Prince Harry vs. The Press

Did the Media Push Prince Harry Away?

Prince Harry has grown into his role over the years, becoming one of the most prominent and popular members of the British royal family. As a result, the prince is and was regularly plastered across the front pages of newspapers and magazines all over the world — but the coverage isn't always positive. The recent scrutiny and backlash he’s received concerning his wife Meghan Markle is on a whole other level and culminated in their decision to leave the royals in January 2020.

Before he was walking in his mother’s charitable footsteps, growing the world’s most impressive beard, and being an otherwise stand-up royal, he engaged in quite a few cringe-worthy moments and scandals that the press loved to scrutinize. Being a royal, Harry was, perhaps rightly, held to an incredibly high standard, but it seems as though the media’s unrelenting coverage of his every mistake from his teenage years into adulthood has made him hate the very idea of being royal. The press has violated his privacy, publicly defamed him and tarnished the name of the woman he loves - did the scrutiny, perhaps, go too far?

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While smoking pot probably isn’t the most controversial thing one can do, when you’re only 16 years old and third in line to the British throne at the time, it’s pretty close. Back in 2002, Prince Harry reportedly admitted to his father, Prince Charles, that he has smoked marijuana on “several occasions.” Obviously, the royal family wanted to nip things in the bud, so to speak. He was sent to drug rehabilitation centre Featherston Lodge for a day and afterward, a spokesman for St. James Palace says, “This is a serious matter that was resolved within the family and is now in the past and is closed” (The Telegraph). But that doesn’t mean the press didn’t have a field day.

Probably one of Harry’s toughest lessons came in 2005 after he dressed as a Nazi for a friend’s costume party. Sure enough, a candid shot of the prince holding a drink and a cigarette while wearing a swastika armband was published on the cover of The Sun with the headline “Harry the Nazi.” The photo sparked outrage from various British Jewish groups, including The Board of Deputies of British Jews, who stated to BBC News: “It was clearly in bad taste, especially in the run-up to holocaust Memorial Day on the 27th of this month, which the Royal Family will be taking a leading role in commemorating.”

He issued a statement after the incident, saying, “I am very sorry if I caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize” (CNN). The apology seemed to satisfy some, like Rabbi Jonathon Romain, a spokesperson for the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, who said: “Having been given, the apology should now be accepted.” The words “Harry the Nazi,” of course, will not as easily be forgotten.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Well, not always. Back in 2012, Prince Harry took a trip to Las Vegas that unfortunately nobody will forget, thanks to scandalous photos obtained by TMZ. According to the tabloid, the prince reportedly invited some women he’d met at a hotel bar up to his suite, and played a game of strip billiards… only to be caught on camera naked by paparazzi. Prince Harry owned up to his responsibility for the incident and publicly expressed regret. “At the end of the day I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down,” he said (The Telegraph).

“It was probably a classic example of me probably being too much army, and not enough prince. It’s a simple case of that. But I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.”

To settle the privacy issue, the royal family put legal pressure on the UK press to not publish the photos, on the grounds that they were not only an invasion of privacy, but a breach of ethical code, according to The Sun – which was the only UK news outlet to publish them anyway. The press has repeatedly defamed Harry’s name, he will always be remembered as the royal mess-up. But does he really deserve that?

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The engagement of Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle raised even more eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic for a particular British set of reasons: she’s a biracial woman, an actress and the first American divorcee to marry into the royal family in nearly 81 years. Coverage of his prince-meets-commoner courtship in the British tabloids became so lurid that Harry took the unusual steps of issuing an official statement in November 2016, four months after they began dating, condemning the “wave of abuse and harassment” his girlfriend has endured. The statement said, “Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her.”

Over a year after their royal wedding on May 19, 2018, the pressure of the spotlight had still taken a toll on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. In their ITV documentary, Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, they revealed their struggle to balance their public and private lives while dealing with scrutiny from the press. When director Tom Bradby asked about the state of her mental health, Meghan Markle appeared well. Calling the ordeal “challenging” and agreeing that she “was not really okay,” she added: “Thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I’m okay.”

Prince Harry also opened up about what his mother, Princess Diana, went through with the media before her death.

“Every time I see a camera, every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash, it takes me straight back,” he said. “So in that respect, it’s the worst reminder of her life as opposed to the best.”

Their candor, however, was unusual for royals and ironically led to headlines on the consequences of breaking royal protocol. PR expert Mark Borkowski called the doc a “complete and utter disaster,” while royal biographer Penner Junor told The Guardian: “it just feeds the media machine […] it is the very reverse of what [Harry] has said he wants for […] his family, namely, privacy.”

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On January 8, 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, unveiled their controversial plan to walk away from royal roles. “We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the royal family and work to become financially independent while continuing to fully support her majesty the queen,'' they said in a joint statement. Apparently, the announcement on the Sussex Royal Instagram page blindsided the Queen and other family members who had no idea it was coming. It, of course, sent tabloids into overdrive.

“We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honour our duty to the Queen, the commonwealth and our patronages. This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son [Archie] with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity,” the statement added.

Prince Harry and Meghan have been adamant about raising Archie as normal as possible. Was their decision to give baby Archie a normal childhood influenced by their desire to keep him away from the media? If I were Harry, I’d want to spare my son the same scrutiny I received.

While the British media has been accused of having a chip on its shoulder about former Suits actress Markle, this kind of attention is nothing new for Prince Harry. He's seen by most as a charming prince today, but once had a reputation for being the unruly black sheep of the royal family ... a reputation that the tabloids helped enforce. The prince's news-making extracurricular exploits have included alleged drug use, fighting, nakedness, and more over the years. Of course, none of these are words you'd expect to come after the name of a royal in a headline. So, did this duke really deserve all that bad press? What were his decisions to leave the royal family behind and start anew really influenced by? This is the untold truth of Prince Harry.

So CULTURVERSERS, what are your thoughts on this royal disaster? Did he deserve all this? Tell it to the comment section.