In Their Docuseries, Harry and Meghan Finally Explain Why They Suspected a Palace Conspiracy

For the first few hours after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle dropped bombshell accusations in the final three episodes of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan on Thursday, things were pretty quiet across the pond. Despite Harry’s claims that King Charles III’s office leaked the couple’s plans to move to Canada and Prince William’s office released a statement without his knowledge, their respective offices, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace, declined to comment. After an initial flurry of coverage, correspondents from the royal rota eventually moved to cover the Westminster Abbey choral service organized by the Princess of Wales. 

But by the end of the day, one claim was vigorously contested by the press pack who covered Harry and Meghan while they lived in the UK. Some correspondents have said that Meghan and Harry were incorrect to claim that the palace had briefed against them. Former palace press secretary and current royal commentator Dickie Arbiter put it succinctly to Vanity Fair’s Katie Nicholl on Thursday. “It’s not Buckingham Palace’s business to leak stories,” he said. “They are the purveyors of information. If there’s a story to be had it will be given to all media outlets and it’s never a case of briefing against a principal.” 

A friend of Meghan said in May 2020 that she wanted to leave the UK because she worried there was a “conspiracy” against her, and in Finding Freedom, the August 2020 book by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, they give a few examples of ill will between Meghan and her staff leaking into the press. But in Harry & Meghan, the couple describes in detail how they became convinced of that fact. It’s a little complicated because Harry, Meghan, and lawyer Jenny Afia all use a bit of industry jargon to describe the situation in Kensington Palace in 2018 and 2019. “Briefing” typically refers to a meeting or phone call between communications staff and representatives from multiple news outlets, while “leaking” is generally used to describe intentionally disclosing private information without permission. The two terms can be a little blurry, but among modern royal journalists, briefings are usually authorized by a royal and shared with a larger group, while leaks are unauthorized and only shared with a few.

In the docuseries, Meghan offers a general explanation of her belief that the “negative briefing” that led to critical stories about her was the result of household staff attempting to distract from or prevent negative stories about other members of the family. “You would just see it play out—like a story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute, and they’d go, ‘We gotta make that go away,’” she says in episode five. “But there’s real estate on a website homepage, there’s real estate there on a newspaper front cover, and something has to be filled in there about someone royal.” In episode four, Harry says that he and Prince William both saw similar behavior in their parents’ offices when they were growing up and promised not to do it to each other. He adds that it was “heartbreaking” to “see my brother’s office copy the very same thing,” essentially accusing William’s office of the practice. 

Though they suggest that this quid pro quo practice was common, ultimately, the filmmakers offer two instances of negative briefings, both of which have to do with the Associated Newspapers case about the letter Meghan wrote to her father, Thomas Markle. They show an affidavit from Mail on Sunday editor Ted Verity, first submitted to the court in January 2021, where he said that a senior source in the palace gave him information about the letter, including the fact that Meghan had written multiple drafts. Afia previously told the BBC that she thought this was evidence that a senior figure in the royal household was “passing him information in order to help defeat the duchess’s case.” Finally, they mention that Jason Knauf, former palace communications secretary and current Earthshot Prize board member, shared evidence, including private text messages, with the High Court, even though, as Afia claims, he “came forward to give this witness statement, which wasn’t required, and sadly, there’s just no way he could have done that without the authority of his boss.”

(In a statement to the Harry & Meghan filmmakers, Knauf said that he gave evidence because he was invited to by both Meghan and Associated Newspapers, and did it in a way that allowed him to remain “neutral.” In response, Afia denied that Meghan or her team had invited him to submit evidence.)

By the time Harry claims that it was “terrifying” to see William “scream and shout” and hear Charles “say things that just simply weren’t true,” viewers get a sense that Harry is ready to go for his brother’s jugular. So it’s almost anticlimactic when Harry and Meghan, on camera after hearing that Knauf is giving evidence against Meghan in the case against Associated Newspapers, make the accusation that makes it clear they probably won’t be getting invited to Christmas anytime soon. “How do we deal with that? Like, how on earth…” Meghan says. “Like, I know it’s your brother, and I’m not going to say anything about your brother, but it’s so obvious.”