Harry and Meghan documentary: Palace accused of ‘feeding’ stories about duchess to the press in new Netflix trailer
A new trailer for the final episodes of Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary series accuses the palace of “feeding” stories about the duchess to the press to avoid other “less favourable” stories from being published.
Ahead of the final three episodes of Harry & Meghan airing on Thursday morning, the streaming platform has published another look-ahead clip – this time featuring snippets of interviews with Meghan, her friend Lucy Fraser, and lawyer Jenny Afia.
Ms Afia, a partner at the media law firm Schillings, is first to be featured, speaking as footage of Buckingham Palace is shown.
“There was a real kind of war against Meghan and I’ve certainly seen evidence that there was negative briefing from the palace against Harry and Meghan to suit other people’s agendas,” she says.
The trailer moves on to Ms Fraser, who says: “Meg became this scapegoat for the palace, and so they would feed stories on her whether they were true or not, to avoid other less favourable stories being printed.”
“You would just see it play out,” Meghan then says herself. “Like, a story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute and they go, ‘gotta make that go away’.
“But there is real estate on a website home page, there is real estate there on a newspaper front cover, and something has to be filled in there about someone royal.”
The trailer finishes with Ms Afia addressing the media attention on Meghan’s relationship with her father, Thomas Markle.
“This barrage of negative articles about the breakdown of the relationship with her father was the final straw in a campaign of negative nasty coverage about her,” she says.
Neither Kensington Palace, which represents the Prince and Princess of Wales, nor Buckingham Palace have commented on the series or the most recent trailer, despite the allegations.
Sky News understands palace officials are currently focused on the Princess of Wales’s carol service, which is due to be filmed at Westminster Abbey on Thursday and will aim to shine a light on a congregation of almost 2,000 people who have been helping their communities across the UK, as well as remembering the Queen’s legacy.
‘They were happy to lie to protect my brother’
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Harry: ‘They were happy to lie to protect my brother’
A previous teaser released at the beginning of the week featured Harry saying “they were happy to lie to protect my brother”, referring to Prince William, against images of Buckingham Palace and newspaper headlines including: ‘Queen orders a hard Megxit’.
The final three episodes will air a week after the first three were made available to stream across the world. In these first episodes, viewers heard from Harry and Meghan talking about the pressure they felt from media interest in their lives, and how they did not feel supported by the Royal Family.
The couple signed lucrative deals, thought to be worth more than £100m, with Netflix and Spotify after quitting as senior working royals in 2020.
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After their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, this docuseries, directed by Oscar-nominated Liz Garbus, has been billed as a Netflix global event, with Harry and Meghan sharing “the other side of their high-profile love story”.
However, they have faced criticism, with one Conservative MP planning to bring forward legislation that could see the pair stripped of their royal titles.
The documentary’s claim that the Royal Family was approached for comment about the series has also been disputed, with a palace source saying they were not.
It also emerged that a clip of one of the first trailers for the series, included to apparently illustrate paparazzi hounding the couple, was actually taken as Katie Price arrived at court last year, and that a photo of photographers with long lenses was taken at a Harry Potter premiere years before they met.
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John David Washington says he felt like he had to conceal his desire to act because of the external expectations of him being the child of Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
He tells Sky News it took some time for him to pursue an acting career, choosing football instead to assert his “independence” and create his own “identity” separate from his famous family.
“I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life… but I was hiding it,” he said.
“I had to conceal that passion based on my relationship to the world and more specifically, my folks being in the industry, so I chose ball.
“I loved ball, but I was sort of hiding my love for the arts under a helmet – literally an American football helmet – and so when I wanted to become an actor, when I decided to pursue it, that was a big shock to some people.”
The 40-year-old actor says when he decided to pursue an acting career, he kept the decision quiet.
“Some people didn’t know I was even pursuing it professionally until I got a job,” he said.
John David with fellow actor Danielle Deadwyler. Pic: David Lee/ Netflix
Since switching to acting, John David has starred in a number of notable roles including the protagonist in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman and Joshua in The Creator.
He also led the stage revival of the 2022 Tony-nominated play The Piano Lesson on Broadway alongside Samuel L Jackson.
“He [Jackson] originated the role [I play] in 1987 at Yale with Lloyd Richards and August Wilson,” John David said.
“So it was of great importance for us to learn from both he and Michael Potts about August Wilson. It was a great blessing for me, I think, for all of us to have him present on set.”
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The Piano Lesson is the third August Wilson play to be adapted for the screen by Denzel Washington’s production company Mundy Lane Entertainment.
It is part of a pledge made by the Gladiator II actor to make all 10 of the playwright’s works into films.
The Netflix project is directed by another Washington family member, Malcolm, and stars most of the cast from the Broadway revival.
The Piano Lesson is Malcolm Washington’s directorial debut. Pic: Katia Washington/ Netflix
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the film centres on a family heirloom, a piano, that is etched with the carvings of their family history made by their enslaved ancestor.
Malcolm says he started reading the play for the first time during the pandemic and immediately wanted to be involved in the film adaptation.
“I think with this movie, reclamation of story and identity is so central to the theme and it’s something that’s central to my life where I both acknowledge the fertile ground that I was raised on and who I am today.
“That’s what Wining Boy [played by Michael Potts] really is trying to do, he’s trying to build on that legacy, so that’s a story that really resonated with me.”
The filmmaker added: “I take all the gifts that my ancestors laid in front of me, and I’m trying to build something for the next generation to pass down – all of their gifts, plus mine to the next generation and let them build on it.”
Malcolm has dedicated his directorial debut to his mother, Pauletta Washington. Pic: David Lee/Netflix
Malcolm says his goal was to put family at the forefront of the production. By dedicating his feature debut to “Mama”, he is acknowledging the dedication and sacrifices that mothers make for the growth of their families.
“There’s so much pointing to my mother in particular, who inspired this adaptation so much. I see so much of her life in Berniece’s character [played by Danielle Deadwyler] – and that became a guiding light for me in this adaptation,” he said.
“As we made this thing and started reconnecting with our ancestors, my mum became like a kind of representative of them.
“She’s the matriarch of our family. She tells me about my grandparents and great-grandparents and the line that I come from, and I see them in her.
“And when the movie ends, I want people to kind of have that moment of reflection for their own lives. So in dedicating it to her, I was trying to dedicate it to all mums everywhere.”
The Piano Lesson is now available on Netflix.
Blockbuster Wicked has landed the largest opening weekend of 2024 at Vue International.
The film, starring Oscar-nominated actress Cynthia Erivo and Grammy-winning pop star Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda, surpassed both Gladiator II and Paddington In Peru.
It has also had the largest opening weekend for a stage musical adaptation in the cinema chain’s history.
A boss for Vue International said it had seen a “sea of pink and green” over the weekend.
Ariana Grande (left) as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in the film. Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Released on Friday, Wicked is up 60% on Les Miserables’ opening weekend in 2012 and three times larger than the 2022 film adaptation of Matilda.
Founder and chief executive of Vue International Tim Richards said: “Vue has seen a sea of pink and green over the opening weekend of Wicked, which has shown continued high demand for the big screen experience.
“We saw record-breaking pre-sales for Wicked, followed by a chart-topping opening weekend – the biggest for 2024.”
The film is the first of two parts, with the second expected in November next year.
Wicked and Gladiator II – known together as Glicked – have reportedly failed to beat out Barbenheimer, Barbie and Oppenheimer, in its own opening weekend last summer.
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Glicked brought in £215m in worldwide ticket sales – with Wicked making the majority of that.
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