In Netflix series, Harry slams press, family over ‘feeding frenzy’

LONDON: Prince Harry slammed the media “feeding frenzy” over his relationship with Meghan in an explosive Netflix docuseries aired on Thursday and criticised Britain’s royal family for failing to protect her and his mother Diana.

The family has been braced for the first three episodes of the six-part series “Meghan & Harry”. It was largely spared during the first episodes but was still on the end of accusations of “unconscious” racial bias and that it did not help Meghan or Diana after her 1992 separation from Harry’s father Charles, who is now king.

“To see another woman in my life who I love go through this feeding frenzy, that’s hard,” said Harry. “It is basically the hunter versus the prey.” “The moment that she divorced, the moment she left the institution, then she was by herself... she was completely exposed to this,” Harry, 38, said of his mother, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Meghan also took aim at the family for failing to counter negative press reports about her, saying “it was horrible, but I continued to hold the line, like say nothing”. Her husband said the family ignored racist undertones in the reports.

“As far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they´d been put through as well. So it was almost like a rite of passage,” he said. “I said the difference here is the race element.” Harry went on to claim there was a “huge level of unconscious bias” within the family, with the documentary referencing a racist brooch worn by Princess Michael of Kent to an event that Meghan attended in 2017. Harry reiterated feeling “ashamed” about being photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy-dress party in 2005, calling it “probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life”.

The documentary is lifting the lid on events that prompted the pair to quit royal life and move to the United States in 2020. —AFPBritish newspapers said the couple had declared “war” on the royal family, which said that no family members had been approached to comment for the docuseries.