H&M vs Backgrid

[PicturesOfDogs]

H&M have apparently ’demanded’ pap footage from Backgrid, according to TMZ.

Their lawyer has replied with the following:

In America, as I'm sure you know, property belongs to the owner of it: Third parties cannot just demand it be given to them, as perhaps Kings can do. Perhaps you should sit down with your client and advise them that his English rules of royal prerogative to demand that the citizenry hand over their property to the Crown were rejected by this country long ago. We stand by our founding fathers

Court case #6 incoming?

https://amp.tmz.com/2023/05/18/prince-harry-meghan-markle-demand-photo-agency-give-them-footage-of-chase/

It does, however, make language like “near-catastrophic” sound a bit hyperbolic and attention seeking after the event. They could have said “intimidating, stressful, frightening” etc which could be more accurate for their actual experience rather than claiming some kind of near miss.

Indeed. Even 'potentially catastrophic' would have been believable.

Instead they chose to use language which was laughable and makes a mockery of the whole thing.

I'm very very certain that anyone on this forum who went through a two hour ordeal of having their wife and mother-in-law chased by 12 unmarked cars going the wrong way down one-way roads, at points being chased down a highway at 80pmh, having to run and shelter inside a police station until midnight, would absolutely be using heightened language to describe it.

It's just because it's Harry and Meghan and people hate them. There's nothing they can do or say that won't be twisted to fuel that hatred. They can't win.

Yes, NYPD confirmed that an NYPD escort was with them the entire time.

I don't think that's quite right. They weren't with them when they were in the taxi. There were two police cars behind but they were going to another job. They turned right as the taxi continued straight on. But the rest of the time, I don't know. I'm glad they were because we can have faith in the police statement that there were no incidents worth an arrest.

The NYPD escort tried to shake off the 12 cars that were originally pursuing them,

Oops, sorry. I don't think that's quite right either. Chris Sanchez, from Harrys security team, told CNN it was 12 vehicles in total, not 12 cars.

What we were dealing with was very chaotic. There were about a dozen vehicles: cars, scooters and bicycles.

12 cars would be massive. I think it was 3 or 4 cars. But that's bad enough.

I also think some of this information is coming from anonymous sources within the police dept so I don't know how reliable any of it is. Yahoo News is reporting their police sources as saying that the police escort only stayed with them for 20 minutes.

Everyone is choosing to ignore how massively traumatic being chased by paps must have been for Harry given how much his mother's killing affected him.

It's so traumatic they don't wear seatbelts when he knows his mum not wearing a seatbelt contributed to her death. His mum died because she got into a car with a drunk driver and didn't wear her seatbelt.

It's only because it's Meghan that people are twisting an obviously traumatic and abusive event into being their fault, a PR stunt, not that serious.

The press realise that altered the media from the Sussex camp did use very emotive and poorly considered language.

The NY Major comments and NYPD statements played it down - thus make the initial PR statement look like hyperbole and less truthful.

Subsequent taxi driver comments and lack of footage that corroborates initial statement don't help.

I don't think Meghan is being blamed - she was already getting press and if anything this is a distraction - most press seem to focus on Harry and yes many I've seen and heard have made point it may be more triggering for him than others.

If them being followed and enduring a stressful situation is being missed that has come partly from the misleading initial PR statement they seem to be behind - and perhaps public hindsight giving them a kicking because it does look like they didn't do enough in preventing entire situation happening in first place as they must have been aware of risks. I don't think that's entirely fair assessment but better PR from them could be countering this but I do think it's more skepticism than hate at work from most people.

Your argument seems to be "this can't possibly be true as it would require a deeply traumatised person in the middle of a traumatic decision to make a dumb decision, and obviously people never make dumb decisions ever."

But surely that's why you employ security officers. So when the heat is on they aren't traumatised, they keep a cool head and don't make dumb decisions. Then H, who's not got the best record of decision making, doesn't feel forced to step in.
Rather than risking lives as they claim was happening, it would have been better for them to have given up and gone to their friends house. Or alternatively book a room in a hotel. They shouldn't have to do this but if I thought a continued chase was risking lives of pedestrians that's what I'd accept I'd have to do. Instead they decided to plough on risking lives. I can't understand that. I can't understand the owner of the agency allowing that.

No the arguments have been as follows:

It didn't happen........
Then it progressed to ok maybe something happened but it wasn't that bad
Some people are arguing that it may have been bad but it's not a big deal
And then some people are saying it's their fault really
And then the piece de resistance - some people are saying they deserved it
I think I've just about summed it up
Sigh.....

I think they drove around Manhattan for an hour and 15 minutes with paparazzi following them, stopped at a police station, got in a taxi and then more things happened. I don’t think they were at risk of anything beyond annoyance.

I just think it was dumb. Ineffective driver, bad security.

I think it’s not something I would have allowed to go on. And I certainly wouldn’t have released that statement.

at point at this point you have to start asking why there is always drama around this couple. it’s almost as if they want it to be like this

OMG - we’ll, that gives the impression from the other side of the pond doesn’t it😂…..

and i say the above with sympathy for Harry and his situation re Diana and how she died. but they seem to make PR misteps time and time again - like this statement which seems to be OTT. the result of which turns situations that should get them sympathy into a backlash. is it them or are they being poorly advised?

@TeaIsRisen See?

It's not unreasonable to ask questions about their security. It's NYC, there must be plenty of professionals with the knowledge about how to protect VIPs.

Taxis don't have blacked out windows but I can see why travelling in a yellow cab might be seen as a good way to get home. If you were in the UK wouldn't you use a common car like a Focus or Corsa to try and slip away? I assume that security agreed with the plan and until another professional comments I would assume that it's not outrageous.

Considering how often Harry complains about the media not reporting things accurately, I am surprised that he did not clarify the press release when questions started to arise. I say Harry because he's been the most vocal about the media twisting things eg the Royal Racist issue

I hope that footage is made available so that we can know if this was extraordinarily aggressive or typical for a famous person.( I know that the law differs by state )

t's a shame the way this has played out because had it not been an exsggerated drama they would have a point...the paps are intrusive and unpleasant

In the US, agreed. Alleged traffic violations aside, the paparazzi activity is all perfectly legal there. It’s one of the ironies that Meghan and Harry left the UK because they were unhappy with press intrusion to move to a country where it is far less controlled.

You don’t actually believe there was an 80mph chase do you? In Manhattan?! Omg some people will just swallow anything H and M say.

How many times can the sentence “recollections may vary” apply to these two? I can't believe some people are still giving them the benefit of the doubt. Didn't they claim something similar happen in Canada and the Canadian police also denied that they were in any serious danger? Didn't harry try to claim that he and Meghan were also in danger in the UK even though the met police and home office have downplayed their risk? We've also had the Oprah interview where they implied racism occurred only for them to backtrack on it, or the claim that one of the south African cast members compared their wedding to Nelson Mandela’s release from prison even though that was denied by the south African crew. Or what about the fire in Archie’s room in south Africa where they were staying in a ‘housing unit’, only for it to turn out that the fire was actually just smoke from a heater in an empty room, and the housing unit was actually a mansion. Or what about the contradictory statements that harry has made in his other interviews, and even in his book. Does anyone not notice how everything is so full of drama with these two? How is it possible that the likes of beyonce or Taylor swift and all the other big time celebs don't get into these same kind of incidents that harry and Meghan get into? Even Kim Kardashian seems more low key and drama free than them. They claim that the British press is so evil and out to get them, and Meghan claimed that there was no such thing as tabloids in the USA and that they escaped from harrassment in the UK only to end up in something similar in the country they chose to move to? Surely it should be a wake up call to their fans that if they keep running into the same issues wherever country they go to, the problem might actually be with the couple themselves.

I think you're both equally as resolute in your positions as those who are determined to believe it's all Harry's fault. In the same way you can't see any fault on their side.

Surely it's all their faults.
The paps behaved atrociously - as they do.
The security guards seemed to be singularly nonplussed and ill-prepared.
Harry should have brought it to an end as soon as he believed people's lives were being put at risk. And he shouldn't have authorised the language of the over the top statement that is now putting them in the unfair position of being ridiculed for a situation not of their creation.

For me the paps are, by far, the most to blame. But I don't know how you can look at it all in a balanced way and not see how the others contributed to what happened.

A forthright response from Backgrid, albeit with a strong tongue in cheek element.

But a request that opens with the words “We hereby demand...” is unlikely to have a positive outcome.

H&M sat up and begged for that slap down.

Do you know that H&M didn't say that? (Do you know what the FDR is and what it looks like at night?)

https://news.sky.com/story/a-timeline-of-harry-and-meghans-car-chase-12883487

The noise the cars and paps made in this chase surely alerted the public to start recording on their phones!?
its New York , it’s loud and busy all the time, people are used to this ,
the only time it gets relatively quiet at evenings is two weeks before labor day weekend , that’s when most people are away,

I believe there could have been an 80mph chase. It was on FDR drive which is a very long, straight road that runs along the river. There are incidents of people being killed on there speeding at 80mph so I believe this could happen. I mean it shouldn't have done because it's got a 40mph limit but I can see it happening.

He doesn't even report things accurately himself, so the hypocrisy of this guy is just astounding.

You couldn't make it up

TealsRisen,
Why would Harry be making the was making the decisions? NYPD and his security team were both there. I suspect even Meghan is more familiar with NYC and how things work so would be better placed to figure out what to do.

Do you know that H&M didn't say that? (Do you know what the FDR is and what it looks like at night?)

Omid Scobie did, though. As we all know, despite his sometime protestations, he is often their spokesperson.