LOS ANGELES (AP) – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sued Thursday to stop the sale and publication of a photo of their son Archie who they say was shot at their Los Angeles-area home in an invasion of their privacy. .
The royal couple gives a detailed account in the media harassment lawsuit that says they have had to constantly fight in the months since they moved to Southern California.
“This action stems from the relentless and downright shocking efforts of the tabloid media to take advantage of serial intrusions of a 14-month-old child’s privacy in his own home,” says the lawsuit, “and the desire and responsibility of any parent. to do whatever it takes to protect your kids from this manufactured feeding frenzy. “
Meghan and Harry said the tabloid harassment finally came to a head when they saw a photo of Archie being offered to the media that was allegedly taken on a family outing in Malibu, when in fact it was clearly filmed while he was in your patio. , without them knowing.
“Archie has not been in public, much less in Malibu, since the family came here,” the lawsuit says.
He alleges the image is mislabeled because vendors knew it would be illegal to sell a photograph of a child in his own home.
The couple have not learned the identity of the shooters and vendors from the photos, who are listed as John Does in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The plaintiffs are listed as Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. The lawsuit seeks to identify the defendants and to have the court issue injunctions requiring them to turn over all of Archie’s photos and stop harassing the family.
The lawsuit says the family was forced to erect a large mesh fence to prevent telephoto photographers from taking photos of them from a ridge hundreds of meters from a friend’s home in a gated community where they have been living.
That led to the appearance of drones flying as close as 20 feet above your home, often three times a day, in an attempt to obtain photos, the lawsuit says. The helicopters have flown since 5:30 a.m., awakening Archie and his neighbors, and some photographers have cut holes in his chain link fence to try to take photos of them.
Harry, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and sixth in the British throne line, married Meghan Markle, an American actress who grew up in Los Angeles at Windsor Castle in 2018, in an elegant ceremony that was observed throughout the world.
In January, the couple announced that they planned to step down as royalty, seek financial independence, and move to North America. The division became official in late March.
The couple chose to live at least part-time in North America “to escape unremitting tabloid manufacturing in the UK,” the lawsuit says. Meghan is also suing a couple of media outlets there for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement.
They were able to live in silence in northern Saanich, Canada for six weeks, the lawsuit says, before a British newspaper published its exact location and hordes of photographers descended, prompting them to head to the California home where it was published. again its location and the paparazzi appeared en masse again.
“The plaintiffs have done their best to stay out of the limelight, except in relation to their work, which they freely admit is news,” according to the lawsuit, which says they “just want to continue the public impact work that is so important to them as long as they have the private life to which any family or individual is entitled. “
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Follow AP Entertainment reporter Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton.
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