'Harry & Meghan' Accuses Prince William of Authorizing Private Message Drop

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Netflix documentary accused Prince William of authorizing an aide to hand her private messages to a British court.

Harry & Meghan showed the couple and the former president of their Archewell foundation reacting to the news their former communications secretary had given evidence in a lawsuit Meghan brought against The Mail on Sunday.

A trove of private emails and text messages Jason Knauf handed over forced her into apologizing for misleading the court.

He was previously the press secretary at Kensington Palace, serving Meghan, Harry, William and Kate Middleton.

After quitting, he continued to work for William and Kate through their charity, The Royal Foundation, where he was based at the time he handed over the evidence. He has denied the allegations in the Netflix show.

In candid Netflix footage, Meghan reacts to news of the disclosure by saying: "How do we deal with that? Like...How on earth..."

Mandana Dayani then says: "He works for his brother," before Meghan replies: "I know."

She tells Harry: "It's your brother. I'm not going to say anything about your brother, but it's so obvious."

Harry can be heard saying "yeah," in the background before adding: "It's even more obvious that they'll try and cover it up. Again, Jason 'the former aide of Meghan and Harry,' as opposed to..."

Dayani then says: "That's what I keep saying, why are we talking about him as her former aide and not as the person who works for your brother?"

Harry replies: "That's why I'm now living in a different country. Because all the comms teams basically, like, try to outdo each other, but this is the contract. The symbiotic relationship between the two institutions working the best that they can."

Jenny Afia, Meghan and Harry's lawyer, says during a separate interview: "When we were just about to go to the Court of Appeal a senior member of the Duke of Cambridge's team came forward to give this witness statement which wasn't required and sadly there's no way he could have done this without the authority of his bosses."

At the end of the episode, the documentary ran a statement from Knauf: "These claims are entirely false. Mr. Knauf was asked to provide evidence by both The Duchess of Sussex and Associated Newspapers. He was advised by counsel that evidence in his possession could be relevant and he then provided this directly to the court, staying neutral in the process."

The trove of messages forced Meghan to apologize for misleading the court and revealed to the public that Harry and Meghan had authorized Knauf to brief biographers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand for their bombshell book, Finding Freedom.

The Sun newspaper was among those to run the story on its front page, and called Meghan "Little Miss Forgetful."

Dickie Arbiter, a former spokesperson for Queen Elizabeth II, told True Royalty TV's The Royal Beat in November 2021 that he believed Prince William would have given the green light for the evidence to be handed to the court.

He said: "I would put my money on it."

Royal author Duncan Larcombe added during the same episode: "Lawyers from The Mail on Sunday would have approached Jason Knauf, knowing that these emails existed. That would have been the point. Most likely, Jason would have gone to William and Kate. He would not have cooperated with those lawyers without their definite knowledge."