Prince Harry’s statement

Go get ‘em Harry!

He is absolutely correct and I do wonder why they could not make legal moves earlier.

I wish them peace & privacy

I was appalled by the behavior of the press when George was born To William & Kate. I was there to witness the behavior the press swarming the park & trying to climb walls & trees the day the queen came to visit. We happened to leave the park ( we were there purely by accident because we didn’t realize ) the same time her car came down the street to the side entrance. My ex was going to take a picture and I said no, it’s just a great great gramma coming to see her new great great grandson & they all deserve the privacy we would all want at such a time. Besides it’s probably a decoy car. But all around us people with cameras were climbing any thing they could to snap a picture. Walls, lamp posts, garbage pails what ever. It was sickening.

It's about time! Go Harry!

May they win! I would think that they might have had to have permission from the Queen to proceed.

I think that if they stopped acting so precious and playing with the masses they would have a better relationship with the press. 

Harry has grown up in the media spotlight but he also has had periods of time when he and William were off limits and they lived relatively off the grid (so to speak).

He knows better and she should perhaps accept and follow the guidance that Im sure would have been offered to her.

They think they are so important that they can just dismiss a 1000 years of custom and protocol to suit themselves. They put their hand in the public purse and what does the public get in return? A dismissive attitude that puts people off side simply because there is no respect for the position. Harry has talked about walking away from being 'royal' well off he should go as he is just as dismissive as she is and uses the position to his own end. 

I am a Royalist but these two just rub me the wrong way and imho it is these behaviours that will see the demise of the British Royal house sooner rather than later. 

I have mixed feelings about this.

I think partially this situation is of their own making.
Like it or not they are always going to be one of the most watched couples in the world. Do they have a right to privacy? of course they do...but can they expect it, given who are they are? I think that's very unrealistic and something they are just going to have to live with.

I understand being upset that a private letter was printed in the press...but you know what, once that letter leaves her hands, the receiver can do anything they want with it, she no longer has control. The way to avoid that is to not write a letter in the first place.
I don't see how the publication of the letter was "unlawful" if the owner of the letter - her father - gave it to the press and gave them permission to publish it.

Also unlike Kate, they did not spend enough time preparing Meghan for what she was entering into, and she's the one who has the train wreck family that perpetuate a lot of this ongoing drama. There seems to be little recognition of how her family contribute to this in the British press.

Also Harry seems to take little responsibility for his part in this mess. he's the one giving preachy speeches about environmental damage and then using thousands of gallons of fossil fuels to fly away on vacations at the drop of a hat. He needs to man up and stop whinging about everyone attacking his wife and taking no responsibility about how his actions factor into it.
I also think it was a very manipulative move to bring his mother's death into this, it makes him sound whiney and immature. Plus the two situations are totally different. Diana was a very naïve 19yo when she entered the royal family without much life experience or support and was totally unprepared for how much attention she would generate. Meghan has a lot more experience as an actress/celebrity, is older, wiser, been married, has her own group if friends AND the benefit of hindsight & seeing what a circus Diana's life turned into. Diana didn't have a clue what she was in for, these two have no excuses and they should have been better prepared and be handling it better, instead they are just doing it badly and then complaining about it. 
William and Kate seem to have been able to find a relatively happy medium between their personal lives (they get away to her parents and seem to be left pretty much alone at those times) and their public lives. Harry seems to want everything his way and has a tantrum when that doesn't happen. 

I'm sure Meghan thought she could come into this marriage and continue to do whatever she wanted and it's been a rude shock to her just traditional & stuffy all that 'royal' stuff still is.

I imagine this suit serves as a warning to her family as well. Good on them for standing up for themselves.

In your imagination? or do you know them personally?

Listening to BBC radio this morning, the point was made that legally the copyright of the letter remains with the author.

And aside from copyright, are we saying that we would be happy to have our private correspondence made fodder for the masses to read over their cornflakes? Lots of these tabloids use the defence of "public interest" as a way of justifying their behaviour. That just carte Blanche to write whatever they want knowing especially that the Royal Family don't usually react. Bully boy tactics.

One reporter also made the point that Meghan and Kate are treated differently by the tabloids and gave an example, when Meghan wore a one shoulder outfit to a fashion show she was called vulgar whilst when Kate wore a one shoulder outfit to an awards ceremony a few weeks later she was called an ethereal goddess.

I'm a little torn too. 

I can completely understand Harry's mistrust and dislike of the press.
Ownership of the letter is immaterial really - the Mail decided to print it and they shouldn't have. They didn't have to.
Harry has always been a favourite among the Royals - I think a lot of people felt protective of him after losing his mother - and seeing him become less open, not sharing so much (rightly or wrongly) of his new family has disappointed people and possibly made them blame Meghan for that change.

But it's a bit chicken and egg - are they not sharing so much of themselves (and Archie) because of the way she's been portrayed in the Press or has she been portrayed that way because they don't give the public enough tidbits of their lives? I haven't really seen this evolve because I don't read the gutter press. 

But - they are Royalty - she knowingly married into a family that has a very delicate balance with (in particular) the British public which is based on respect. We don't own them but we do feel some ownership of them and, I think, feel that we're due a little more in the way of photos etc in return for all they have. William and Kate seem to have got it about right.

I wonder if Meghan really did understand the intricacies of being in the Royal family. Intellectually knowing that you'll be scrutinised and watched is one thing but did she understand the unwritten 'rules'? 

I hope things can settle down. I don't want to lose them from public life here in the UK - I think they can be a great force for good between them.

Because he's a royal, because of his public role. If he wants to have the press attention for his fantastic work with charities etc then we like to have a little in return.

No, we aren't saying that at all.

However if you are one of the most famous women in the world, with a family who have already whored themselves out to the media on multiple occasions and who you are currently on bad terms with...what do you think might happen to anything that you put in writing to them? Plus this letter came AFTER her father had already broken her trust with the media several times.
I'm not remotely famous but I learnt that lesson back in high school about not putting things in writing and giving it to one person and naively thinking they would never show it to anyone else.
It's really not rocket science.

"Should" he have done it? of course not, but based on his past behaviour they could have reasonably predicated that he would discuss that letter with the media, and therefore they could have prevented the entire situation.

It will be interesting to see what the court (if it gets that far) says about this especially as it sounds like her father willingly showed them the letter as well as texts on his phone (I just googled it again). I also wonder if the fact that they didn't print the letter in it's entirety affects the copyright issue?



or "if my mum died in a speeding car being driven by a drunk driver while not wearing a seatbelt"...I'd hate people who drink and drive and then speed, or people who don't wear seat belts.
And seriously at this point in her life, why even try to "out run" them, let them take photos of her in the car sitting next to Dodi, she was playing it up for the cameras in a bikini on his boat a just few days earlier so it was no secret they were dating.

There were multiple factors at play, probably the main one being to make sure that your driver a driver doesn't consume alcohol on the job.
It's not as simple/one sided as "the paparazzi killed my mother" as he wants it make it.

I do feel sorry for him on some levels because he's not famous because he chose to be, and he has no control over who his parents are and the family he was born into and no matter what he does he can never do anything to change that. And the more he tries to fight it the worse it seems to get for him.

Harry and Meghan DO get a bad press here and if you read it and believe it, they are spoilt, rude, uncaring whiners. Yet if you listen to interviews from people who have dealings with them, they are sweet, caring and thoughtful. I know which I’d prefer to believe.

Female gossip column journalists are some of the worst for their thinly veiled dislike of Meghan, it comes across as jealous and waspish and totally at odds with how women should behave to other women. Their words are just nasty.

Harry is always going to have the response of the child in him “they killed my mother” no matter how old he is. That was a huge, major trauma in his young life and those feelings will resurface again and again. Of course it will colour the way he views the press forever more.

I’m pleased to see them taking action. We won’t have seen the half of what eventually became the straw that broke the camel’s back. We won’t have lived with long range cameras constantly trying to get a candid shot of us or half spun truths splattered across the front pages. Yes, they are in the public eye and part of a very public family but I sometimes think our expectations of just how much they should share with us are unrealistic.

craftykitten - good points. This seems more vicious than they were with Kate? Waity Katie is all I remember although there probably was more 🙂