Photographers Call Out ‘Misleading’ Images in Harry and Meghan’s Netflix Trailer

Pesala Bandara

Photographers have taken to social media to call out the “misleading” images that were used to depict them in the new trailer for Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s upcoming Netflix show.

Netflix released the full-length trailer for the docuseries Harry & Meghan on Monday.

The six-part series will explore the media’s influence on the couple’s relationship with the royal family.

In the trailer, various footage is used to suggest the intrusion of paparazzi specifically into Harry’s and Meghan’s lives.

However, photographers quickly pointed out that several videos that show them supposedly taking invasive pictures of the couple were in fact clips from unrelated news events.

While other clips were taken at official royal events that a small group of accredited photographers had permission to attend.

Several photographers have taken umbrage with the way they have been misrepresented in the Netflix trailer.

‘I Was There’

News reporter and photographer, Robert Johnson criticized the usage of footage in the trailer that showed photographers leaning over a balcony to shoot pictures of Harry, Meghan, and their baby son Archie.

While the video was ostensibly intended as an example of invasion by photographers, Johnson states that it was taken during an official royal event at Archbishop Tutu’s residence in Cape Town, South Africa in September 2019.

Johnson also says that had been there as one of only three reporters who had been permitted to attend the event.

To further prove his point, Johnson shared an “accredited” photo that he had taken of Meghan, Harry, and Archie from the same royal event. “There was no intrusion,” he writes.

‘Not As It Seems’

Other clips seemingly used to demonstrate the aggressive media coverage into Harry and Meghan in the trailer had no links to the couple on at least two occasions. In fact, other individuals were the subject of the photographers’ attention in this footage.

In a voiceover in the trailer, Harry talks about press intrusion and says he is “terrified” that history will repeat itself.

As he speaks, a video of Harry and Meghan walking in front of a barricade as cameras flash and the trailer cuts to footage of a group of photographers rushing to take photographs.

It may look like the footage of the photographers is related to the firsthand experiences of the couple.

However, journalist Harry Wallop tweeted that his “lovely press photographer” spotted that the video was taken outside of a court as U.K. glamor model Katie Price arrived to be sentenced for drunk driving.

According to Buzzfeed News, this is corroborated by a search of Getty Images video database.

In another tweet, freelance video journalist and photographer Urban Pictures UK details how the video of Price had been flipped horizontally for the Netflix trailer.

Further footage in the trailer shows photographers swarming a vehicle after Harry and Meghan are filmed seated in a car. Meghan is then seen crying after the clip of the horde of photographers.

Although the video may look like the couples are the individuals being mobbed by the paparazzi, the video was actually filmed in May 2019 and shows Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen.

The cluster of press photographers shown in the trailer had been trying to take pictures of Cohen, who was leaving home to begin his prison sentence after pleading guilty to tax, bank, and campaign finance crimes.

Stock Photos

On Monday, PetaPixel reported on how the previous Netflix teaser trailer sparked backlash after an image that was supposedly meant to show Meghan and Harry being hounded by paparazzi was revealed as a stock shot of photographers taken at the Harry Potter premiere years before the couple met.

The photograph, which appears first under search results for “paparazzi” on the stock image website Alamy, was taken five years before Harry and Meghan were introduced to each other in 2016.

harry and meghan

The first trailer for Harry & Meghan also revealed that the couple had broken royal protocol by taking a private photographer into Buckingham Palace without the late Queen Elizabeth’s permission.

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