Prince Harry’s big claim exposed after ‘near-catastrophic’ car chase

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been caught up in what they say was a “near-catastrophic” incident with the press – but there is a bigger takeaway.

COMMENT

On March 14, 2020, Prince Harry, a self-satisfied Duke of Sussex, filmed himself on board producer Tyler Perry’s reported $180 million private jet saying, “We are on the freedom flight.”*

He and wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex were, hallelujah, finally about to find “freedom,” according to this particular narrative, after having pulled the plug on their royal careers.

They were gaining “freedom” from ever having to do what some old Harrovian told them and “freedom” from that noxious force that had made their lives a veritable hell, the British press.

Except that facts can sometimes get in the way of a good story, can’t they?

That is exactly what has happened this week with the confusing and tangled events that unfolded in New York, during which the Sussexes claim they were involved in a “near-catastrophic” confrontation with the press.

Harry and Meghan at the Ms Foundation Women of Vision Awards, a few hours before the reported car chase. Picture: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images Ms Foundation for Women

While, at the time of writing, an established-by-cold-hard-facts timeline is not clear, what is clear is that Harry’s 2020 “freedom” claim has turned out to be a load of bunkum.

If the scenes that played out in New York are “freedom” then I’d ask for a refund.

But let’s start here: Tuesday night in New York, with the Sussexes and Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland entering a packed ballroom where the Duchess was feted for doing her bit for feminism. (Well, she has done some occasional Washington senator cold-calling for paid parental leave and there was that time she told Vogue that ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment was something she “without question” wanted to tackle though she doesn’t seem to have got around to it just yet.)

Then, after collecting her gong and giving exactly the sort of speech you can imagine, the trio left in a convoy of hulking SUVs.

The pair seemed in high spirits before the car chase. Picture: MEGA/GC Images

Harry and Meghan getting into their car after the event. Picture: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

What happened next depends on who you listen to.

The Sussexes’ spokesperson has described what followed as “a near-catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi” and that it was a “relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours,” all of which makes it sounds like something out of Mad Max.

However, the New York Police Department has called it a “challenging” transport situation. The city’s mayor Eric Adams said he “found it hard to believe there was a two-hour high speed chase” and the taxi driver who briefly drove the group told the Washington Post: “I never felt like I was in danger. It wasn’t like a car chase in a movie. They were quiet and seemed scared but it’s New York – it’s safe.”

Leaving aside the accuracy of the Sussexes’ depiction of what took place as something like Fast and the Furious: Fifth Avenue, what is clear looking at videos on social media was that a messy, loud and large media pack surrounded Harry and Meghan both before and after the event.

And that right there is the big sticking point.

Last year, one (out of, I’m assuming, an entire battalion) of the Duke’s lawyers said that he “does not feel safe” in the UK.

Except that the biggest, scariest incident that brought Harry, according to the Times, the “closest he has ever felt” to how his mother did before her fatal crash, took place thousands of kilometres away from the home of battered fish and warm beer. It was not in the UK.

A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan said the chase was “a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi”. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

I know this is a wild thought, but it is just possible that the UK has not been the solitary source of all of the Sussexes’ misery as they have often cast it to be. Maybe their binary, simplistic and often self-serving version of events isn’t the complete picture.

For years now, in between heckling the royal family from their sun-dappled porch with a TV series, podcast, book and enough media interviews to turn off even a republican, Harry also saved plenty of his vitriol for his nemesis of choice, the UK media.

As the Duke told Oprah Winfrey in 2021 of wife Meghan, “My biggest concern was history repeating itself” referencing his mum Diana, Princess of Wales’ death.

But then came that ‘Freedom Flight’ – and to the Duke’s way of telling it during their Oprah was idyllic stuff.

“We can go for walks as a family and with the dogs, and we can go on hikes … the highlight for me is sticking [son Prince Archie] on the back of the bicycle in his little baby seat and taking him on these bike rides, which is something I was never able to do when I was young.”

It was a perfect hero’s journey, from danger and fear to a bright new dawn. Quick, someone order a bicycle built for four!

Meghan and Harry left the UK to find freedom. Picture: Netflix

And then came the Le Grand Chase or more accurately, the Alleged Grand Chase which has blown this vastly oversimplified storyline of Harry versus the ’orrible hounds of Fleet Street out of the water.

What this week’s havoc proves is that Harry and Meghan’s version of events, where all their troubles can be traced back to forces in Blighty, has been shown to be something of a furphy.

No matter the hyperbole or the Netflix sound bites, this new life of theirs does not look ‘free’ does it?

What I have never understood is why in god’s name they moved to California if they wanted to have new ‘free’ lives. Canada, a farm somewhere in Idaho, a bit of Scotland where the Wi-Fi is no good? These all would have made perfect sense for the duo. They could have lived their lives largely unmolested by the press and with their only fear being an occasional loose sheep catching a glimpse of them in the wild. They could have just zipped in and out of London or New York or Los Angeles when Netflix or Meghan’s hairdresser demanded it.

Sure, there would have been occasional paparazzi shots of Harry doing his tai chi in his Uggs or Meghan demonstrating farm chic in a humble five-figure get-up of Italian designer pieces, but hey, it would have been a world away from what they have chosen.

Instead, Harry and Meghan illogically, insensibly and bamboozlingly moved to the very epicentre of the paparazzi universe.

Harry, Meghan and Doria before the chase that their team describes as ‘near-catastrophic’. Picture: Raymond Hall/GC Images

So far the Sussexes have been tracked and photographed by the paps more often this year, by my count, than they were in the entire time they lived together in the UK.

But that is not a story that suits the three-act structure of a docuseries or some readily saleable content, does it? The gospel of ‘Brand Harry and Meghan’ has always largely been framed as there being a before and an after; their UK misery versus their American dream.

But after the New York ruckus, it now looks as if that sort of facile reading won’t hold water any more. Reductive, easily streamable accounts might be one thing, but that doesn’t mean it’s the whole story.

In the photos taken of Harry and Meghan during this all, they look very obviously stressed and at times traumatised. Maybe, round about now, Idaho is starting to look much more appealing.

*Let it never be said that Harry is a man weighed down by the burden of too much education. Historically, the phrase “Freedom flights’ refers to the mammoth airlift of 250,000 Cubans to the US between 1965 and 1973 in one of the world’s biggest refugee operations in history. Also, “Freedom Rides,” in which northern student activists travelled to the segregated American south in 1961 are a famous part of the fight for civil rights.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.