Harry’s two lawsuits for the misuse of confidential information, filed in the High Court by Sherborne on 27 September 2019, would be his revenge for his mother – launched as they were on the day that he walked in Diana’s footsteps through the mines of Huambo.
The climax of the trip, which would prove historic, were Harry and Meghan’s interviews with Tom Bradby, whose cameras had been following them for his ITV documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey. Dramatically engulfed in the domed darkness of a southern hemisphere night, with the flames of a campfire flickering in the background, Harry admitted that he and William now found themselves moving through their lives and careers on ‘different paths’. The prince finally acknowledged and revealed to the world the solid reality of the rift that had been dividing him from his brother for more than two years – but he tried to deliver the news with reflection and context.
‘Inevitably stuff happens,’ said Harry. ‘But look, we are brothers. We will always be brothers. We are certainly on different paths at the moment but I will always be there for him and, as I know, he will always be there for me.’
Meghan did not fare so well. Bradby managed to catch the duchess with his cameras on the day before the couple were due to leave for home at the end of a tour that had proved a resounding success, thanks to the efforts of the FCO, Geidt–Manning, Sunshine Sachs – and, not least, the charm and positive energies of the couple themselves. But Meghan had gone into negative ‘victim’ mode.
‘How are you feeling, Meghan?’ wondered Bradby.
‘Thank you for asking,’ she replied with a steely and defiant edge. ‘Because not many people have asked if I’m OK.’
Bradby looked surprised, repeating the question, ‘And the answer is? Would it be fair to say, not really OK? That it’s really been a struggle?’
To which Meghan eventually replied, ‘Yes.’
‘I suppose I just told the story that was in front of me, really,’ Bradby later recounted to ABC in a discussion of the interview. ‘I knew that everything wasn’t entirely rosy behind the scenes.’
Gently the interviewer, who was also a friend, tried to tease out some details from Meghan, getting her to explain how she had been trying hard to ‘adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip … I tried, I really tried.’
But she had stopped trying, she said, because she was worried about the effect it might have upon her mental health – ‘I think that what that does internally is probably really damaging … I’ve said for a long time to H (that’s what I call [Harry]), it’s not enough to just survive something, right? Like that’s not the point of life. You’ve got to thrive, you’ve got to feel happy.’
The problem with the interview was that Meghan’s sense of persecution did not really need much teasing out.
‘Look at any woman,’ she said, going back before the birth of Archie, ‘especially when they’re pregnant, you’re really vulnerable, you know. And especially as a woman, it’s a lot. So you add this on top of just trying to be a new mom, or trying to be a newly-wed …’
Her words tailed away as she tried to hold back the tears. Observers with long memories couldn’t help recalling the self-destructive tone of Princess Diana in her 1995 interview with Panorama journalist Martin Bashir. There was no ‘three of us in this marriage’ moment in Meghan’s contribution to An African Journey, but it ended the Sussexes’ oh-so-promising tour of Southern Africa on a sad note. Self-pity and tears – which Sunshine Sachs playbook had they come from?
One major reason for Meghan’s negative feelings as she flew ‘home’ to England at the beginning of October curiously provided some redemption from her distress. Both Harry and Meghan had shared with the world the ever-increasing fury that they felt about the unrelenting intrusion of the press. ‘Every single time I see a camera,’ Harry had said, in reference to his mother’s death pursued and surrounded by photographers, ‘every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash – it takes me back. So in that respect, it’s the worst reminder of her life, as opposed to the best.’
For her part Meghan had recounted how her British friends had actually warned her against marrying Harry ‘because the British tabloids will destroy your life’. The polished – and, she felt, quite hardened and experienced – TV star, had shrugged off their concerns. She never thought it would be easy, she said, ‘but I thought it would be fair’.
Now Meghan admitted that she had been naïve.
‘The first time I met Meghan, before her engagement to Harry, it was to talk about the press,’ recalled Bradby in the Sunday Times on the day that the Africa interview aired. ‘She was already starting to find the attention difficult to cope with, with reporters trying to inveigle themselves close to her family … I sensed that Harry had introduced us so that I might reassure her it could be managed and would settle down. In retrospect, I did a lousy job.’
Sunshine Sachs reckoned that it could do better, and the agency had simple advice for its two beleaguered royal clients – the same considered, professional advice that it was now giving to all its top clients in the States: SUE THE FUCKERS TO HELL!!
This was a recently developed tactic of American PR agencies. If you could get your client into the law courts in the age of mass media and social media, ran the rationale, you had secured them a very effective platform as well as a
