DAN WOOTTON: I’ve had enough of Harry’s deranged campaign against media ‘devils’ and the royals

If Queen Camilla is ‘dangerous’ and a ‘dragon’ for working with the British free press to enhance her reputation, then Prince Harry and Meghan are dragon slayers themselves.

Now we’ve had to sit through hours of a grim fantasy created by the embittered Sussexes, most recently described in painful softball interviews by best friend Tom Bradby on ITV in the UK and roused by US media allies Anderson Cooper on CBS. and Michael Strahan on ABC. .

The fairy tale tells that this selfless and altruistic couple was forced to break ties with their British royal relatives and flee the country due to a vicious information campaign launched against them, even seeing the press collude with the institution and members. principals of the royal family to oust such a popular couple.

That narrative is messed up.

It’s a made-up hypocritical account designed by whiny Harry and fake Meghan to avoid having their own behavior taken into account, including credible claims of bullying against staff by the American diva.

Well, I’ve had enough of media figures tiptoeing around for what we all know are falsehoods.

If Harry and Meghan claim that reporting to the tabloids is some kind of unforgivable “crime” committed by Charles, Camilla, William and Kate, then they are equally guilty.

How can I know? Well, I was on the receiving end of such briefings from the Sussexes’ own communications team during my years covering Meghan’s time in the Royal Family when I gave a series of now-infamous scoops, on Tiaragate, the bitter rivalry between Kate and Meghan, and ultimately Megxit.

That won’t surprise anyone in the media; It is literally the job of some courtiers to work with journalists who have uncovered legitimate public interest stories about the monarchy, a publicly funded institution that should be accountable to the fourth estate.

In fact, this shouldn’t even be a story.

But Harry has criminalized these so-called ‘briefings and leaks’, in his words, ‘sleeping with the devil’, to such an extent that he is prepared to blow up his own relationship with his loyal brother in such cruel ways that he feels very relevant that he was just as ‘guilty’.

I had a bunch of phone conversations with the Sussexes’ staff, where they gave me their side of the story to balance the revelations that, let’s be honest about it, usually made them look bad.

For example, when I revealed that the couple had hired their third nanny in just six weeks, their team explained to me that “the first nanny was a night nurse” and they didn’t want to “take any chances to make the right decision.”

Or when I told how Meghan had made the very unusual decision to sign a big-money book deal while still a working member of the royal family, the couple’s team told me their first volume would “absolutely not be some kind of revelation.” about her”. life in the royal family. Oh how times change.

I even worked closely with Harry and Meghan’s staff before revealing their controversial decision to Megxit in January 2020, giving the couple a week’s notice before publication and including their official statement expressing their frustration that they “were not critical.” for the future plan’ of the monarchy after the release of an official photo of the Queen with Charles, William and George.

That is the professional way of working as a journalist; looking for both sides of the story as you determine the truth.

We don’t like to talk about this sort of thing: no one wants to know how sausage is made, and protecting our confidential sources is something I’m willing to go to jail for.

But my profession and Britain’s free press are now under attack.

Prince Harry wants to paint the media as an evil force fanning the culture wars and trying to divide Britain.

I would say that he is much more responsible for that.

Like the ridiculous suggestion made to Bradby last night that he and Meghan had not used their interview with Oprah Winfrey to suggest that the royal family was racist, even though they did so with inflammatory and unproven claims about so-called ‘racist’ real’ asking about the skin color of your unborn baby.

Meanwhile, thanks to her Netflix reality show, we now know that Meghan’s team of Hollywood advisers and close friends were working with the American tabloid media, including People magazine, to report and leak positive stories about the couple, exactly what what do they say. I’m so angry at what royals are doing in the UK.

And in new TV interviews and the painfully personal book Spare, finally out tomorrow after a torrent of TMI headlines, Harry invades the privacy of his relatives in a way the British media could never justify.

He has proudly leaked the words that a grief-stricken and devastated King Charles spoke privately to his sons in the moments after the burial of their father, Prince Philip, and even commented rudely on speculation about whether his brother William is circumcised.

It seems Harry and Meghan would rather live in a country like North Korea, Russia or China, where journalists don’t have the freedom to hold public figures accountable.

Harry’s underlying threat that his relationship with Charles and William will end unless they apologize and agree to never work with journalists again is unrealistic, naive, and somewhat chilling.

It’s also worth looking at how Harry’s argument about blaming the media for influencing how the royals, especially William, felt about Meghan just doesn’t add up.

In last night’s interviews, the duke has now admitted that William and Kate simply never hit it off with Meghan from the start, thanks to a personality clash that he hinted could be down to their different backgrounds.

Well, the media, and therefore the public as well, had no idea of ​​those riots until I first revealed that Meghan and Kate had fallen out over the way the actress was said to have spoken rudely to Palace staff. Kensington in an exclusive in November 2018.

By the way, at the time, courtiers working for William and Kate flatly denied the story to try to keep the peace with the Sussexes, mocking Harry’s claim that they were reporting negatively on Meghan.

Therefore, Harry’s suggestion that William and Kate’s opinion was dictated by negative tabloid headlines about Meghan is ludicrous because at the time they met, the coverage was almost universally positive.

As Harry himself has confirmed, the couples had already drifted apart.

While it may be hard for Harry to take, the Prince and Princess of Wales have made their own judgments about Meghan being “difficult, rude and abrasive” after countless personal meetings and apparently saw firsthand the way the Duchess from Sussex brought staff to tears. .

They didn’t have to wait months for media reports to surface; Rightly or wrongly, his mind was apparently already taken.

These are just a few of the many inconvenient truths that have been exposed during Harry and Meghan’s regrettable and spiteful campaign against their own flesh and blood, which has ironically made them unpopular public figures on both sides of the Atlantic.

Harry states that his ultimate goal is to reform the press. It’s not; he wants to control it.

Because the guy is more than happy to share the most intimate details of his family’s life with favored outlets or organizations like Netflix or Random House for multimillion-dollar paydays.

But when a newspaper or broadcaster questions the hypocrisy of his campaign against climate change, for example, while they are regular users of carbon-spitting private planes, he wants to silence and shut them down.

Enough is enough: It’s time even the wise-cracking media stopped giving the duke of illusion an easy ride and realized the damage it is doing to democracy with its falsehoods, distortions, and deranged attacks designed to do more damage to democracy. freedom of the press in Great Britain. .