Meghan Markle recalls cops refused to help when she complained about paparazzi stalking her: ‘Look who you are dating’

In her new docu-series Harry & Meghan, former actor Meghan Markle has described how her life turned upside down when she began dating her husband Britain’s Prince Harry in 2016. Meghan was subjected to intense media scrutiny as soon as the news became public in late 2016. Recalling an incident from 2017 when she was shooting the TV series Suits in Canada, Meghan said she even complained to the police that paparazzi were stalking her but was refused help. Also read: Prince Harry says Palace saw Meghan Markle’s media harassment as rite of passage

Meghan, who was playing a supporting role on the popular show Suits at the time, was in Toronto filming the show. Her production crew describes that paparazzi would try to infiltrate the sets and the trailers all the time and they had to cage the entire area. Many photographers would follow Meghan in their cars all the time.

Recalling this, Meghan said, “I would say to the police that if any other woman in Toronto said to you right now, ‘I have six grown men sleeping in their cars around my house and following me everywhere that I go and I feel scared,’ wouldn’t you say that it was stalking. And they would say ‘but there is nothing we can do because look who you are dating’.” Meghan said eventually she did get security but only after the situation escalated. “Then I got a death threat and things changed because I needed to have security,” she added.

Steve Davies, her security detail at the time, said, “I have worked with A-list celebrities before and high net-worth families before. This blew me right out the water.” Steve went on to describe how they had a special driver trained in evasive driving taking him and Meghan from her house to the studio and how they would hide in alleyways to avoid photographers waiting at her house every day.

Meghan recalled that her friends and family were worried about her and constantly asked her if dating Harry was worth all this trouble. “When all of that started happening, my friends and people in my life who love me and care about me are like, ‘Is he worth this?’,” said Meghan. However, Meghan and Harry said that they persisted and stayed in touch to emerge from the situation.

Prince Harry and Meghan eventually tied the knot in 2018 and welcomed their son Archie in 2020. Later that year, the couple moved to the US and withdrew from undertaking official royal engagements. The new docu-series centres on their lives and romance and how their lives changed due to the media scrutiny and the British royal family’s disapproval of Meghan. The first three episodes of the six-part series were released on Netflix on Thursday.