By Sheila Mckenzie-
ITV’s removal of a potentially dangerous claim about Prince William in relation to an adverse mental health story about his brother, Prince Harry, highlights the danger of the media whenever various contributors provide inaccurate, and sometimes inflammatory news.
The documentary, Harry & William: What Went Wrong?, had originally planned to air allegations of leaking from the Duke of Cambridge about Prince Harry to the media that the Duke Of Sussex was suffering from mental health issues.
Omid Scobie, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s biographer, had suggested on the show that senior palace aides had briefed newspapers over concerns regarding Harry’s state of mind.
He claimed that it was following an interview with journalist Tom Bradby in 2019 where Harry said that he and his brother were on “different paths”.
However, Kensington Palace are understood to have warned ITV that the suggestion, if aired, would be defamatory in that it was substantially untrue.
The palace’s intervention included a “clear rebuttal” of Mr Scobie’s suggestion that William was the one who expressed an opinion on his brother’s mental state.
The author had no evidence to back his claims, and after “carefully considering” the palace’s request ITV chose to remove any reference to mental health from the clip.
The documentary chose to keep in Mr Scobie’s comment about an alleged briefing from Kensington Palace relating to Harry.
Scobie is an avid defender of the Duchess of Sussex, and believes she was maltreated by the royal family and hostile media. he told the programme she came into the Royal family “driven and ready to work and that immediately ruffled feathers”.
During the 2019 interview Prince Harry admitted to Tom Bradbury that he did not see his brother as often as he once did, and he failed to deny a rift.
The claim would only have further escalated tensions in the royal family, by making the claim. The last minute decision to remove the claim shows deep the rancour between the brothers could go, if such a claim was about to hit the television screens.
Mental health illness is a serious thing, and without proper undeniable evidence that a journalist got any information about Prince Harry’s mental health from Prince William, it would be a serious error of judgement to have wanted to put that out publicly. Journalists have many sources of obtaining information, and not all information produced by all journalists is accurate.
The more serious the impact of the information, the more dangerous and misleading the article. The fall out between the brothers in the royal family has the appearance of being milked for profits as television personalities go for the most shocking or revealing claims to arouse public interest.
Prince Harry has admitted suffering mental health issues for years, affected greatly by his mother’s death and the fact it was largely an unspoken subject in the royal family according to him, at least in his presence. The high possibility the family may have been trying to protect his emotions for decades has carried less weight in his mind than the fact she was hounded by the press right up to her death, because of her royal connection and massive global appeal, given he many charitable endeavours, and her big interview with Panorama in 1995, now known to have been fraudulently influenced by Martin Bashir’s mock up of bank statements.
Prince Harry and his brother are said to have drifted about after Prince William initially warned his brother, Prince Harry, to be careful of Meghan Markle’s motives, describing her as ”this woman” , to which Prince Harry became defensive. It later became worse following Prince William confronting his brother about bullying allegations against Meghan Markle.
The rush to feed the public with various versions of events in the tense saga between the Sussexes and the Cambridges has been a source of interest to the public , particularly royalists who are interested in every bit of detail to went went wrong so badly between the royal brothers, and the fall out between he and his wife and the rest of the family. Prince Harry and Meghan Marle had their say on the globally televised Oprah Winfrey show in which the pointed to racism after an unnamed member of the royal family allegedly expressed concern about how dark the colour of their unborn baby would be.
They also complained about their cries for Meghan Markle’s feeling of suicide being ignored, and Archie being denied the title of a prince because of the colour of his skin. The issue about Archie being denied a prince title was later disproven to be in error because of a rule change that did not allow the grandchildren of the heir to the throne to inherit a title.
Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Talk To Oprah Winfrey Image: Cbs.com
Prince William recently met in London to unveil the statue of their mother, Princess Diana.Meghan Markle and Prince Harry quit royal duties for LA to be “social impact influencers”, their former chief of staff has revealed
Meghan Markle upset people from the early days of her joining the Royal Family, a royal biographer has claimed.Penny Junor claimed palace insiders told her the Duchess of Sussex was “not as charming as she seemed.”
“I was hearing very bad stories from early on that Meghan was upsetting people,” she told the ITV documentary, Harry & William: What Went Wrong?
“She was not as charming as she seemed.”