Connect with us

Published

on

Prince Harry has spoken about the breakdown of his relationship with brother William and blamed the media for Meghan suffering a miscarriage in the final episodes of the couple’s documentary series.

The second volume of Harry & Meghan goes much further than the first, with Harry accusing William of screaming and shouting at him at a summit meeting over “Megxit”, and saying he believes he and his wife lost their baby in 2020 because of coverage in the Mail.

‘She never asked me to leave’, Harry says – live updates as final episodes drop

Other revelations include the duke saying a joint statement was put out without his permission in his and his brother’s name, denying a story that William had “bullied” him out of the Royal Family. He also accuses William’s office of trading stories – something they “promised” they would never do when they were younger.

Palace aides would have been preparing themselves for bombshells in the second volume after a trailer included accusations that the royal household leaked negative stories as part of a “war against Meghan”. However, they are yet to comment on the programme.

Harry & Meghan. The Netflix Global event continues December 15.
PIC:NETFLIX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9WMpiH8qd8
Image:
Pic: Netflix

Key talking points from the first three episodes:

  • Harry says it was “terrifying” to hear William ‘shout and scream’ during Megxit crisis meeting
  • He says there is now a “wedge” between them and accuses brother’s office of trading stories
  • Duke also blames media for Meghan’s miscarriage in 2020
  • Meghan talks about suicidal thoughts
  • Harry says he was “trained” to keep stiff upper lip over wife’s struggles
  • He also describes how Meghan “stealing the limelight… that upsets people”
  • Broadcaster Danny Baker’s tweet following birth of Archie also addressed

‘It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me’

Talking about tweet - "Meghan needs to die"
Screen Grabs taken from Harry and Meghan  Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan
PIC:NETFLIX
Image:
Pic: Netflix

In the fifth episode, Harry recalls a meeting with the Queen, his father and William, now the Prince of Wales, about the couple’s future plans after they had announced they wanted to step back as senior royals.

Recalling what happened behind the scenes after the Queen summoned them to Sandringham in January 2020, he says: “I went in with the same proposal that we’d already made publicly, but once I got there I was given five options – one being all in, no change, five being all out.

“I chose option three in the meeting – half in, half out. Have our own jobs but also work in support of the Queen.

“It became very clear very quickly that goal was not up for discussion or debate. It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things that just simply weren’t true. And my grandmother, you know, quietly sit there and take it all in.

“But you have to understand that, from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate, sort of, mission, goal/responsibility is the institution.”

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Queen Elizabeth, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex pose for a picture with some of Queen's Young Leaders at a Buckingham Palace reception following the final Queen's Young Leaders Awards Ceremony, in London, Britain June 26, 2018. John Stillwell/Pool via Reuters/File Photo

Harry says the Queen would act on advice she was given by staff.

“People around her are telling her, ‘by the way, that proposal, or these two doing X,Y, Z is going to be seen as an attack on the institution’,” he says.

“The meeting finished without any solidified action plan. I think from their perspective, they had to believe that it was more about us, and maybe the issues that we had, as opposed to their partner, the media, and that relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what they wanted to see.”

Read more:
Unseen photos revealed in new episodes from Netflix series
Harry and Meghan’s wedding album – new pictures revealed
Key revelations from first three episodes

Screen Grabs taken from Harry and Meghan  Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan
PIC:NETFLIX
Image:
Pic: Netflix

Harry goes on to say the “saddest part” of what has happened is “this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side”.

The duke continues: “And part of that I get, I understand, right, that’s his inheritance. So to some extent it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and continuation of this institution.”

Harry says a story came out that day saying that “part of the reason that Meghan and I were leaving was because William had bullied us out”.

A joint statement was issued on the day of the Sandringham meeting branding a front page story about the brothers’ relationship as false, offensive and potentially harmful.

Harry says he was told about the statement “squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family” after the meeting. “I couldn’t believe it. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that.

“I rang M and I told her and she burst into floods of tears, because within four hours they were happy to lie to protect my brother and yet for three years they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”

Meghan’s mother and Harry speak of devastation hearing she contemplated suicide

Harry & Meghan. The Netflix Global event continues December 15.
PIC:NETFLIX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9WMpiH8qd8
Image:
Pic: Netflix

In the fourth episode, Harry speaks about “lies” in the Royal Family, and compares Meghan’s treatment in the media to that of his mother, Diana.

“The lies that’s one thing, you kind of get used to that when you live within this family, but what they were doing to her and the effect it was having on her – like, enough, enough of the pain, enough of the suffering.”

As shots of Diana and Charles are shown, he continues: “No one sees what is happening behind closed doors. Back in the day my mum was in the back of the car going to engagements in floods of tears, and then my dad saying, ‘we’re almost there’ and 30 seconds to wipe the tears away, slap on some make-up, and the door opens and smile, everything is fine.”

Meghan talks about having suicidal thoughts – something she spoke about previously during the couple’s interview with Oprah in 2021.

A new Harry & Meghan trailer has been released for their Netflix docuseries.
Image:
Pic: Netflix

“All of this will stop if I’m not here and that was the scariest thing about it, it was such clear thinking,” she says in the documentary.

Her mother, Doria Ragland, recalls finding out how her daughter was feeling: “I remember her telling me that she had wanted to take her own life and that really broke my heart because I knew that it was bad, but to constantly be picked at by these vultures, just picking away at her spirit that she would actually think of not wanting to be here, that’s not an easy one for a mum to hear. And I can’t protect her.”

Harry says he was “devastated” when he realised just how much his wife was struggling.

“I knew that she was struggling, we were both struggling, but I never thought it would get to that stage and the fact that it got to that stage, I felt angry and ashamed,” he says. “I didn’t deal with it particularly well. I dealt with it as institutional Harry as opposed to husband Harry, and what took over my feelings was my royal role.

“I had been trained to think, ‘what are people going to think if we don’t go to this event, we are gonna be late’, and looking back now I hate myself for it.”

Meghan says she wanted to get help but “wasn’t allowed”.

‘To see my brother’s office copy the very same thing… that was heartbreaking’

Britain's William, Prince of Wales and Prince Harry march during a procession where the coffin of Britain's Queen Elizabeth is transported from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament for her lying in state, in London, Britain, September 14, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier

Speaking about the press interest, Harry says: “No one would have private conversations with the editors saying ‘enough’. My dad said to me, ‘darling boy, you can’t take on the media, the media will always be the media’. And I said I fundamentally disagree.”

Harry then says: “I have 30 years experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how this system works and how it runs and just constant briefings about other members of the family, favours inviting the press in, it’s a dirty game.”

He also speaks about the “leaking” and “planting of stories” – an issue addressed by Meghan in the preview trailer. “So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principal, so the offices end up working against each other, so it’s kind of a weird understanding, acceptance that this happens,” he says.

He says he and William “both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made an agreement to never have that happen to our office”.

With images of the brothers as children shown on screen, the duke says: “I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or this business of trading, and to see my brother’s office copy the very same thing that we promised the two of us would never ever do, that was heartbreaking.”

Harry also says he believes Meghan suffered a miscarriage “because of what the Mail did”.

He says: “I watched the whole thing. Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was created, caused by that? Course we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that it 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.”

Meghan’s letter to her father

Thomas Markle fears he will never see his daughter again

The final three episodes of the series also take a look at a letter written by Meghan to her father, Thomas Markle, about interviews he was giving, which was published in part by the Mail on Sunday.

She says she wrote it after seeking advice from the Queen and Charles, but that she tried to send it discreetly.

“People are scratching their heads going, ‘how would the Mail have either the stupidity, or the whatever you want to call it, to print a letter between a daughter and a father?'” says Harry. “Well the answer is simple: they knew the family would encourage us not to sue.”

In the end, they did sue – with Meghan winning her privacy claim. However, she was awarded just £1 compensation from the Mail On Sunday’s publisher for misuse of private information.

‘Then one day this little organism comes in’

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

‘When someone steals the limelight, it upsets people’

Meghan also says the couple’s former private secretary told her about the monarchy: “It is like a fish that is swimming perfectly. It is powerful, it is on the right current. Then one day this little organism comes in. This foreign organism. And the entire thing goes… What is that? What is it doing here? It doesn’t look like us. It doesn’t move like us. We don’t like it. Get it off of us.

“And she just explained that, you know, they’ll soon see, that it’s stronger, faster, even better with this organism as part of it. It will be hard at the beginning for them to adjust to this new thing but then it’ll be amazing.”

Meghan added: “And I was really hopeful that that was true.”

The episode addresses the couple’s initial popularity following their wedding and when they announced they were having their first child, and how this affected the Royal Family.

“The issue is when someone who is marrying in who should be a supporting act is stealing the limelight or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people, it shifts the balance,” says Harry.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s death

Prince Harry and Prince Philip

The final episode shows Harry watching footage of black cabs in London lining The Mall as a mark of respect following the death of Prince Philip in 2021.

Speaking about his grandfather’s death, Harry says: “I was actually really happy for my grandfather. He went quietly. He went peacefully. He went happily.”

Asked about what it was like returning to the UK for the funeral, he adds: “It was hard, especially spending time having chats with my brother and my father who just were very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation.

“So none of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s funeral, but we did. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I’m probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.

“You know, my wife and I, we’re moving on. We were focused on what’s coming next.”

Danny Baker’s tweet

Screen Grabs taken from Harry and Meghan  Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan
PIC:NETFLIX
Image:
Pic: Netflix

Harry also speaks in the series about broadcaster Danny Baker’s infamous tweet following the birth of baby Archie.

The radio presenter posted a black and white photo showing a well-dressed man and woman holding hands with a suited chimpanzee, captioning it: “Royal baby leaves hospital.”

“The amount of abuse that we got, especially you (Meghan), but the both of us, for not wanting to serve our child up on a silver platter was incredible,” says Harry.

“Someone in the media posting a photograph of a couple with a chimp, and at the top it said, ‘Royal baby leaves hospital’. So that was one of the first things that I saw.”

Baker later apologised, writing: “Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased.”

Read more:
Row over whether Royal Family were approached for series
‘I’ve always been a hugger’: Meghan on meeting the royals for first time

The final episodes of Harry & Meghan come a week after the first three launched, recording 81.55 million viewing hours so far, translating to viewing in 28 million households, according to Netflix.

The streaming platform has launched the series almost three years after the Sussexes revealed they intended to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent”.

They officially left the monarchy in March 2020 and went on to sign lucrative deals, thought to be worth more than £100m, with Netflix and Spotify.

Before the first episodes were released, it emerged a photo and footage shown in two preview trailers, apparently to illustrate hounding by the paparazzi, were from events the couple were not associated with.

Neither Kensington Palace, which represents the Prince and Princess of Wales, nor Buckingham Palace have commented on the series.

Sky News understands palace officials are focused on the Princess of Wales’s carol service, which is due to be filmed at Westminster Abbey on Thursday.

The event 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.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

Continue Reading

UK

UK weather: Scottish hamlet reaches -18C in coldest January night in 15 years

Published

on

By

UK weather: Scottish hamlet reaches -18C in coldest January night in 15 years

Temperatures in a hamlet in northern Scotland fell to -18.7C (-1.66F) overnight – the UK’s coldest January night in 15 years, the Met Office has said.

Altnaharra, in the northern region of the Highlands, reached the lowest temperature while nearby Kinbrace reached -17.9C (-0.22F).

It is the coldest January overnight temperature since 2010, when temperatures dropped below -15C several times at locations across the UK, including -22.3C (-8.14F) on 8 January in Altnaharra.

Forecasters had previously said there was a very small probability it could reach -19C.

A Highland cow grazes in a snow-covered field near Shotts, North Lanarkshire. Temperatures will continue to fall over the coming days, with the mercury potentially reaching minus 20C in northern parts of the UK on Friday night. Weather warnings for ice are in place across the majority of Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as large parts of the east of England. Picture date: Friday January 10, 2025.
Image:
A Highland cow grazing near Shotts, North Lanarkshire. Pic: PA

Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin said: “Friday night into Saturday morning may well be the nadir of this current cold spell.”

Temperatures for large parts of the UK are set to fall again as the cold weather continues.

St Andrew's church, Kiln Pit in Durham Pic: PA
Image:
St Andrew’s church at Kiln Pit in Durham. Pic: PA

Met Office meteorologist Zoe Hutin said: “We’ve still got tonight to come, and tomorrow (Saturday) night could also be chilly as well.

More on Uk Weather

“Temperatures for tomorrow night, it will be mainly eastern parts that see temperatures dropping widely below freezing, so East Anglia, the northeast of England, northern and eastern Scotland as well.

“So another chilly night to come on Saturday, but then as we go into Sunday and into Monday, then we can start to expect temperatures to recover somewhat.

“I won’t rule out the risk of seeing something around or just below freezing again on Sunday night into Monday, but it won’t be quite so dramatic as the temperatures that we’re going to experience as we go overnight tonight.”

Ugo Sassi from Cambridge skates on a frozen flooded field in Upware, Cambridgeshire. The Cambridgeshire Fens were the birthplace of British speed skating and require four nights of frost, with a temperature of -4 or colder and little or no thawing during the days in between, to make ice strong enough to skate on. Temperatures will continue to fall over the coming days, with the mercury potentially reaching minus 20C in northern parts of the UK on Friday night. Weather warnings for ice are in pla
Image:
Skating on a frozen flooded field in Upware, Cambridgeshire. Pic: PA

On Monday, temperatures are expected to be more in line with the seasonal norm, at about 7C to 8C.

A family walk across Hothfield Common in frosty conditions near Ashford in Kent.
Pic: PA
Image:
A family walk across Hothfield Common in frosty conditions near Ashford in Kent. Pic: PA

Read more from Sky News:
Ticket re-sales could be capped
Injection room to tackle drugs epidemic

The freezing conditions have led to travel disruption, with Manchester Airport closing both its runways on Thursday morning because of “significant levels of snow”. They were later reopened.

Transport for Wales closed some railway lines because of damage to tracks.

Hundreds of schools in Scotland and about 90 in Wales were shut on Thursday.

Meanwhile, staff and customers at a pub thought to be Britain’s highest were finally able to leave on Thursday after being snowed in.

The Tan Hill Inn in Richmond, North Yorkshire, is 1,732 feet (528m) above sea level.

Six staff and 23 visitors were stuck, the pub said on Facebook.

Continue Reading

UK

Government contract ends for controversial asylum barge Bibby Stockholm

Published

on

By

Government contract ends for controversial asylum barge Bibby Stockholm

The government contract for the controversial asylum barge in Dorset has ended.

The last asylum seekers are believed to have left Bibby Stockholm at the end of November after Labour said it would have cost more than £20m to run in 2025.

Its closure this month was expected, and on Friday the management firm and the Home Office confirmed to Sky News the contract had now expired.

It’s currently unclear when Bibby Stockholm will leave Portland and what it will be used for next.

The Conservative government started using the vessel in August 2023.

It said putting nearly 500 men on board while they waited for an asylum decision was cheaper than paying for hotel rooms.

However, it was controversial from the start and sparked legal challenges and protests.

More on Asylum

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

August: 2023: Barge reminds migrant of Islamic State

Days after the first group boarded there was an outbreak of Legionella bacteria in the water system and it had to be evacuated for two months.

In December 2023, an Albanian asylum seeker, Leonard Farruku, died on board.

Read more from Sky News:
Farage ‘can’t be pushed or bullied’ after Musk rebuke
Zebra dies after ‘incident’ with rhino in Colchester

A Home Office spokesperson said the government was determined to reform the asylum system to make it operate “swiftly, firmly and fairly”.

“This includes our accommodation sites, as we continue to identify a range of options to reduce the use of hotels,” the new statement added.

“We are already closing some hotels and will continue to engage with local authorities and key stakeholders as part of this process.”

Continue Reading

UK

How is your local NHS coping under winter pressures?

Published

on

By

How is your local NHS coping under winter pressures?

Pressure on hospitals is particularly high this winter, with more than a dozen declaring critical incidents in recent days.

Hospitals struggle every winter with additional pressures due to the impact of cold weather, but the early arrival of flu this season and high volume of cases meant Christmas and New Year’s weeks were even busier than usual.

There are currently at least 20 hospitals that have declared critical incidents in England, although this is a fast-moving picture, and some trusts will go into critical incident for as little as half an hour.

The latest NHS winter situation reports give a more detailed look at the level of pressure experienced by individual trusts, including those with the worst ambulance handover delays and highest levels of flu patients.

Ambulance handover delays

When a patient arrives at a hospital in an ambulance, clinical guidelines suggest that it should take no longer than 15 minutes to transfer them into emergency care.

It is now common for handovers to regularly exceed this timeframe, however, when emergency departments are overcrowded and lack the capacity to keep up with new patient arrivals.

This is risky for patients because it delays their assessment and treatment by clinicians, and also reduces the availability of ambulances to respond to new incidents.

The trust with the longest delays was University Hospitals Plymouth, with an average handover time of three hours and 33 minutes over the week – two hours and 40 minutes longer than the average for England. It also recorded the longest average handover times for a single day, at five hours and 14 minutes on New Year’s Day.

Use the table below to search for local ambulance handover times:

On 7 January, University Hospitals Plymouth declared a critical incident at Derriford Hospital due to “significant and rising demand for hospital care”, though this has since been stood down.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust had an average ambulance handover time of three hours and 15 minutes, increasing by more than an hour from one hour and 51 minutes the week before.

In Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, 83% of handovers took more than 30 minutes, the highest share among areas dealing with more than five ambulance arrivals per day.

This area also recently declared and then stood down a critical incident.

In total across England, 43 trusts out of 127 had average handover times of more than an hour, while nine areas had average handover times of more than two hours.

Flu

This winter’s flu wave arrived earlier than usual and has hit health services hard.

Over New Year’s week, there were 5,407 flu patients in hospitals in England on average each day, more than three times higher than during the same week last year and increasing by 20% from the week before.

The worst impacted trusts were Northumbria Healthcare and University Hospitals Birmingham, with 15% and 13% of all available beds occupied by flu patients respectively in the latest week.

Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust had among the biggest increase in flu patients from the previous week, more than doubling from 18 to 42 patients per day on average.

Use the table below to search for local flu hospitalisations:

There are some indications that flu activity may have now peaked, with national flu surveillance showing a decrease in positive flu tests in the latest week, though activity remains at high levels.

Bed occupancy

Current NHS guidance is that a maximum of 92% of hospital beds should be occupied to reduce negative risks associated with overfilled beds.

These risks include the impact on patient flow resulting from it being more difficult to find beds for patients, and negative impacts on performance and waiting times, as well as being linked to increased infection rates.

In the week to 5 January, 92.8% of 102,546 open hospital beds were available each day on average, not far off the recommended level.

However, bed occupancy was very high in some trusts, with more than 95% of beds occupied in 43 trusts on average over the week.

The trust with the highest rate of bed occupancy was Wye Valley NHS Trust, with 99.9% of 332 beds occupied on average throughout the week.

There was only one day when beds weren’t fully occupied, on 3 January, when two beds of 322 were available.

Use the table below to search for local bed occupancy:

Kettering General Hospital NHS Trust recorded bed occupancy of 98.5% over the week. This trust declared a critical incident on 8 January.

Part of the problem for bed availability is prolonged hospital stays – also known as bed-blocking.

This is often linked to pressures in other parts of the health and social care system, for example when patients can’t be discharged to appropriate social care providers even though they are ready to leave hospital.

Just under half of beds occupied by patients in English hospitals last week were occupied by long-stay patients who had been there for seven or more days.

In seven trusts, at least three in five beds were occupied by long-stay patients, while in Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust the figure was more than four in five beds.


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

Continue Reading

Trending