Kate Middleton proves Meghan Markle’s huge paparazzi mistake
Kate Middleton’s response when photographed with Prince Louis this week has exposed Meghan and Harry’s big mistake.
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If you want to understand Diana’s toxic relationship with the press, look no further than a quick Google image search. There is Diana with her head in her lap in the back of a black cab; Diana bolting through the streets of London being literally chased by photographers; Diana downcast, marooned in the back of a car as a horde of press encircle her.
While at times she might have courted elements of the media for her own ends, by and large she was hunted by a marauding, predatory enemy right until the final tragic end.
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More than 40 years since the shy, posh teenager was outed as Prince Charles’ girlfriend in 1979, thus becoming the number one target for London’s snappers, it is her grandchildren who are in photographers’ sights.
This week, the Italian gossip magazine Chi published a series of images of Kate Duchess of Sussex that are both ordinary and extraordinary in their ordinariness.
According to reports, Kate had been stuck in traffic on a London bridge when she got out of the car, totting her youngest child Prince Louis, and entertained the toddler by showing him the boats on the river Thames, all of which was captured by a photographer. Only the coldest of hearts wouldn’t be moved by the images, Kate in her maternal element as a doting mum holding her squirming little boy.
Unlike Princes William and Harry, whose childhood saw them dogged by snappers, William and Kate’s kidlets are enjoying a much more protected upbringing. That’s thanks to a gentlemen’s agreement of sorts between the palace and the hacks of Fleet Street to not buy or publish any unauthorised images of the little ones. (That sort of deal would have seemed inconceivable before Diana’s death and the lingering public belief in the culpability of the press.)
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So far, there has been no reaction from the Cambridges’ on the Chi images, nor based on past history, is there likely to be.
What is most interesting about the Chi situation is just how markedly different William and Kate’s approach to handling the press interest in their children has been, in stark contrast to that of Harry and wife Meghan Duchess of Sussex.
In January this year, only weeks after upping sticks and leaving London to start a new life in North America, Meghan was caught by a paparazzo while out walking with her son Archie on Vancouver Island. In the images, the royal can be seen smiling and looking relaxed as she makes her way along the trail with her baby, two dogs and with two protection officers trailing in her wake.
Like the Kate shots this week, here we have two duchesses photographed without their explicit consent in public with their young sons, yet their reactions could not be more divergent.
The Sussexes’ response was swift and litigious, with the couple’s lawyers sending out letters threatening legal action over the shots in February before revealing this month that they are now suing Splash News over the pics. This move comes after the couple filed a privacy lawsuit in Los Angeles, alleging that the paps had been using drones and helicopters to take photos of Archie.
(Meghan is also suing the Mail on Sunday’s parent company for allegedly breaching her privacy after publishing part of a letter she had sent to her estranged father and Harry is suing The Sun (whose parent company News Corp also owns news.com.au) and the Daily Mirror for alleged phone hacking.)
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One expert at least believes that the family has a strong case in regards to the Splash lawsuit. Mark Stephens, one of Julian Assange’s former lawyers, has told Newsweek that “I think it’s almost impossible for Meghan to lose the case given the scope of the law.”
“I suspect what it will do is highlight, and this is probably the motive behind it, to people who are taking paparazzi photographs that there is going to be no economic benefit in doing so because you won’t be able to sell them and you won’t be able to publish them.”
To be clear, both the Cambridges and the Sussexes are clearly devoted parents grimly determined to ensure that their kids enjoy a life as free from the spectre of the press as possible. Like all parents, they are simply trying so damn hard to do their best.
However, what we are seeing playing out are two wildly opposing plans of attack.
In essence, what William and Kate have done is establish something of a media détente – a truce of sorts if you will. At the heart of the Cambridges’ approach is an acknowledgment of the vast public interest in their family.
When Kate was pregnant with her first child, she reportedly looked to Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden’s example as to how to balance public interest in her baby while maximising privacy. Victoria’s thinking was to regularly ‘feed’ the press shots of her daughter Estelle on birthdays, Christmas etc thus satiating a curious and adoring public. In turn, the press agreed to keep something of a respectful distance.
For William and Kate, this framework has meant regularly doling out images, generally taken by her or a trusted photographer, of the tots at home. Currently, 46 official images have been released of George since his birth; 35 of Princess Charlotte and 15 of Prince Louis.
By and large this method has worked. When last year iPhone footage of George and Charlotte whizzing around Kensington Palace on their bikes hit the internet, none of the British papers published the pretty extraordinary images. Likewise, the Cambridge kids often visit the Round Pond in the public Kensington Palace Gardens to feed the swans and can do so without fear of a lurking paparazzo up a tree.
(That said, Cambridges’ hasn’t always been such plain sailing. This comparatively peaceful scenario was only reached after a bit of a rocky start.
In 2015, the couple’s communications secretary put out a press release, excoriating some elements of the media, saying that “there have been an increasing number of incidents of paparazzi harassment of Prince George. And the tactics being used are increasingly dangerous”.
“Photographers are going to increasingly extreme lengths to observe and monitor Prince George’s movements and covertly capture images of him to sell to the handful of international media titles still willing to pay for them.)
What William and Kate have managed to do is to keep the prying press and public at arm’s length, while maintaining some control over how and when the media has access to their family.
At the heart of the Cambridge plan is an implicit acknowledgment, like it or not, that there will always be huge global interest in their family and that it is savvier in the long term to manage that situation than trying to ignore it or fight it.
Harry and Meghan, by contrast, seem to be perpetually trying to resist exactly that.
While they might no longer be senior working members of the royal family or able to style themselves as His/Her Royal Highness; while they might now be picking up their own bills and forging a life of their own in Santa Barbara they are – and will always be – objects of intense global fascination. No changing of their nomenclature is going to dampen the public adoration for, and interest in, them and their son, no matter how much they must crave it.
(Also, it is also worth pointing out that had they quit as frontline royals but stayed living in the UK, they would have enjoyed already established protections from the press such as the deal regarding photographing kids and the fact that the airspace above royal residences is restricted, thus no drones.)
Harry and Meghan seemingly have zero intention of ceding even an inch and look intent on waging ‘war’ to try and maximise Archie’s privacy. Their fierce, fiery determination to shield their son from the nosy public is truly impressive.
If they do win their courtroom media battles, they stand to achieve something truly remarkable and priceless – for Archie to grow up far, far away from prying lenses. The Sussexes’ game plan could also backfire, serving to antagonise the press and to confirm the price on little Archie’s head, paparazzi-wise.
No matter what the outcome, it seems highly unlikely it will tamp down the media frenzy around the little boy’s parents.
In late August, celebrity website TMZ painted a grim picture of life in the upscale town of Santa Barbara they now call home, reporting on “the influx of paparazzi on the hunt for the shot.
“The scene on the ground is pretty hectic, especially for an affluent area that’s supposed to be an enclave for celebs looking to escape the limelight … choppers are zooming over Harry and Meghan’s hood, sometimes four times a day, and paps are staking out their home and a nearby shopping centre.”
Whether Harry and Meghan’s high-stakes, lawyer-heavy stance will ultimately prove more successful than the Cambridges’ strategy of appeasement remains to be seen.
This we know for sure. Decades on since Diana ducked, weaved and occasionally bolted through the smart streets of London to get away from photographers, her two sons, and their families are still, metaphorically at least, ducking, weaving and bolting away from the cameras.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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