In the new trailer for this week’s hotly anticipated upcoming episodes of “Harry and Meghan,” the Duke of Sussex is heard saying that a mysterious “they” were “happy to lie to protect” his brother Prince William from negative stories in the media but that “they” wouldn’t “tell the truth” to protect him and his wife Meghan Markle.
Many news and entertainment sites assumed that Harry is referring to senior members of the royal family in the docuseries, The Guardian said, with Us Weekly, for example, running with the headline, “Prince Harry Claims Royal Family Is Willing to ‘Lie to Protect’ Prince William in New Netflix Teaser.”
Harry & Meghan. The Netflix Global event continues December 15. pic.twitter.com/4PNOThV9fM
— Netflix (@netflix) December 12, 2022
But Netflix added to the confusion about the identity of “they” when it emerged that the streaming service had posted a second trailer on its site, which features a key subtitle change that identifies “they” as the British media.
As the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror reported, one trailer was posted on social media and has the subtitle that simply says “they” lied on behalf of William. Harry is heard in the clip saying that “they” wanted to protect William while showing an image of Harry walking with his brother at the funeral of their grandfather Prince Philip. The second trailer, posted on Netflix’s website, has the same image, but the altered subtitle, saying it was “the British” media that lied at Harry and Meghan’s expense.
Makes you wonder who is filling in the gaps? Two versions of the latest #HarryandMeghanonNetflix trailer with different subtitles, one on social media and the other broadcast on Netflix website ???? https://t.co/6Hdp4tZUBK pic.twitter.com/M0xQ4mE8eN
— Russell Myers (@rjmyers) December 12, 2022
In the trailer, Harry also claims he and Meghan were the victims of “institutional gaslighting,” while American tech entrepreneur Christopher Bouzy said, “They were actively recruiting people to disseminate misinformation.” Bouzy’s Bot Sentinel site claims to fight online disinformation and harassment, especially when it’s been aimed at Harry and Meghan.
But with Netflix posting two trailers with a key difference in the subtitles, it’s now unclear whether Harry and Bouzy also were saying it was the British media, not the royal family, who engaged in “institutional gaslighting” and an effort to foment disinformation. In both trailers, Meghan also said, “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves. I was being fed to the wolves.” Again, it’s not clear if Meghan is saying the U.K. media or the royal family had campaigned against her.
Daily Mail editor Richard Eden noted the change in the subtitle, suggesting on Twitter that Netflix could be concerned about pushback — legally or otherwise — from the royal family by initially letting Harry appear to accuse them of undermining his press coverage. Perhaps Harry and Meghan also were concerned that the statement about “they” could further inflame bad feelings between them and their estranged royal relatives.
Whether or not Netflix bungled Harry’s claim about unequal treatment in royal news coverage — which has previously been documented by the BBC and other sources — critics of the Sussexes still say that Harry appears to be taking direct aim at his older brother, the heir to the throne, in Episodes 4-6. That’s not likely to go over well with William.
While the Times U.K. quoted a friend of William’s who said that the prince will “never watch” the Netflix docuseries, royal observers have said that Harry and Meghan’s participation in the show could permanently damage any efforts to heal the rift between the brothers. On the other hand, the Times also reported that William and Kate remain fond of Harry and Meghan’s children, Archie and Lilibet, so the feuding couples will exchange Christmas presents for one another’s children.
Supporters of the Sussexes argue that Harry makes a sound point about how he was sidelined in favor of his older brother when it came to media coverage. They’ve long questioned why the British media has mostly stayed away from the longstanding but unsubstantiated rumor that William was unfaithful to wife Kate Middleton.
A Sussex supporter also said that Harry’s argument was backed up in a 2015 BBC documentary, which alleged that Charles leaked stories about the private struggles of his sons, particularly about Harry, to improve his reputation, after it was badly damaged following his divorce from their mother Princess Diana and her death in 1997.
Cry more Dan. This video clip is prior to Meghan. Royal experts and royal reporters talking about how William was protected and Harry not protected. pic.twitter.com/SvRbXCxS5B
— Resilient (@KaindeB) December 12, 2022
The BBC documentary also quoted royal experts who said that a media narrative took hold of Harry in his late teens and early 20s, amplifying stories about him as “the wild child” who had “gone off the rails,” as biographer Penny Junor said. In that narrative, Harry came off as the “complete antitheses of his “goody-two-shoes” older brother,” Junor said.
Royal expert Robert Jobson agreed to the BBC that there was “the image of the good prince and the bad prince.” He said Harry was a teenager who had not properly processed his grief over losing his mother, while “William was getting drunk quite a lot himself, and no one seemed to be reporting about that.”
To continue the media narrative about the “bad prince,” the U.K. tabloids would repeat running images of Harry drunk at a London club, Junor said. The U.K. media also had a field day when Harry was caught infamously wearing a Nazi uniform to a 2005 costume party.
Author Robert Lacey, in his book “Battling Brothers,” agreed that Harry bore the brunt of public outrage over the Nazi uniform — even after William also attended the party, was supposed to be mentoring his younger brother and helped him choose the outfit.
“Harry chose his costume in conjunction with his elder brother … who had laughed all the way back to Highgrove (Prince Charles’s country home) with the younger sibling he was supposed to be mentoring, and then onwards to the party together,” Lacey wrote.
In “Harry and Meghan,” Harry addressed the Nazi costume controversy, saying the choice to wear the uniform was “one of the biggest mistakes of my life.” He also said he “felt so ashamed afterwards,” was determined to “make it right,” and sought out ways to learn from the experience.
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