- Associated Newspapers sent a letter to ViacomCBS about the content featured in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's interview with Oprah Winfrey.
- The
Daily Mail owner claimed headlines featured in the special suggested racist coverage from British tabloids. Prince Harry andMeghan Markle said racism played a "large part" in their exit from the UK.
Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail, sent a letter to ViacomCBS that demanded "misleading" content be deleted from "Oprah with Meghan and Harry."
Lawyers for Associated Newspapers took fault with a montage of British tabloid headlines featured in the interview that purportedly demonstrated the racist coverage Meghan Markle faced from the British press.
The letter claimed that the headlines in the interview, which drew more than 17 million viewers for its premiere, were distorted and doctored.
"As a responsible broadcaster with integrity we believe therefore that you will deprecate, as we do, the deliberate distortion and doctoring of newspaper headlines in the misleading montage of British newspapers broadcast in 'Oprah with Meghan and Harry,'" wrote legal director Elizabeth Hartley.
"Many of the headlines have been either taken out of context or deliberately edited and displayed as supporting evidence for the programme's claim that the Duchess of Sussex was subjected to racist coverage by the British press. This editing was not made apparent to viewers and, as a result, this section of the programme is both seriously
inaccurate and misleading," the letter continued.
Hartley pointed to three specific instances that they claimed were "seriously inaccurate."
One included a headline shown in the montage that read, "Meghan's seed will taint our royal family." The letter noted that it was a direct quote from a 2018 Daily Mail story titled, "Meghan's seed will taint our Royal Family': UKIP chief's glamour model lover, 25, is suspended from the party over racist texts about Prince Harry's wife-to-be."
Associated Newspapers wrote that in excluding the full headline, the montage suggested that Mail Online made or agreed with the statement, "which it plainly did not."
The media group asked the images be removed before the interview aired again on Friday evening.
"I should be grateful for your urgent confirmation that the offending content will be removed from the programme currently being made available to the public," the letter said. "We also understand that a further broadcast is being planned tonight. The montage should therefore be deleted prior to that broadcast."
ViacomCBS did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle said racism played a "large part" in their exit from Kensington Palace and the United Kingdom
During their sit-down interview with
According to the couple, the treatment Markle, 39, experienced from the British tabloids became too severe.
Harry, 36, said a friend who is close to British editors warned him that the couple would face racist treatment.
"Please don't do this with the media," Harry said an unidentified friend told him. "They will destroy your life."
"He said, 'You need to understand that the UK is very bigoted,'" Harry said. "I stopped and I said, 'The UK is not bigoted, the UK press is bigoted, specifically the tabloids, is that what you mean?'"
The friend insisted that the UK itself was bigoted, which Harry believed was untrue.
"But unfortunately, if the source of information is inherently corrupt or racist or biased, then that filters out to the rest of society," said Harry.
Markle secured a legal victory against the Mail On Sunday and will receive a front-page apology
Markle previously sued the Mail on Sunday over claims the tabloid misused her private information, personal data, and infringed on her copyright by publishing a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle Sr.
The letter was published in a 2019 article titled: "Revealed: the letter showing true tragedy of Meghan's rift with a father she says has 'broken her heart into a million pieces.'"
A judge ruled in favor of Markle in February and said Associated Newspapers breached copyright by publishing the letter.
In March, a judge ruled that the publication must publish a front-page apology to Markle.
Markle said in a statement obtained by Insider that she is "grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanizing practices."
"These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they've been going on for far too long without consequence. For these outlets, it's a game. For me and so many others, it's real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep," Markle said.