Expert Calls Out Harry and Meghan’s Media Games: ‘They Exploit When It Suits Them’
Critics say the Sussexes condemn the press while actively engaging with it.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, since their departure from the royal household, have drawn a strict line around their relationship with the media. Privacy, they insist, is non-negotiable. Harry also has time and again mentioned how the media infringed on his privacy, going as far as suing them in the courts. Yet critics argue that the couple’s stance is less clear-cut than it appears, and that their actions often sit uneasily beside their words.
That tension was recently highlighted by legal expert Jonathan Goldberg KC, who suggested that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have sent mixed signals when it comes to how and when the media should be involved in their lives. Speaking on the I Rest My Case podcast, Goldberg said the couple’s approach has created a growing sense of contradiction, particularly in the UK.
Harry, 41, has been vocal for years about his mistrust of the press, especially the British tabloids. He has repeatedly linked the media’s behaviour to the death of his mother, Princess Diana, Princess of Wales, and has accused newspapers of spreading false and damaging stories about both her and Markle. Those concerns have driven a string of legal battles, including actions against the publishers of the media outlets.
Goldberg acknowledged that some of Harry’s legal fights were justified. “Yes. I think we'd all agree that one where he's protecting his children [Archie and Lilibet] from unwanted privacy is totally reasonable,” he said. He pointed to cases Harry won in both California and Britain, including one that shut down a photographic agency accused of taking intrusive images. “No argument there,” Goldberg added. However, he suggested that public sympathy has limits. “There's a feeling in this country that he's taken it much too far,” Goldberg said, noting that Harry and Markle are hardly media-shy figures. “You have to remember that these people maintain the most lavish public relations establishments themselves.”
That, Goldberg argues, is where the contradiction becomes hard to ignore. “They exploit the media when it suits them. They criticise the media when it doesn't,” he said. He pointed to Harry’s memoir, Spare, as a key example. “This is a man who chose to write his own autobiography called Spare, where he was withering in his criticisms of his own relatives, the Royal Family, his brother, his father, his grandma,” Goldberg said. The book, released with maximum publicity, dominated headlines on both sides of the Atlantic and relied heavily on the same media ecosystem Harry often condemns.
Markle’s public profile also came under scrutiny. “We all know about what a publicity hound Meghan is when it suits her,” Goldberg said, referencing the couple’s high-profile Netflix series, the Oprah Winfrey interview, and even lighter lifestyle moments. “Whether it be Netflix or the Oprah Winfrey interviews, or her making jam and cocktail sausages and all the rest of it.” He argued the issue is not that Harry and Meghan engage with the media, but that they appear to want control over when, how, and on what terms that engagement happens. “So there's a feeling that, you know, when it suits them, that's fine, and they can do it,” Goldberg said.
