Meghan Markle and Prince Harry think the stress of her lawsuit againstAssociated Newspapers, which owns the Mail and the Email Online led to hermiscarriage.
In the second part of Netflix’s Harry & Megan documentary, which dropped onThursday, the couple talks about her 2020 miscarriage. At the time, the pairhad recently left England, stepping down as senior royals, and relocated tothe suits actress’ home state of California with their son, Archie. Inaddition to the non-stop negative coverage of “Megxit,” Markle — with Harry’sblessing — was suing the Mail on Sunday about its publication of excerpts ofa private letter she sent her dad, Thomas Markle, after he was a no-show attheir 2018 royal wedding.
The couple’s lawyer Jenny Afia said Markle would be texting her at 3 am aboutthe case. “She’d be awake, unable to sleep, thinking about this case and thewider issues and the toll it was taking,” she said. “I knew the stress [it]was having on Meghan.”
(Photo: Courtesy of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex)
At the time, they had just moved into their new Santa Barbara home for a newbeginning (after staying at Tyler Perry’s home temporarily). her suits co-star Abigail Spencer recalled visiting the house on that first day and Markletelling her she was having “a lot of pain” as she held Archie in her arms.Then, Markle “just fell to the ground.”
“I was pregnant, I really wasn’t sleeping,” Markle said. “And the firstmorning that we woke up in our new home is when I miscarried.”
Harry said, “I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the_Mail_ did. I watched the whole thing. Now do we absolutely know that themiscarriage was caused by that? Of course, we don’t. But bearing in mind thestress that caused the lack of sleep and the timing of the pregnancy, how manyweeks in she was, I can say from what I saw, that miscarriage was created bywhat they were trying to do to her.”
Story continues
Markle’s mom, Doria Ragland, said, “I thought she was brave and courageous”during the ordeal, “but that doesn’t surprise me because she is brave andcourageous.”
The duchess shared her miscarriage publicly four months later in a New YorkTimes op-ed. The couple welcomed rainbow baby Lilibet “Lili” DianaMountbatten-Windsor in June 2021.
Markle ended up winning her privacy lawsuit against the British tabloid inFebruary 2021. In December of that year, she received a public apology fromthe Mail on Sunday.
Markle also said that the lawsuit changed everything with the royal family.When she initially said she wanted to sue, the royal institution did not honorher request. That led to her taking legal action against the tabloid own herown.
“Everything changed after that,” Meghan said. “That litigation was thecatalyst probably for all of the unraveling.”
(Photo: Courtesy of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex)
Among the other interesting parts of the documentary was Harry claiming thathis brother, Prince William, screamed and shouted at him during theSandringham summit in January 2020.
Leading up to that, Markle had experienced suicidal thoughts amid the negativepress (some allegedly planted by the palace and a lot of it, in general,racist in nature) and said she wasn’t able to get mental health help becausethe institution was concerned about how that would look. Harry admitted thathe knew his wife was struggling and “felt angry and ashamed” because he didn’t”deal with it particularly well. I dealt with it as institutional Harry asopposed to husband Harry.” After that, they knew they need to make changes —and announced in early January that they were stepping back as senior workingmembers of the royal family.
“I sent an email to the three most senior private secretaries saying, ‘Let’shave a meeting, let’s get together and have a meeting and talk about this,’ “Harry said. “Because what was happening, what was playing out in public wascrazy. And that meeting was rejected.”
Markle took Archie and went to Canada, where she resided before her move tothe UK At that point, it was arranged that there would be a meeting atSandringham with Harry and the late Queen Elizabeth, now-King Charles andPrince Williams.
Prince William and Prince Harry on Sept. 19, 2022. (Photo: Mark Cuthbert/UKPress via Getty Images)
Harry said it was “clear” to him that they planned it so Markle wasn’t in theroom. She said: “Imagine a conversation, a roundtable discussion about thefuture of your life. When the stakes are this high. And you as the mom and thewife and the target, in many regards, aren’t invited to have a seat at thetable.”
The meeting played out over 90 minutes at the monarch’s country estate inNorfolk.
“I went in with the same proposal that we’d already made publicly,” Harrysaid. “But once I got there, I was given five options. One being ‘all in, nochange,’ five being ‘all out.’ I chose option three in the meeting. ‘Half in,half out.’ Have our own jobs but also work in support of the Queen.”
He said William became enraged by his decision.
“It became very clear very quickly that that goal was not up for discussion ordebate,” Harry said. “It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout atme, and my father say things that simply weren’t true and my grandmotherquietly sit there and sort of take it all in.”
He said the meeting “finished without any solidified action plan… I think fromtheir perspective, they had to believe that it was more about us and maybe theissues that we had, as opposed to their partner, the media, and themselves.That relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what theywanted to see.”
Harry called the “saddest part of it” all “this wedge created between myselfand my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side. Part of that Iget, I understand, right, that’s his inheritance. So to some extent, it’salready ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivabilityand continuation of this institution.”
The day of the summit, a joint statement was released from William and Harrydenying the rift between the brothers was caused by William’s “bullying.”However, Harry said the statement was released without his permission.
“Within four hours, they’re happy to lie to protect my brother and yet, forthree years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us,” Harrysaid of the statement.
That moment changed everything for them. Markle said something “clicked in myhead” that “‘it’s never going to stop.” Every rumor, every negative thing,every lie, everything that I knew wasn’t true and that the palace knew wasn’ttrue and internally they knew wasn’t true, that was just being allowed tofester.”
Harry said he realized, “There was no other option at this point. I said, ‘Weneed to get out of here.'”
He added of the narrative that Markle was behind them stepping down, “It wasmy decision. She never asked to leave. I was the one that had to see it for