Harry and Meghan Netflix docuseries under fire for using Katie Price court video in ‘misleading’ trailer
The ‘unprecedented and in-depth documentary series’ is set to debut on the streaming platform on Thursday
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Your support makes all the difference.A new trailer for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s upcoming Netflix docuseries has appeared to use footage of the press filming events unrelated to the couple to depict how they were hounded by the paparazzi.
Harry & Meghan, which is to be an “unprecedented and in-depth documentary series”, is set to debut on the streaming platform on Thursday.
Ahead of the series launch, the one-minute teaser was released on Monday and shows Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attending public events as well as private behind-the-scenes moments.
In one section of the footage, clips of paparazzi are paralleled alongside old footage of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana being followed by the media as Harry says in a voiceover: “The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution, this feeding frenzy.
“I was terrified, I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”
However, one of the clips shown to illustrate his words appears to be actually of members of the press awaiting TV star Katie Price arriving outside Crawley Magistrates Court, where the former glamour model was handed a 16-month suspended sentence for drink-driving last December.
Freelance videojournalist Marc Ward said: “It’s a completely bizarre use of clips. One of them in the trailer shows me outside Crawley Magistrates Court.”
Another part of the trailer shows photographers huddling around a car as Meghan says, referring to the royal household, “I realised they are never going to protect you”.
Rather than depicting the royal couple being hounded, the clip seems to be of Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen being photographed leaving his apartment in New York to serve jail time for financial crimes and lying to the US Congress.
At another point in the teaser, Harry says: “There’s a hierarchy of the family, you know, there’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories. It’s a dirty game” as a photo of the royal family at the Trooping the Colour in 2019 is shown followed by photos of photographers.
One of the images used shows a photographer on a balcony taking a picture of the couple walking with their son Archie down below.
However, this picture appears to actually be of an accredited photographer during a royal rota event where Harry and Meghan met Desmond Tutu in Cape Town.
The royal editor of the Evening Standard, Robert Jobson, called the use of the image a “complete travesty”, alleging that the Sussexes had agreed upon the position of the three accredited photographers given access that day, adding: “I was there.”
Netflix confirmed volume one of the series will launch on December 8 – exactly three months after the death of Harry’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth II – with the second volume to be released on December 15.
Billed as a Netflix Global Event, the streaming giant has promised an “unprecedented and in-depth documentary series” over six episodes where Harry and Meghan “share the other side of their high-profile love story”.
It added it was a “never-before-seen look at one of the most-discussed couples in history”.
Netflix said the show “explores the clandestine days of their early courtship and the challenges that led to them feeling forced to step back from their full-time roles in the institution”.
It features commentary from friends and family, most of whom have never spoken publicly before about what they witnessed according to Netflix, and historians who discuss the state of the British Commonwealth today and the royal family’s relationship with the press.
It adds: “The series does more than illuminate one couple’s love story, it paints a picture of our world and how we treat each other.”
The director is two-time Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning director Liz Garbus.
Harry and Meghan signed lucrative deals – thought to be worth well over £100 million – with Netflix and Spotify after quitting the monarchy and moving to the US.
Netflix and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been approached for comment.
Additional reporting by PA
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