Claims negative stories were ‘fed’ to media as part of a ‘war’ against Meghan ‘are untrue’

The suggestion that Buckingham Palace routinely “fed” negative stories to the media as part of a “war” against Meghan, or to deny less favorable stories about other royals, is categorically false.

Why can I say this with absolute confidence?

Well, because as a longtime royal correspondent for the country’s best-selling daily, I can only assume that those stories would, on occasion, have leaked to me.

And if my job was as easy as sitting by the phone waiting for a friendly man (or woman) in a gray suit to call, then I wouldn’t be the walking Botox candidate that I am.

I can honestly say that I never heard a negative word about the couple until at least six months after their marriage, and then no one within the palace walls.

In fact, the opposite was true. As the trickle of evidence that all was not well in their home became a torrent, the palace attendants did nothing but fight for the couple.

Staff, they insisted, were leaving for personal reasons or because they had an exciting new opportunity to take advantage of. Never for Meghan.

Even when I personally witnessed their assault on a member of their team, leaving this individual crying with humiliation, they told me, with a straight face, that it had simply been a ‘security incident’.

I had standing arguments with palace staff when I suggested they had saved money with the truth, and my fact-checking calls regarding the stories I intended to publish were met with open sighs of frustration.

Harry’s downright rude and unprofessional behavior towards the press was never reflected in my copy either. The impressive charity work he was doing deserved to be the star of the show.

In fact, I have always had great sympathy for the prince’s historic hostility towards the media in general and wanted to try to improve relations.

When, for example, Harry fell off his polo pony during a match and seemed to have a very unreal tantrum on the field, I was the one who reached out to his team to tell them that it was clear something else was wrong and that it wouldn’t be. Useful. to explain what, so that the incident was not presented in a negative light.

This was quite a bold move, I must say, in the normally quite formal relations between the palace and the press.

My request resulted in Harry calling me from the Barbados airport on an assistant’s phone to tell me that yes, he had gambled a significant amount of money that his charity, Sentebale, wouldn’t go under and he was upset and frustrated at losing them. . much needed money.

Instead of a story about our favorite smug prince, my quotes went around the world about what a good ass Harry was and, from memory, the businessman in question stuck to his end of the bargain and paid anyway.

The suggestion that you could talk me out of running a story about another member of the royal family by offering me something much funnier about the Duchess of Sussex (or even Harry) can only come from someone completely ignorant of the media.

The royal houses have always respected the fact that I can occasionally publish stories that show their principles in a less than flattering way (in fact, one of my least helpful stories about Prince Charles led to a major diplomatic incident) and that’s part of the role of a free press.

What’s important is that it’s accurate and, more importantly, reflects their side of the story, something the Sussexes’ refusal to allow their press team to even speak to the majority of the British media makes frustratingly difficult to pin down. do.

The truth is, the negative stories about Harry and Meghan only started to emerge when their behavior became so disgusting that it was impossible to hide it.

And that’s not something I hope you’ll hear when today’s dramatic finale hits Netflix.

‘Palace leaked false stories about me to bury bad news’: Disbelief at Meghan’s most direct attack yet in final Netflix trailer

By Vanessa Allen and Rebecca English for the Daily Mail

Allies of the Duchess of Sussex claimed yesterday that palace officials deliberately used her as a “scapegoat” to deflect criticism from other royals.

The false stories and negative reporting against her and Prince Harry came as part of a “war on Meghan,” she and her associates have alleged in the latest attacks stemming from the couple’s Netflix series.

His lawyer, Jenny Afia, said she had seen evidence of “negative reporting by the Palace against Harry and Meghan to suit other people’s agendas.”

And the duchess’s friend, Lucy Fraser, who attended the couple’s wedding, said the Palace had used the duchess as a scapegoat, adding: “They would feed her stories, true or not, to prevent her from becoming publish other less favorable stories”. ‘

But the Sussexes have not provided any evidence for these extraordinary claims by Ms Afia or Ms Fraser.

The allegations were included in a new trailer for the Netflix series, ahead of the final three episodes released today. It seems certain that they contain more inflammatory claims, as the Duke and Duchess continue to share their version of events as a “truth bomb”.

In the latest trailer, Ms Afia said: “There was a kind of royal war against Meghan, and I’ve certainly seen evidence that there was negative reporting from the Palace against Harry and Meghan to suit other people’s agendas.” It was unclear if any of the “evidence” described by Ms. Afia would be included in the later episodes.

The duchess said she had seen stories appear about her if there had been criticism from other royals.

She said: ‘You’d just see how it plays out. A story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute and say, ‘We’ve got to make that go away. But there’s real estate on the home page of a website, there’s real estate there on the front page of a newspaper, and there’s something to fill in about someone royal.

Actual sources condemned the claims of leaking false stories and negative briefings as “fanciful”.

A well-placed source said: ‘The latest claims are absurd and show a level of paranoia that simply was not, or is not, confirmed by reality. The Sussexes’ team did nothing but shoot to protect them for three years, both before and after their wedding.

“The suggestion that the negative stories were deliberately leaked against Meghan as some kind of ‘war’ against her or to prevent stories about other members of the royal family from being published is not only fanciful but false.”

Another noted that Meghan was forced to apologize to the High Court last year for failing to recall authorizing a senior aide to brief the authors of the flattering Sussex biography Finding Freedom.

The couple have made a number of allegations about their treatment by the Palace and the media, with Meghan claiming she was “fed to the wolves”.

Ms Afia said the “latest straw in a nasty negative coverage campaign about her” had been a series of articles about Meghan’s breakup with her father, Thomas.

In an earlier trailer for the tell-all documentary, Harry said Palace aides were “happy to lie” to protect his older brother William, but would not tell the truth to protect him and his wife.

The six-part series, Harry & Meghan, is part of the couple’s multi-million dollar deal with Netflix, which they signed after stepping down as royals.

It has been a global success, but the Sussexes have faced calls for them to relinquish their titles.

Critics accused the couple of using the series to settle old scores and launching a disinformation campaign against the Royal Family and the media. Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace declined to comment.