Meghan Markle and her husband sued today to stop the sale and publication of a photo of their only son. The former royal couple insists they were shot at their Los Angeles-area home in an invasion of their privacy, TVNZ reports.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have started a new lawsuit. This time, Meghan and Harry give a detailed account in the lawsuit of the media harassment they say they’ve had to constantly fight in the months since they moved to California.
Meghan is also suing a pair of media outlets there for the invasion of privacy and copyright infringement.
“This action arises out of the relentless and quite frankly shocking efforts of the tabloid media to profit from serial intrusions of the privacy of a 14-month-old child in his own home,” the suit reads, “and the desire and responsibility of any parent to do what is necessary to protect their children from this manufactured feeding frenzy.”
Prince Harry and his wife said the tabloid harassment finally came to a head when they saw that a photo of Archie was being offered to media outlets that were purportedly taken on a family outing in Malibu, when in fact it was clearly shot while he was in their yard, unbeknownst to them.
According to the lawsuit’s text, Archie has not been in public, much less in Malibu, since the family arrived here. It alleges the picture is mislabeled because the sellers knew it would be unlawful for them to sell a photograph of a child in his own home.
The former royals have not learned the identity of the shooters and sellers of the photos, who are listed as John Does in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
A new lawsuit: Duke and Duchess of Sussex try to protect their privacy
The plaintiffs are listed as Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. The lawsuit seeks to identify the defendants, and for the court to issue injunctions requiring them to turn over all photos of Archie and cease harassing the family.
The lawsuit says the family was forced to erect a large mesh fence to block photographers with telephoto lenses from shooting pictures of them from a ridge hundreds of yards away from the home of a friend in a gated community where they have been living.
The most alarming thing is helicopters have flown over as early as 5:30 am, waking Archie, his parents and neighbours. Early in the morning, some photographers have cut holes in their mesh fence attempting to get shots of Sussexes.
In February, Harry and Meghan chose to live at least part-time in North America “to escape the incessant UK tabloid fabrications”, the lawsuit says.
According to the recent lawsuit, “The plaintiffs have done everything in their power to stay out of the limelight, except in connection with their work, which they freely admit is newsworthy,” according to the lawsuit, which says they “simply want to continue the public impact work that is so important to them while having the private life to which any family or individual has the right”.
