JAN MOIR: The ‘near catastrophic car chase’ is the Harry and Meghan story that’s finally broken me 

Years from now, people will still be talking about the night the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, according to their own official statement, were involved in a “near catastrophic” two-hour car chase in New York resulting in “several near-misses with other cars, pedestrians and police officers.

Step on the brakes and consider how the word “close” is used to do a lot of hard work in this context.

Near, as in a flaming meteor shower from Mars, was involved in a near-miss on their car. Almost like that near-disastrous moment when King Kong nearly fell off the Empire State Building after climbing up to get a better look at this terrifying chase. One, I might add, which is surely becoming the most famous chase in American history, right up there with Steve McQueen in Bullitt or OJ Simpson’s slow-paced police chase nearly 30 years ago.

But in the feverish aftermath of this incident, the most striking element is that everyone seems to be telling a different story, no two accounts match.

New York Police Department called the evening “challenging” but with no collision and not catastrophic, while New York City Mayor Adams said, “I would find it hard to believe that a two-hour high-speed chase took place.”

A bodyguard for the couple said he saw the paparazzi drive through 15 red lights, but a famous news agency on the scene claimed it was an SUV in the couple’s security detail driving recklessly, not them.

The taxi driver who picked up Prince Harry and his wife Meghan and her mother Doria Ragland for part of their journey dismissed all claims of alleged disaster as “exaggerated.”

However, Archewell’s ‘global’ spokesperson reported that after a year in the service of the Sussexes she had ‘never experienced their vulnerability as much as I did last night’.

Maybe she wasn’t there the day they so beautifully peeled opened their hearts and went to lay flowers in a Los Angeles military cemetery. Or she didn’t personally witness their mutual grief when Bridesmaid Three wore the wrong leotard to their wedding — but I get the gist, even if much of the American media itself seems skeptical.

“As more details emerged, the picture became more complicated,” the New York Times wrote suspiciously, while the New York Post called the couple the Duke and Duchess of Hazard.

Meanwhile, major networks like CBS hinted that the incident was an exaggeration, with Gayle King revealing, “It was a scary moment, but the police told us it wasn’t as serious as Harry and Meghan said.”

The taxi driver who picked up Prince Harry and his wife Meghan and her mother Doria Ragland for part of their journey dismissed all claims of alleged calamity as ‘exaggerated’

Of course, everyone has been so, so careful and expressed compassion and understanding of how being chased by paparazzi — even for five minutes at 5 mph — could be a trigger for Prince Harry.

You can certainly understand how his response to trauma is tuned to a higher pitch than most, and why he catastrophized the incident into something approaching a near-death experience – because it may have felt that way to him.

For others, it may just reflect the uncomfortable reality of being a celebrity on the mean streets of 21st century America, a place where one’s catastrophic pursuit crosses the other in search of a parking space.

On Wednesday’s Newsnight (BBC2), even Omid Scobie rowed back, claiming that the Sussexes’ first hyperbolic statement had been made by people in an ’emotional’ state.

Does that make it okay? No it doesn’t. What history needs is the truth, not the near truth. What we need is for the NYPD to launch an investigation, because the 18,000 police cameras monitoring nearly every godforsaken corner of New York City cannot lie, nor allow tragic personal histories to cloud their focus.

But honestly, I feel like this is the Harry and Meghan story that finally broke me. It just never ends, right? The whole world will be forever punished for what they see as the fault lines in their lives; we were all caught up in the psychodrama of their need for the kind of high-profile public acclaim that generates revenue, versus their demands for general privacy or otherwise.

I feel like this is the Harry and Meghan story that finally broke me. It just never ends, right? The entire world will be forever punished for what they see as the fault lines in their lives

For reasons yet unknown, Harry and Meghan got involved in a bizarre car chase in Manhattan that cynics might say looked like part of a scripted reality show from some angles. Or even an exercise in content creation and collection for some dreaded future Netflix project aimed at polishing their premium victimization credentials.

Can’t they just go on with their blessed and happy lives? Obviously not.

Since their arrival in America, the Sussexes’ courtship with the media has been diligent and slick, and good for them.

But the success of their Netflix documentaries and Harry’s recent memoir, Spare, has only fueled American interest in their royals-in-exile lifestyle, just as intended.

It’s the Kardashians in a crown, the Osbournes in the buttons, the real royals of Montecito — and the sooner they might accept that, the better it would be for everyone involved.

If Prince Harry really can’t handle the blazing torch of fame, having entered the competition himself, if it’s really all too painful, maybe he should stay home in the rescue coop and count his chickens.

That’s not a criticism. Just a comment from a long-suffering bystander that it might just make him happier.