Photos of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle taken on the night they were chased by paparazzi in New York City briefly appeared on British tabloid websites before they were taken down amid reports that the pursuit led to “near collisions.”
A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said that a relentless chase unfolded after the couple and Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland attended the Ms Foundation for Women award ceremony in Midtown.
The spokesperson said the pursuit was “near catastrophic” and involved “other drivers ... pedestrians and two NYPD officers.”
The NYPD told The Independent in a statement on Wednesday that the department assisted in the couple’s “challenging” transport, but no collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests were reported.
According to royal biographer Omid Scobie and online reports, some pictures of the couple taken around the time of the chase were briefly featured on DailyMail.com and The Daily Express but have since been removed.
It is unknown whether the photos in question were taken by the paparazzi accused of pursuing Meghan and Harry on the packed streets of Manhattan.
The Independent has reached out to DailyMail.com and the Express for comment.
Prince Harry has previously voiced fears of “history repeating itself,” referencing his mother’s 1997 death from injuries sustained in a car crash after trying to flee paparazzi who were following her vehicle.
Harry, who was 12 years old when Princess Diana died, spoke about his concerns in his AppleTV+ docuseries The Me You Can’t See, in which he drew parallels between the treatment of his mother and the scrutiny he and Meghan faced.
“It’s incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life, but the list is growing. And it all comes back to the same people, the same business model,” he said.
In the 2017 BBC documentary Diana, 7 Days, Prince Harry also criticised the paparazzi’s response following the crash.
“I think one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the people that chased her through into the tunnel were the same people that were taking photographs of her, while she was still dying in the back seat of the car,” he said at the time.
In the Netflix docuseries, Harry reflected on the inquest into Diana’s death, which concluded she was unlawfully killed due to “gross negligence” of her driver, Henri Paul, who had been drinking, and the paparazzi who were following her car at the time of the crash.
According to the duke, he was “so angry” that there was “no justice at all” after the inquest. “Nothing came from that. The same people who chased her into the tunnel photographed her dying in the backseat of that car,” he recalled.
The royal has also spoken about the trauma of his mother’s death in his revealing memoir Spare. Prince Harry said in the book he’s retraced the route his mother’s driver took in Paris on the night she died.
“I’d thought driving the tunnel would bring an end, or brief cessation, to the pain, the decade of unrelenting pain. Instead, it brought on the start of Pain, Part Deux,” he wrote.
The pursuit of the Sussexes is said to have involved a number of traffic violations including driving on the pavement and through red lights, reversing down a one-way street, illegally blocking a moving vehicle and driving while photographing and while on the phone.
In the statement, the spokesperson for the Sussexes condemned the “dangerous” way images of the couple and Ms Ragland leaving the event were obtained.
“While being a public figure comes with a level of interest from the public, it should never come at the cost of anyone’s safety,” the spokesperson said. “Dissemination of these images, given the ways in which they were obtained, encourages a highly intrusive practice that is dangerous to all involved.”
