Duke of Sussex’s comments about Diana crash resurface after ‘near-miss’ – live

Not one member of the Royal Family reached out to Prince Harry following news of a car chase in New York City on Tuesday evening, royal biographer Omid Scobie has claimed.

During an interview on BBC Newsnight, Mr Scobie said: “It’s impossible not to think of Princess Diana when we hear about car accidents and this kind of aggressive paparazzi chase and so I was really surprised to hear from sources that not one member of the Royal Family, including King Charles and Prince William who were obviously heavily affected by Princess Diana’s death, had not reached out to Prince Harry hours after this news had broken.”

“Sadly that kind of shows the state of disrepair that that relationship is. It’s hard not to forget that Harry was here just a couple of weeks ago for King Charle’s coronation.

“You would have thought that that may go towards building some kind of path towards reconciliation in some way, but it seems like that’s not felt on the other side.

“That would have no doubt been a disappointing addition to what has already been a traumatic 12 hours for the couple.”

PA news agency also reported that no members of the royal family had reached out to the couple as of 10pm on Wednesday.

Prince Harry’s fears of “history repeating itself” have resurfaced after the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan Markle were involved in a “near catastrophic” car chase in New York City.

Prince Harry first compared the media’s treatment of his mother to his wife Meghan during the couple’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. “My biggest fear was history repeating itself,” he said during the interview.

“I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side because I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her [Diana] going through this process by herself all those years ago.”

During an ITV interview with Tom Bradby last January, Prince Harry said: “I do not want to be a single dad. And I certainly don’t want my children to have a life without a mother or a father.”

In the five-episode docuseries The Me You Can’t See, which was released on Apple TV+ in May 2021, Prince Harry compared his mother being “chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone that wasn’t white” to his relationship with Meghan Markle.

“It’s incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life,” Prince Harry said. “The list is growing. And it all comes back to the same people, the same business model, the same industry. Because my father used to say to me when I was younger, he used to say to both William and I: ‘Well it was like that for me so it’s gonna be like that for you.’”

Here is the timeline of the events.

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports:

Journalist Omid Scobie has attacked the Royal Family for failing to contact Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle after they were involved in a car chase in New York City.

The Sussex’s were involved in a “near catastrophic car chase” in New York on Tuesday evening involving “highly aggressive” paparazzi that lasted over two hours.

Scobie, who has authored biographies about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, told BBC Newsnight that the response from the royal family to the incident has been “disappointing” for the couple.

He claimed neither King Charles or Prince Harry had contacted Prince Harry following the incident.

“It’s impossible not to think of Princess Diana when we hear about car accidents and this kind of aggressive paparazzi chase,” he told TV host Victoria Derbyshire during the programme.

“So I was really surprised to hear… that not one member of the royal family, including King Charles and Prince William – who obviously [were] heavily affected by Princess Diana’s death – has reached out to Prince Harry, hours after the news had broken.”

Buckingham Palace told The Independent that it would not be commenting on the incident.

Photos of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle taken on the night they were chased by paparazzi in New York City briefly appeared on British tabloid websites before they were taken down amid reports that the pursuit led to “near collisions.”

The spokesperson said the pursuit was “near catastrophic” and involved “other drivers … pedestrians and two NYPD officers.”

The NYPD told The Independent in a statement on Wednesday that the department assisted in the couple’s “challenging” transport, but no collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests were reported.

A paparazzi driver reportedly involved in the allegedly high speed New York car chase of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has said that it was “very tense” trying to keep up with their vehicle.

Speaking anonymously to ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday, the driver said: “Last night after leaving the theatre, there were hopes from me and a few other photographers that maybe they would go to a restaurant.

“For the most part, I was driving and it was very tense trying to keep up with the vehicles. They did a lot of blocking and there was a lot of different type of manoeuvres to stop what was happening.”

He claimed that Harry and Meghan’s driver made the pursuit “a catastrophic experience”.

“Their driver was making it a catastrophic experience… if they were going 80mph, I would probably have been going 20mph behind them and hoping to keep sight of them,” he said.

“So if it was dangerous and catastrophic, it was more than likely based on the person that was driving.”