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By Jack Royston
Chief Royal Correspondent
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship has been known about publicly for a decade, having triggered a frenzy of media coverage described by Harry as an "apocalypse" and by the journalist who broke the story with the words: "All hell breaks loose."
The couple started dating in July 2016 but kept their romance secret for months before it was revealed for the first time on October 30 on the front page of British tabloid the Sunday Express.
Harry wrote about the onslaught of reporting that followed the article, stating in his book Spare that they had been about to attend a Halloween costume party: "We’d had a heads-up that it was likely to happen that day. We’d been tipped, before heading off to the Halloween Apocalypse, that another apocalypse might be coming."
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Meanwhile, Camilla Tominey, who broke the story, told The Daily Heretics podcast: "We published the story, all hell breaks loose."
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Why It Matters
News the couple were in a relationship triggered a wave of stories some of which were referenced for years to come as examples of alleged unfair treatment given to the couple.
Harry instructed his Kensington Palace spokesperson, at the time Jason Knauf, to issue a strongly worded public statement denouncing the media. It was the first battle between the prince and the press over Meghan but not the last as that conflict has been a major element of the Sussexes' story.
Prince Harry and Meghan's Relationship Revealed
The Sunday Express front page read, "Royal World Exclusive: Harry's Secret Romance With TV Star," and suggested the prince was "besotted" with Meghan, who at the time starred in legal drama Suits as the character Rachel Zane.
Tominey quoted a source saying that Harry had kept the relationship quiet because he did not want to scare Meghan off but that there was chemistry between them.
"Everything was changed forever, because the next day was when news of our relationship broke wide open," Harry wrote in Spare. "Well, we said, staring anxiously at our phones, it was going to happen eventually."
Harry and Meghan spent the evening at a Halloween party with Princess Eugenie and her now husband Jack Brooksbank as a Halloween party at Toronto's Soho House, a private members club.
The prince borrowed actor Tom Hardy's real costume from the movie Mad Max: Fury Road while Meghan wore "torn black shorts, a camo top, fishnet stockings," according to Spare. "If that’s the Apocalypse, I thought, bring on the end of the world," Harry wrote.
The prince described sitting on Meghan's couch talking about the media storm that was coming and quoted himself saying: "Meg, you ready for what’s headed our way?"
"Kinda," Meghan replied. "Are you?" Harry said he was before asking if she was "scared," and stating: "We’re going to be hunted. No two ways about it."
The Press Coverage and Harry's Reaction
By the time Knauf issued his statement on November 8 there had been more than a week of frenzied coverage in the mainstream media as well as commentary on social media.
Among them, a Daily Mail comment piece by Rachel Johnson, sister of future British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, suggested that if the couple had children then "the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA." She was criticized for the reference to "exotic DNA" and later apologized.
"I for one celebrated the fact that she was mixed race, but I used an unfortunate word, which was 'exotic,'" she told ITV. "I meant that in marvelous contrast to the gingery white blood of his own blood family on his maternal side. But it didn't go down well and I hereby apologize, Harry."
An article in The Sun carried the headline "Harry's Girl on Pornhub," and the tabloid later apologized for not making it clear that the clips were scenes from Suits that someone had uploaded to adult website.
The apology read: "We published a story ‘Harry’s girl on Pornhub’ (4 November 2016) about Prince Harry’s girlfriend, the actress Meghan Markle, after video clips showing scenes from her U.S. TV series Suits were posted on a porn website. We would like to make clear that Miss Markle has never been involved with such content and had no idea that the video clip had been published illegally on this website."
Another now infamous article in the Daily Mail online carried the headline: "EXCLUSIVE: Harry's girl is (almost) straight outta Compton: Gang-scarred home of her mother revealed—so will he be dropping by for tea?" The article wrongly suggested Meghan was from Crenshaw, which it described as "plagued by crime and riddled with street gangs" as well as "tatty one-storey homes."
"The past week has seen a line crossed," Knauf's statement read. "His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment.
"Some of this has been very public—the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.
"Some of it has been hidden from the public—the nightly legal battles to keep defamatory stories out of papers; her mother having to struggle past photographers in order to get to her front door; the attempts of reporters and photographers to gain illegal entry to her home and the calls to police that followed; the substantial bribes offered by papers to her ex-boyfriend; the bombardment of nearly every friend, co-worker, and loved one in her life.
"Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her. "
Camilla Tominey's Account of Breaking the Story
Tominey suggested the experience was "difficult" for her too and gave a slightly different account to the Sussexes, in that she said she did not put a call in to Kensington Palace to check the story. Harry had said they were tipped off. It is possible that both accounts have some truth to them.
In a March 2021 article for the Daily Telegraph, her current newspaper, she wrote that a biography had suggested the "couple knew the story of their relationship was coming out and were well prepared for it."
"I can tell you categorically that they weren’t," she wrote. "Since I did not even put a call into Kensington Palace before we went to press for fear of it being leaked. (I did later discuss this with Harry, when I covered his trip to the Caribbean in November 2016, and to be fair he was pretty philosophical, agreeing it would have come out sooner or later)."
In that same article she suggested Harry and Meghan supporters, known as the Sussex Squad, had accused her of racism because a line in the article noted Doria Ragland's ethnicity.
"Despite my now apparently being on a par with the Ku Klux Klan for failing to acknowledge Meghan as the next messiah," she said. "It was actually not until the fifteenth paragraph of that original article that the ‘confident and intelligent’ Northwestern University graduate was described as ‘the daughter of an African-American mother and a father of Dutch and Irish descent.’"
In later interview with The Daily Heretic podcast, she said: "I think back to some of our Harry and Meghan coverage, you know, that was a very, very difficult period for me personally because I'm at the Sunday Express in 2016.
"I break the story that Harry and Meghan are dating, hadn't watched Suits, didn't know who she was, got confronted with pictures of her in the American version of Deal or No Deal. I was like, 'Oh my god, what's happening here?' You know, Harry is punching."
She has suggested she was more interested in Meghan's role in Deal or No Deal than in her ethnicity.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Emma Lee-Sang
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