Tabloid Deletes Story About Prince Harry Turning 'Woke' Post-Meghan

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's most sued U.K. tabloid has pulled a story that suggested the duke turned "woke" after their wedding.

A Daily Mail online article was published on Saturday, April 29, by-lined to a journalist at The Mail on Sunday with the headline: "Revealed: The moment Harry's inner circle realised the 'party prince' had turned into unrecognisable 'woke' Duke… and it all started with granola and some bewildering requests from Meghan Markle."

The article was Tweeted at around 5.30 p.m. U.K. time by the Daily Mail but by April 30, the day the MoS came out in print, the link redirected to a generic address for its Femail section. An archived version shows the story was updated at around 8 p.m. U.K. time on the day it was published, prior to being taken offline.

It is not clear why the article disappeared, though the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have sued the newspaper and its sister titles four times between them.

There are no signs currently that a new lawsuit has been filed by the couple at the High Court in London, though the process would usually take a number of days under normal circumstances. Newsweek has reached out to both the Sussexes and the Mail's publisher for comment.

Meghan Markle and The Mail on Sunday

There has for a long time been no love lost between Harry and Meghan and newspapers from the Daily Mail Group, particularly the MoS.

Meghan sued the Sunday tabloid in 2019 over a private letter she sent her father Thomas Markle begging him to stop talking to the media, which he handed to its journalists.

More than two years later, and after an appeal by the publisher, she won the case but only after a process so arduous that Prince Harry said he believed it triggered a miscarriage in July 2020.

However, Britain's National Health Service says: "An increased risk of miscarriage is not linked to: your emotional state during pregnancy, such as being stressed or depressed."

Harry told the couple's Netflix documentary in December 2022: "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 created, caused by that? Course we don't. But bearing in mind the stress that 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."

At the time, the publisher, Associated Newspapers, had applied for the names of five of Meghan's friends to be made public after they gave anonymous interviews in her defense to People magazine.

Meghan then feared she would have a second miscarriage later that year, according to her own witness statement to the Court of Appeal in November 2021.

In the filing, seen by Newsweek, she said: "On October 20, 2020, my solicitors issued an application to adjourn the trial due to take place in January 2021.

"I was in the first trimester of my third pregnancy at the time (having suffered a miscarriage a few months prior) and was feeling very unwell.

"My doctor advised me to avoid stress, particularly given the recent miscarriage days after [The Mail on Sunday] threatened to break the confidentiality of the original 'sources' for the People magazine article, which resulted in my having to make an urgent application for an anonymity order.

"This was granted by Mr. Justice Warby, but I found the process extremely stressful, and it took its toll physically and emotionally."

Prince Harry's Lawsuits Targeting the Mail on Sunday

The duke has sued the MoS for libel twice, including over an October 2020 story accusing him of turning his back on the Royal Marines after quitting royal life.

The newspaper settled the case and apologized in print in December that year, stating: "We apologize to Prince Harry and have made a donation to the Invictus Games Foundation."

He then sued again after a February 2022 Mail on Sunday exclusive headlined: "Revealed: How Harry tried to keep his legal fight over bodyguards secret."

The story related to a public statement by Harry's legal team about a separate lawsuit he filed against the U.K. Home Office over the removal of his police protection detail.

And he has a further lawsuit alleging historic phone hacking and wire tapping at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, which had its first public hearing in March.

The publisher is attempting to get the case thrown out on the basis the allegations are too old, while the prince's lawyers state he only discovered he might have been a victim after more recent evidence came to light.

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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