Meghan ‘personally pleaded’ to royal family after Harry’s security was pulled
‘I never thought I would have my security removed,’ says Duke of Sussex
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Your support makes all the difference.The Duchess of Sussex has revealed that she personally pleaded with the royal family not to remove the Duke of Sussex’s security.
Prince Harry claimed during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that, at the start of 2020 after announcing he’d be stepping back from royal duties, his family “literally cut [him] off financially”, meaning that their security would no longer be funded by the royal family.
However, according to Prince Harry, debates around the couple’s security actually started much earlier when Meghan was pregnant with their first son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor.
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey as part of the groundbreaking interview between her and the Sussexes, Meghan said she was told by palace officials that Archie should not be given the title of prince, which meant he would not receive a royal security detail.
“This went on for the last few months of our pregnancy, where I’m going, hold on a second... he needs to be safe,” Meghan said.
“We have created this monster machine (of clickbait and tabloids), you’ve allowed this to happen, which means we need to be safe.
“While I was pregnant, they wanted to change the convention, for Archie. Why? There’s no explanation.”
Prince Harry went on to say how he and Meghan learned that their own security detail would be cut off after they had announced their decision to step away from the royal family.
The couple were in Vancouver, Canada at the time.
Prince Harry explained that he “never thought” his security would be removed, with Meghan revealing that she wrote letters to the royal family to personally ask them not to remove it.
According to Prince Harry, the actor Tyler Perry stepped in to offer his support, with the Duke claiming that the decision was made by the royal family despite there being no change to the couple’s risk or threat, but because their status had changed.
“While we were in Canada, in someone else’s house, I then got told, short notice, that security was going to be removed,” he told Winfrey, adding that, because of tabloids, his and his wife’s exact location was known.
“So suddenly it dawned on me: ‘Hang on, the borders could be closed, we’re going to have our security removed, who knows how long lockdown is going to be, the world knows where we are, it’s not safe, it’s not secure, we probably need to get out of here.”
Meghan added: “We didn’t have a plan and we needed a house and he offered security as well so it gave us breathing room to try to figure out what we were going to do.”
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