Entertainment

Harry claims Meghan suffered a miscarriage because of media lawsuit

The Duchess of Sussex lost her baby in the summer of 2020.
The Duchess of Sussex lost her baby in the summer of 2020. The Duchess of Sussex lost her baby in the summer of 2020.

The Duke of Sussex has claimed his wife suffered a miscarriage “because of what the Mail did” during her lawsuit battle with its publisher Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

The final episode of the tell-all Netflix documentary series reflects on Meghan’s victory in her long-running case against ANL – publisher of the Mail On Sunday and MailOnline.

The duchess sued the publisher over five articles that reproduced parts of a “personal and private letter” to her father Thomas Markle – and won the case in 2021.

Recounting the effect of the legal action, Meghan said: “I was pregnant, I really wasn’t sleeping and the first morning that we woke up in our new home is when I miscarried.”

Meghan suffered a miscarriage in the summer of 2020, a year after her first son Archie was born.

She says about ANL: “Just apologise and don’t do it again, it’s really that simple – but instead it’s like ‘let’s make a fortune. Let’s create an entire tab on our home page with her name’ and just constant stuff on this litigation, twist and turn things to create an implant with members of the public.

“Then the defence says ‘we’d like disclosure from you, we need to access your email and your phone for this case based on these terms – I love you, Archie, Kate, William, Africa’ – sorry, what does that have to do with this lawsuit?

“Archie wasn’t even born when you guys published the letter I wrote to my dad.”

Harry says: “The press, they will never settle, they will always push because they will use a privacy litigation to further invade your privacy like they did with my wife.

“But my mum always said, you know, ‘if they’re writing crap about you in the tabloids then you’re probably doing the right thing’ – so I’ve always felt as though this is a fight worth fighting for.”

Harry went on to say: “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 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.”

Speaking about the duchess’ miscarriage, her mother, Doria Ragland, said: “I thought she was brave and courageous. But that doesn’t surprise me because she is brave and courageous.”

At this point the episode refers to the piece Meghan wrote for The New York Times with the headline “The Losses We Share”.

The duchess told the documentary: “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 OK, you’re human, it’s OK 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.”

The Mail’s publisher has been approached for comment.