The curious rise of Omid Scobie, from celebrity reporter to the Sussexes’ main cheerleader
Omid Scobie, Harry and Meghan’s biographer, had his recent claim that they drove at 130km/h to evade paparazzi debunked. Reaction to his stories shows how polarising he has become.
For someone who insists that he does not relish the public eye, Omid Scobie does not hesitate to step into the limelight. The royal writer, who is often described as a cheerleader for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, did so twice in the past week.
On Monday, he appeared at the High Court as a witness for Prince Harry’s phone-hacking claim against the publisher of the Daily Mirror, alleging he was taught how to gather information illegally while on work experience at the paper two decades ago.
On another placement on the showbiz desk of The Sunday People, Scobie claimed he was taught how to hack voicemails. Giving evidence on behalf of Harry, he also claimed he heard Piers Morgan, then the Mirror editor, being told a story about Kylie Minogue came from voicemails.
Two days later Scobie, 41, reported the couple’s claims they were “involved in a near-catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi”. He was quick to criticise the King and Prince of Wales for their “disappointing” lack of response on Newsnight, and claimed their car had to drive at 80mph (130km/h) “to lose some of the people that were following them”. The claim was debunked by the head of the security outfit hired by the couple, who said it “was not a high-speed pursuit”.
The reaction to Scobie highlighted how polarising a figure he has become. Those sympathetic to the Windsors took his word as gospel, those who dislike them tried to poke holes in Scobie’s stories.
As co-author of Finding Freedom, the biography of the Sussexes released after “Megxit” in 2020, his revelations included that the couple got engaged three months before their announcement in 2017, did not trust their palace aides and that Kate, the Princess of Wales, “did little to bridge the divide” between the women.
Some of his reporting has been questioned. In September, Scobie said on TV that Elizabeth II’s body would be moved from “Scotland to the UK” via the royal train. Some viewers pointed out that Scotland is part of the UK and that the coffin was flown to west London.
Scobie’s rise from obscurity has been rapid. He grew up in Oxford and his Scottish father, Bill, runs a marketing agency and is an aspiring blues musician; his mother, Maryam, is an Iranian social worker. He went first to the private Magdalen College School and then to a state sixth form at the Cherwell School.
Scobie took a journalism degree at the University of the Arts London and aspired to be an entertainment reporter. His first job was at Heat magazine, where he started partying with celebrities such as the model Jodie Marsh, but later claimed he left after an executive called him a “P***”.
After a year of freelancing, Scobie began at the American magazine Us Weekly. It was around the time that the Prince and Princess of Wales got engaged in late 2010 that Scobie’s focus turned to royalty. He was soon joining their tours, including William and Kate’s tour to Canada and the US.
At Us Weekly, he was often co-opted to the royal rota, the group of journalists that covers their engagements and pools reports. Though he has described the press pack as “cheerleaders”, Scobie has asked to join the rota only for Buckingham Palace to demur.
He first met Meghan in 2015 at Toronto Fashion Week, though has since said that the significance did not dawn on him until she started dating Harry. He later claimed he gave Meghan “a big farewell hug” beneath the “malachite candelabras” of the 1844 Room in Buckingham Palace after the Sussexes’ final engagement as working royals. Scobie went freelance in 2017 and now contributes to Harper’s Bazaar, Yahoo News and ABC.
Some who know him have found his reinvention as a crusader for press restraint puzzling. “I don’t recognise what he is like today,” said a former colleague. “He was good fun. We were working at Heat when they were doing stories about cellulite and fat.” Scobie is said to regret some of his early stories.
“I have always got on well with Omid,” said a member of the press pack. “In terms of his reporting, he has always been very professional.”
The revelation that Scobie had collaborated with royal journalists may raise eyebrows. Scobie gave a supportive witness statement for Meghan during her 2020 privacy lawsuit against The Mail on Sunday after it published a letter that she had written to her estranged father before her wedding two years earlier. Scobie affirmed that the couple had not authorised Finding Freedom, but Meghan later had to apologise to the court because her former communications chief said he had been directed by the couple to brief the authors.
Scobie’s next book, Endgame, will “expose the chaos, dysfunction, and distrust amongst the British royal family”.
The Times
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