Royal sources scoffed at the lack of authenticity in trailers for the forthcoming Netflix series Harry and Meghan to The Daily Beast today, comparing it to the fictionalized drama The Crown, after it was revealed that tabloid scrums shown in the new trailer, which broadcast Monday, were not even tangentially connected to media coverage of the couple.
One source, a former Buckingham Palace staffer who retains close links to the institution, told The Daily Beast: “It looks like it’s going to be significantly less authentic than The Crown.”
In one clip from the new trailer, a group of photographers is seen charging towards a building, which the Daily Mail identified today as a minor court in the London suburb of Crawley.
The Mail said the footage was shot when a former glamour model, Katie Price, appeared there on a drink driving charge. Perhaps even more bizarrely, another clip, which shows photographers swarming a car as Meghan says: “I realized they are never going to protect you,” is actually footage of the media filming Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, in New York, the Mail said.
The respected royal correspondent Robert Jobson responded to a still used in the trailer showing a photographer taking a picture of the couple.
A friend of William and Kate’s told The Daily Beast: “People are just rolling their eyes at this stage. The fact that Netflix have used footage so misleadingly in the trailers alone tells you all you need to know about this couple.”
When The Daily Beast pointed out that Meghan had said in her interview with The Cut that control of the film rested with director Liz Garbus, the friend said: “They can’t wash their hands of this. It’s their show.”
Palace sources have been viciously trashing Harry and Meghan since last week when the first trailer disrupted William and Kate’s environmental awards, the Earthshot Prize, showed footage of a crowded media pen taken at a Harry Potter premiere.
In the new trailer, Harry describes the “pain and suffering of women” marrying into the “institution” of the royal family and accused the palace of leaking and planting stories in what he termed a “dirty game.”
The new trailer shows clips of his mother, Princess Diana, being chased by paparazzi, as Harry says: “I was terrified. I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”
Meghan says, over footage of her wiping tears from her eyes: “I realized, they’re never going to protect you.”
The trailer also confirmed that the series, believed to be in six parts, will drop in two tranches, this Thursday and next.
In one scene, Harry, speaking directly to camera, on what appears to be a mobile phone recording, says, “No-one knows the full truth. We know the full truth.”
Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace declined to comment Monday, seeking instead to transmit a sense of business as usual. Netflix did not return requests for comment either.
In one scene from the new trailer, Piers Morgan is heard saying over footage of Meghan: “She’s becoming a royal rock star!”
Morgan, who subsequently became one of Meghan’s most high-profile and vitriolic critics after she “ditched” him “like a sack of spuds” as he once put it, tweeted in response:
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