LONDON — Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, have distanced themselves from a new book about their time in Britain’s royal family.
Due to be published in August, “Finding Freedom” describes a culture of increasing tension between the couple and other members of the royal family, including Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.
Authored by royal reporters Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie, the book is being serialized by London-based newspapers, The Times and The Sunday Times.
The authors write that the Sussexes felt their complaints were not taken seriously and believed other royal households were leaking stories about them to the press.
“As their popularity had grown, so did Harry and Meghan’s difficulty in understanding why so few inside the palace were looking out for their interests. They were a major draw for the royal family,” they add.
However, a spokesman for the couple said in a statement late Friday that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “were not interviewed and did not contribute to ‘Finding Freedom.’”
He added: “This book is based on the authors’ own experiences as members of the royal press corps and their own independent reporting.”
Harry and Meghan, a former actress, married in May 2018 in a wedding heralded at the time as infusing a blast of Hollywood glamour and modernity into the monarchy, and which helped to make them one of the world’s biggest celebrity couples.
Earlier this year, however, the couple stunned the nation by announcing they would “step back as senior members of the Royal Family,” with plans to split their time between North America and the U.K.
Although their January announcement was a surprise, it was no secret that the couple felt the strain of the constant barrage of media attention and endless negative headlines.
Even so, the couple’s struggles with the media have followed them across the Atlantic. In May, Meghan lost the first round of her legal battle against a British tabloid newspaper over the publication of extracts of a handwritten “private and confidential” letter she wrote to her father.
Last Thursday, the couple filed an invasion of privacy suit against unnamed paparazzi, accusing photographers of taking drastic measures to get images of the couple and their son Archie at their California home.