Prince Harry and Meghan Markle just wrapped up their 10-day tour of South Africa, shortly after Harry visited the Mauwa Health Centre in Blantyre, Malawi on Tuesday, Oct. 1. After his visit, Harry and palace officials were making their way to a car when a reporter spoke to Harry, though the royal was not keen on answering the questions.
“That short conversation, what do you hope to achieve through it?” Sky News reporter Rhiannon Mills asked about Harry’s trip to the hospital. “What? Ask them,” Harry responded.
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Mills continued, “Is that why it’s important for you to come and talk to them?”
Updated tweet – Harry was asked about aims of the visit today, *not* lawsuit. Reaction seems to make more sense in light of the lawsuit…?
[Video via @daernys] pic.twitter.com/cxelyLxUNi
— Victoria Howard (@TheRoyalExpert) October 1, 2019
“Rhiannon, don’t behave like this,” an irritated Harry replied.
The moment came just before news broke that Harry and Markle had filed a lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday and its parent company, Associated Newspapers, after the publication ran a private letter written by Markle to her father, Thomas Markle.
In a statement, Harry claimed that the letter, reportedly written after the couple’s wedding and published earlier this year, was published “unlawfully in an intentionally destructive manner to manipulate you, the reader, and further the divisive agenda of the media group in question.”
“In addition to their unlawful publication of this private document, they purposely misled you by strategically omitting select paragraphs, specific sentences, and even singular words to mask the lies they had perpetuated for over a year,” the statement read.
Harry even compared the British press’ treatment of Markle to the way his late mother, Princess Diana, was hounded by the media.
“Though this action may not be the safe one, it is the right one,” he wrote. “Because my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditized to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.”
Harry and Markle’s tour of South Africa was their first as a family, with 5-month-old son Archie accompanying the Duke and Duchess to several events, which his mom revealed were organized around his eating schedule.
BAZAAR.com reports that the release of the statement was in no way timed to coincide with the tour but instead correlate to private legal advice the royals received. The Mail on Sunday is standing by its story and denies altering the contents of the letter to change its meaning.
Photo Credit: Getty / Samir Hussein
