Breaking News: Harry’s unexpected reaction to explosive Meghan exposé….See More

Eight years ago, Harry stunned us all with an unprecedented move. Now, following a damning new Meghan exposé, his reaction is very curious.

Long before “unprecedented” became a trigger word for us all (the coronavirus era is still too recent), it was the only word that could really sum up the dramatic action taken by Prince Harry in November 2016.

His new relationship had just been uncovered by the world’s press, and he believed the storm of negative coverage enveloping then-Suits actress Meghan Markle, had “seen a line crossed”.

Releasing a powerful statement through Kensington Palace (despite plenty of internal objection, as Harry revealed in his memoir), the prince condemned the wave of “abuse and harassment” she’d received, and referenced his “legal battles” to keep “defamatory stories out of papers”.

After quitting the royal family, Harry went on to detail his struggles with the Palace’s PR teams, and the fact that when things between Meghan and the UK media hit boiling point in 2019, he was encouraged to let it all slide.

“They knew how bad it was. They thought, ‘Why couldn’t she just deal with it?’ No one would have private conversations with the editors saying, ‘Enough,’ ” he wrote in Spare.

In October that year, the couple went against the royal grain and launched legal action against the Daily Mail over the publication of a private letter between Meghan and her estranged father.

By Harry’s own admission, one of the key reasons he left the “gilded cage” of the royal family was to reclaim his freedom.

But even when the protocols and procedures of a centuries-old institution were coiled around him, the duke still pushed forward to speak out when he felt he needed to.

All this to say: here is a man who has proven he’s not afraid to stand up for what he believes in.

The burning hostility between the couple and the UK press was always unlikely to ever cool, especially once they left and moved to California. And in that initial period after Megxit, it must have seemed like that honeymoon in their US coverage might last forever.

But five years on, and the floodgates of bad PR surrounding Meghan have burst open with force.

There was The Hollywood Reporter article last year, describing her as a “dictator in high heels”, who reduced “grown men to tears” and left staffers “terrified”. The Daily Beast published afollow-up, in which one former staffer alleged, among other things, that Meghan was a “demon” when things weren’t going her way.

Then came what may be the killer blow. On Friday, Vanity Fair dropped an 8,000-word article with a series of explosive, unflattering allegations, made by “dozens of people who have worked with and lived alongside the couple” and “over many months”.

Meghan was portrayed as a ruthless boss, with one staffer revealing they had not believed previous bullying claims about her – but quickly changed her mind after being hired, admitting it could happen “any given Tuesday”.

Another ex-staffer compared Meghan to a “Mean Girls teenager”, and described working on her Archetypes podcast as “really, really awful” and “very painful”.

Others described “taking extended breaks” to “escape scrutiny” or “undergoing long-term therapy” after working with her.

Perhaps most shocking, though, was the claim that a member of Meghan’s team had floated to publishers the idea of a book about divorce, if she and Harry were to break up. The journalist went on to stress that “no offer was ever made, and no manuscript was produced”.

(For what it’s worth, it was also noted that the couple are “so hot for each other” and “deeply in love” by those interviewed).

Following the publication of the first round of Meghan “bullying” accusations – privately made in October 2018, while the duke and duchess were living at Kensington Palace – back in 2021, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex dismissed it as a “smear campaign”.

And after the two damning exposés last year, Harry and Meghan’s reaction was to authorise several current and former employees to go on the record to Us Weekly with gushing testimonies about their time on the job.

Now, with Meghan at the centre of a wave of unflattering allegations, there has been a curious silence from her husband. A decision, at this moment and without the constraints of a Palace hierarchy, to not use his voice.

I’m not suggesting it’s the role of every person in a high-profile couple to publicly defend their spouse. To each their own.

But in this post-Megxit world, and with a strong track record of speaking up when his partner is being targeted, Harry is yet to issue a slapdown. And four days on from the Vanity Fair bomb detonating, it seems unlikely he will.

After Jeremy Clarkson published a shocking – and later retracted – article detailing his hatred of Meghan in 2023, Harry personally hit out at the “horrific and hurtful” remarks in an interview with ITV.