‘UNBELIEVABLE!’: Prince Harry just had us reaching for the sick bucket – and Meghan Markle must be raging
On Tuesday, it emerged that he had lost his court battle against the publishers
Harry denied that he was friends with any journalists (Image: Getty)
There are few things more excruciating than a hefty dose of second-hand embarrassment. But having your painfully corny, 2011-era bachelor Facebook messages dragged into the public spotlight and picked apart line by line? That really is a “sick bucket” moment. A journalist who claimed to have once shared a friendship with Prince Harry has now addressed the storm surrounding private messages that were made public during his privacy lawsuit against the publishers of The Daily Mail, Associated Newspapers Limited. Journalist Charlotte Griffiths, the current Editor at Large of the Mail on Sunday, has broken her silence months after texts shared with Prince Harry were revealed in court. The messages attracted considerable attention because of the language used between the pair, with some interpreting them as evidence of a closer relationship. Griffiths has said that the exchanges were entirely innocent and that the context behind them has been misunderstood.
The messages came from a period when Harry and the journalist knew each other socially, years before he met Meghan Markle, and she has rejected suggestions that they indicated anything more than friendship and light-hearted banter. Charlotte Griffiths shared a lengthy account of her friendship with Harry in a newly published article for the Daily Mail after the texts were revealed in Prince Harry’s privacy case back in March.
Prince Harry is in London this week (Image: Getty)
Some of the phrases that attracted attention included references to a “fun weekend of naughtiness” and Harry using affectionate nicknames such as “Griff” and “sugar”. A mention of “movie snuggles” also fuelled speculation online, but Griffiths has insisted that the reality was far more ordinary than the rumours suggested.
She wrote: “But suddenly those messages, in which I had spoken about the ‘fun weekend of naughtiness’ and Harry had recalled our ‘movie snuggles’, were interpreted as evidence of some sort of romantic liaison.
“In fact, we’d merely shared a blanket during a film screening in a sitting room with other people present on a Sunday afternoon. The ‘naughtiness’ referred to excessive alcohol consumption.”
“A reference by Harry to a ‘Cinderella’s shoe’ in a separate message inspired further misleading headlines suggesting we had been intimate,” adding that they were instead borrowed shoes that she used to “head outside for a cigarette”.
Griffiths also recalled a moment when Harry shuffled over to her beanbag, got under the blanket she was sitting beneath and put his arm around her. She said: “There was nothing particularly romantic about the sweet gesture.”
She added: “Although I wasn’t physically attracted to him, I felt slightly uncomfortable. I was dating someone else at the time and, besides, he’d kissed another girl the night before, a girl who had turned up for the weekend on the arm of one of his friends. By breakfast, it all seemed to have become part of the previous night’s entertainment, and everyone simply laughed it off.”
Harry had just testified that he hated the press and never associated with reporters, only for the defence to show messages where he appeared to be in some ways flirting with one for months. Even when messages are harmless, seeing private conversations from someone’s past can also make for uncomfortable reading. Many people would likely feel uneasy seeing playful or flirtatious exchanges their partner had with someone before they were together. I can imagine Meghan is less than thrilled about the global press analysing the exact mechanics of her husband’s 2011 “beanbag logistics”, the “mwahs” and the “sugars”.
Between facing a bruising legal battle over privacy and having old, playful Facebook messages from his past dragged into the public spotlight, it has been an eventful few weeks for the prince.
In the article, the journalist also said: “As a journalist, I should stress that I have absolutely no problem with being written about. People who hold others to account for a living shouldn’t complain when they are scrutinised.
“That said, I was saddened, if not entirely surprised, that in the sewers of social media, where women are routinely abused and objectified, I was bombarded with tens of thousands of messages, dubbing me a ‘harlot’ and a ‘slut’ and worse.”
Harry and Meghan have spent years rightly campaigning against cyberbullying and social media algorithms. There is a grim irony, then, in the treatment of Charlotte Griffiths. Anonymous trolls weaponised the exact internet abuse the Sussexes fight against. Ultimately, whatever anyone thinks of Harry, Meghan, or the messages themselves, it does not justify abuse in my opinion.
