale three episodes of the docuseries, scheduled to air Thursday, the couple is expected to give their most detailed account to date of their exit from royal life.
Prince Harry and Meghan are seen in a clip of their six-part Netflix docuseries titled “Harry & Meghan.”
In the new trailer, a London-based attorney claims there was a “war against Meghan.”
“There was a real kind of war against Meghan, and I’ve certainly seen evidence that there was negative briefing from the palace against Harry and Meghan to suit other people’s agendas,” says Jenny Afia, identified onscreen as a partner at Schillings, a London-based law firm. “This barrage of negative articles about the breakdown of the relationship with her father was the final straw in a campaign of negative, nasty coverage about her.”
Schillings represented Harry and Meghan in the couple’s lawsuit against a U.K. tabloid publisher over the publication of Meghan’s handwritten letter to her estranged father Thomas Markle.
A U.K. judge ruled in Meghan’s favor in the case last year.
In a trailer for “Harry & Meghan” released earlier this week, Harry made a similar allegation that he and Meghan were not protected in press coverage of the royal family.
“They were happy to lie to protect my brother,” Harry says. “They were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”
As Harry is speaking about his brother, a shot of Buckingham Palace is shown followed by a clip of Harry walking next to William in the funeral procession for their grandfather Prince Philip in 2021.
In the trailer, Harry also alleges “institutional gaslighting,” while Meghan says of her experience as a senior royal, “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves. I was being fed to the wolves.”
The one-minute trailer does not provide any additional context on the allegations.
Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex from the Netflix documentary, “Harry & Meghan.”
“The couple have made these claims before about William being protected,” ABC News royal contributor Victoria Murphy said Tuesday on “Good Morning America.” “The big question is are they going to be clearer about what exactly it is they are trying to say? If they are clear, and there is information to back this up, this could be very damaging.”
The first three episodes of the docuseries, made in association with Harry and Meghan’s Archewell production company, aired on Dec. 8. The streaming company said “Harry & Meghan” was its biggest documentary debut ever
The final three episodes, which the new trailers previewed, are scheduled to air on Netflix on Dec. 15.
Members of the royal family have not commented on Harry and Meghan’s docuseries.
In the opening seconds of the first episode of “Harry & Meghan”, Netflix states that members of Britain’s royal family “declined to comment on the content within this series.”
Royal sources told ABC News last week “that neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace nor any members of the royal family were approached for comment on the content of the series.”
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, at centre left, and from left, Prince Charles, Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Andrew, Meghan the Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate the Duchess of Cambridge, as they watch a flypast of Royal Air Force aircraft pass over Buckingham Palace in London, July 10, 2018.
According to royal sources, Kensington Palace, the household of Harry’s brother Prince William and his wife Kate, the Princess of Wales, received an email purporting to be from a third-party production company, via a different, unknown organization’s email address.
The palace contacted Harry and Meghan’s production company, Archewell Productions, and Netflix to attempt to verify the authenticity of the email, but received no response, sources said.
According to the sources, without being able to verify the email’s authenticity, the palace was “unable” to provide any response.
A source at Netflix, meanwhile, told ABC News that communications offices for Harry’s father King Charles III and William were contacted in advance and given the right to reply to claims within the series.
According to Netflix, interviews for the series were completed by August, one month before the death of Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.
