Prince Harry Claims Legal Fight With U.K. Press Caused Duchess Meghan To Miscarry
“That miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan caused shockwaves when they, as senior members of the royal family, took legal action against British newspapers for invading their privacy.
The fight to make the outlets take accountability for the confidential details about the Sussexes' lives that they publicized carried on after they stepped down from their royal roles and is ongoing. And though Meghan won her case against Associated Newspapers last year (after they published a private letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle), Harry says it took a massive toll on her and may have been the cause for her miscarriage.
As the duke and duchess worked on their copyright infringement lawsuit against Associated Newspapers (which owns British outlets like the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday), they were also in the midst of moving into their new home in Santa Barbara, California. The compounded stress of all those events combined eventually culminated in Meghan's miscarriage in July of 2020, Harry says in Volume II of their new docuseries, Meghan & Harry.
"I believe my wife suffered a miscarriage because of what the Mail did. I watched the whole thing," the duke says in Episode 6. "Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was caused by that? Of 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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Meghan recalls the painful memory, saying, "I was pregnant. I really wasn't sleeping. And the first morning that we woke up in our new home is when I miscarried."
Abigail Spencer, a friend of Meghan's, details the moment she saw Meghan miscarry. "I'm driving up just like, 'All right, we're gonna unpack. We're gonna get settled,'" she says, referring to the family's arrival at their new home. "And Meg is standing outside waiting for me, and I can tell something's off. And she's, like, showing me the new home. So it's very mixed emotion[s] because, 'Here's our new home,' but she's like, 'I'm having a lot of pain.' She was holding Archie, and she just fell to the ground."
Meghan first told the heartbreaking story of her miscarriage in a November 2020 essay for The New York Times titled "The Losses We Share." She said she was looking after son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor when it happened. "After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful tune a stark contrast to my sense that something was not right. I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second," she wrote.
Following the tragedy, Meghan and Harry were luckily able to conceive again; they welcomed daughter Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor on June 4, 2021.
Watch Harry & Meghan Volumes I and II now on Netflix.
This article originally appeared in Harper's BAZAAR US.