Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan, will be suing The Mail on Sunday for the publication of a private letter.
What We Know:
- On Tuesday, October 1, 2019, during Prince Harry and Meghan’s 10-day journey through Africa, Harry announced that he is filing a lawsuit against The Mail on Sunday, a British tabloid. He released a 500-word statement saying that there was a private letter released to the public by their publication.
- In February, a handwritten letter from Meghan to her father, Thomas Markle, was released by the press. Meghan wrote the letter to her father following her wedding. Her relationship with her father was rocky and she wrote the letter in hopes to heal their relationship privately, despite the fact that her father continuously spoke out to the media.
- The royals have sued the media before and in 2016 the Duke officially censured British tabloids for racist coverage of his then-girlfriend. The media’s coverage of the couple has been visibly aggressive, and it escalated during Meghan’s pregnancy and maternity leave.
- The Duke and Duchess claim the letter was manipulated to mislead readers, through the omission of words, and is in breach of the U.K.’s Data Protection Act 2018, which requires the permission of the author to publish a letter. In Harry’s letter, he states “I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother [Princess Diana] and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.”
The Mail on Sunday has, in turn, announced that it plans to defend its statements and the company firmly.
