“Suffering”: the Netflix trailer shows Meghan wiping away tears
(Picture: Netflix)The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Tuesday flew to New York to accept an award— as a fakery storm raged over the latest trailer for their Netflix documentary series.
Harry and Meghan travelled from their California home and were being presented with the Ripple of Hope prize at a gala organised by the Robert F Kennedy human rights foundation.
The annual award is given to “exemplary leaders” and it has previously gone to Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Foundation president Kerry Kennedy, who is the daughter of Robert and niece of John F Kennedy, said the couple were chosen for challenging the royal family’s “power structure”.
She said the duke and duchess “went to the oldest institution in UK history and told them what they were doing wrong” adding that it was a “heroic” step. The gala was being hosted by actor Alec Baldwin and was also honouring Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
It came ahead of the release of the couple’s Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal, which is set to widen their rift with the rest of the royal family.
The series is being released in two sections of three episodes, the first on Thursday at 8am and then a week later on December 15. In a trailer released yesterday, Harry speaks of the “leaking and... planting of stories” as part of a “dirty game”. It also features a clip of the duchess wiping away tears.
He describes the “pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution” in an apparent reference to Meghan and his mother, Princess Diana, and their experience of royal life.
A commentary claims “there was a war against Meghan to suit other people’s agendas” and the issue of the royals and race is raised, with a commentator saying: “It’s about hatred. It’s about race.”
However, the trailer has sparked further controversy because some of the images used to illustrate how the couple were “hounded” were of events not linked to Harry and Meghan.
One clip of a woman being surrounded by members of the media was actually of a court appearance by model Katie Price in 2021, while another of a bank of photographers was at the premiere for Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part Two in London in 2011 — an event which no royals attended. A different section shows US journalists moving towards ex-Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
Another scene gives the impression a photographer covertly taking pictures of the couple and their son Archie inside a private home but was revealed to be official coverage of a visit to Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa.
