Prince Harry has linked a miscarriage suffered by the Duchess of Sussex on stress experienced at the hands of the tabloid press.
The couple discuss losing their unborn child in the final episode of their explosive six-part ocuseries Harry & Meghan, which was released on Thursday.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, says the tragedy happened after moving into their new home in Santa Barbara in July 2020, amid her legal battle with Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over the Mail on Sunday’s publication of a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle.
“I was pregnant and really wasn’t sleeping and the first morning we woke up in our new house was when I miscarried,” she says.
Harry adds: “I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did.”
The couple have previously discussed the stress endured as a result of the privacy battle, but have stopped short of drawing a direct link between that and Meghan’s miscarriage.
Harry adds in the documentary: “I watched the whole thing. Now, do I absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? Of course I don’t.
“But bearing in mind the stress that caused, the lack of sleep and the timing of the pregnancy, how many weeks in she was, I can say from what I saw that the miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
Meghan’s friend Abigail Spencer recalls the moment the Duchess collapsed while holding Archie as the couple were moving into their new home.
“I’m driving up just like ‘we’re going to unpack, we’re just getting settled’ and Meghan’s outside waiting for me and I can tell something’s off,” she tells the documentary.
“And she’s like showing me the new house and it’s very mixed emotions, because she’s like ‘here’s our new house’ but she’s like ‘I’m having a lot of pain’.
“She was holding Archie and she just fell to the ground.”
Meghan emerged victorious from her acrimonious legal fight with ANL last December.
It was sparked by five articles in February 2019 which featured extracts of a handwritten letter the Duchess had sent to her father, pleading with him to stop talking to the media.
She insisted the five-page missive was “deeply personal” and “self-evidently was intended to be kept private” when it was dispatched to Mr Markle’s ranch in Mexico.
Newspaper group ANL - publisher of the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline - argued Meghan knew her words might be leaked to the media, and said the news articles were intended to give Mr Markle a right of reply to a US magazine feature about their relationship.
A judge dismissed the case of ANL and concluded Meghan should be awarded damages - a decision upheld by appeal court judges last December despite a fightback from the media group.
In a statement after the ruling, Meghan said: “This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.
“What matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel and profits from the lies and pain that they create.”
