Prince Harry's Tabloid Bias Claim About William Supported by Writer

A former government minister said a U.K. newspaper editor told him "I could say what I want about Harry and Meghan but I had to lay off William and Kate."

Norman Baker, crime prevention minister from 2013 to 2014, said there was "some truth" to Prince Harry's comment during a Netflix trailer about a bias towards protecting his brother, Prince William.

The Duke of Sussex said: "They were happy to lie to protect my brother but were never willing to tell the truth to protect us."

Baker told GB News: "I am pretty fed up with Harry and Meghan to be honest with you and I think most people are and they should just go away and live their lives.

"However, having said that, there is probably some truth in that in the sense that the palace in particular was very keen to make sure that the heir to the throne was protected and Harry could be sacrificed if necessary.

"And actually when I was working—I shouldn't give the name of the paper—but I was doing a piece for one of the nationals, writing a piece, and because I'm quite critical of the monarchy in many ways I was told I could say what I want about Harry and Meghan but I had to lay off William and Kate.

"That was the instruction from the editor. So I think there was an element of truth in what he says."

Baker, author of royal book And What Do You Do?, was the first person to report King Charles III's charity, The Prince's Foundation, to police over cash for honors allegations, in 2021.

The third trailer for the couple's Netflix docu-series, Harry & Meghan, sparked confusion after an image of the palace played while Harry said "they were happy to lie to protect my brother." A subtitle on the streaming platform's website then changed his words to "The British media are happy to lie."

Newsweek understands the subtitled version is more faithful to the meaning of Harry's words, though his phrasing is similar to comments made by Meghan about the palace during the Sussexes Oprah Winfrey interview.

The duchess said: "I did anything they told me to do—of course I did, because it was also through the lens of, 'And we'll protect you.' So, even as things started to roll out in the media that I didn't see—but my friends would call me and say, 'Meg, this is really bad'—because I didn't see it, I'd go, 'Don't worry. I'm being protected.'

"I believed that. And I think that was really hard to reconcile because  it was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected, but they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family but they weren't willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband."

Harry & Meghan Part II is due to be released across three one-hour episodes on December 15.

Harry currently has four open lawsuits against U.K. tabloid newspapers, though two of those have seen little progress since they were launched in October 2019.

The duke is suing News UK, the publisher of The Sun and the now defunct News of the World, Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, for phone hacking, though in more than three years the cases are yet to get off the ground.

Harry more recently joined celebrities accusing Associated Newspapers, publisher of Britain's Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, of unlawful practices including bugging.

He also sued The Mail on Sunday for libel over a story about his struggle to get his police protection detail re-instated during trips to Britain.