Prince Harry believes Meghan Markle suffered a miscarriage because of “what the [Daily] Mail did” to her.
In the sixth episode of Harry & Meghan, their new docuseries for Netflix, the royal couple addresses the difficult and deeply personal subject of pregnancy loss—a topic the Duchess of Sussex previously wrote about at length in an op-ed for the New York Times in November 2020. In the final installment of the series, Meghan explains that after moving into their new home in Santa Barbara, she started experiencing “a lot of pain” and then collapsed to the ground while holding their son Archie. She said, “I was pregnant, I really wasn’t sleeping. The first morning that we woke up in our new home is when I miscarried.”
Prince Harry explained, “I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did. I watched the whole thing. Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? Course we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that 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 miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
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At the time, Meghan was involved in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, the owner of the Daily Mail, MailOnline, and The Mail on Sunday, which published material from a private letter the Duchess sent to her father ahead of her wedding without her permission. She has since gone on to win that case, writing in a statement following the verdict, “This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.”
In the episode, Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland notes that she thought her daughter “was brave and courageous” for choosing to speak out about her miscarriage experience given everything the press has put her through. She added, “But that doesn’t surprise me because she is brave and courageous.” Meghan said of her decision to share this very private moment with the public just four months after it happened, “When I reveal things that are moments of vulnerability, when it comes to having a miscarriage and maybe having felt ashamed about that, like, ‘It’s okay. You’re human. It’s okay to talk about that.’ And I could make the choice to never talk about those things, or I could make the choice to say, ‘With all the bad that comes with this, the good is being able to help other people.’ That’s the point of life, right? Is connection and community like that.”
