Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attended the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards ahead of the “car chase” on May 16, 2023 in New York City. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images Ms. Foundation for Women
- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were followed by paparazzi after exiting an event on Tuesday night.
- The entire ordeal lasted about two hours and was “close to a disaster,” her spokesman said.
- “The public was in danger in several places,” a member of the royals’ security service told CNN.
Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland were “hounded” by paparazzi after leaving an event in Manhattan on Tuesday night, officials for the royal couple said in a statement.
A spokesman for the Sussexes said a “ring of extremely aggressive paparazzi” followed the royals on their way home from an awards ceremony and the “near-disastrous chase” lasted “over two hours”.
“This relentless chase, which lasted over two hours, resulted in multiple near misses with other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers,” a spokesman for the Sussexes said in a statement shared by Royals reporter Omid Scobie.
Here is a timeline of events.
Around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, Harry and Meghan left the Ziegfeld Ballroom on West 54th Street
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in front of Hertz car rental on May 16, 2023. Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
On Tuesday night, Harry, Meghan and Ragland attended the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards ceremony in Manhattan, where Meghan gave a speech. It was the royal couple’s first official appearance together in five months.
The couple used a nearby Hertz car rental company to get to the Ziegfeld Ballroom where the event was being held, avoiding photographers along the way, a witness told the New York Post.
After the event, they were spotted again near the Hertz on West 55th Street around 10 p.m. They got into an SUV and began their journey, according to video from The Telegraph.
Before the reported chase began, video showed Harry and Meghan being swarmed by photographers. A paparazzi tried to get Meghan’s attention by asking if she came from “two broken families,” seemingly alluding to her strained relationship with her father Thomas Markle and Prince Harry’s falling out with King Charles and Prince William.
Harry, Meghan, Ragland and a security guard reportedly cruised up and down a Manhattan parkway in an SUV for 75 minutes while photographers followed them
Unknown law enforcement sources told NBC News that photographers followed the couple up and down Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, which skirts Manhattan’s east side, for 75 minutes.
Six vehicles with tinted windows followed the group so they couldn’t see who was following them, Scobie reported.
Scobie tweeted that the drivers had committed multiple traffic violations While chasing the Sussexes and Ragland, they included “driving on a sidewalk, running red lights, reversing down a one-way street, driving while taking pictures, and illegally blocking a moving vehicle.”
Police did not arrest anyone in connection with the incident and did not confirm how long the ordeal lasted.
“The NYPD assisted the private security team in protecting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” Julian Phillips, an NYPD spokesman, told Insider in a statement Tuesday night.
The statement continued: “There were numerous photographers who made their transportation a challenge. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived at their destination and there were no reported clashes, subpoenas, injuries or arrests.”
Chris Sanchez, a member of the security team protecting Harry and Meghan, told CNN, “I’ve never seen or experienced anything like this. What we had to do was very chaotic. There were about a dozen vehicles: cars, scooters, and bicycles.” .”
“The public was at risk in several places,” he continued. “It could have been fatal. They jumped curbs and red lights. Eventually they blocked the limousine and started taking pictures until we could get out.”
The group arrived at the NYPD’s 19th Precinct Station House
The 19th Precinct Station House, located on East 67th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues, is 1.4 miles from the Ziegfeld Ballroom.
The group stayed in the 19th precinct for 15 minutes before taking off in a yellow New York City cab, the Chron reported.
15 minutes after arriving at the precinct, Harry, Meghan, Ragland and Sanchez got into a cab outside
The cab’s driver, Sukhcharn Singh, told the Washington Post he picked up Harry, Meghan, “an elderly black woman” and a security guard outside the precinct around 11 p.m. He said he got the impression from the group that paparazzi had already followed them before they got into his car.
Sanchez, the member of the security team, told CNN that Harry and Meghan switched cars during the chase to avoid the paparazzi.
Singh said he drove the group a block and a half to Park Avenue before turning south. Singh told the Post that minutes into the drive, the security guard escorting them became “concerned” that they were being followed by two vehicles: a black Honda Accord and an older gray Honda CR-V.
Video released by TMZ showed the couple in a yellow cab stuck in traffic while photographers filmed them through the windows.
“They continued to follow us and came next to the car,” Singh told the Post. “They took pictures when we stopped and filmed us.”
The cab was also escorted by NYPD vehicles with flashing lights, videos show.
After 10 minutes in the taxi, the group returned to the 19th precinct at the request of the security team
The security guard told Singh to return to her original pickup point, fearing the photographers would learn her final destination, the Post reported.
“I don’t think I would call it a chase,” Singh told the Post of the trip. “I never felt like I was in any danger. It wasn’t like a chase scene in a movie. They were calm and seemed scared, but it’s New York – it’s safe.”
Harry, Meghan, Ragland and Sanchez left the precinct and got into another car without being followed
They left undisturbed and arrived at the apartment where they were staying, NBC News reported.
Buckingham Palace told Insider that the incident “is not something we comment on.”
Editor’s note: May 18, 2023 – The headline of this story originally included an uncredited quote from the Sussex spokesman. The headline now states that Prince Harry and Meghan were in a chase, not a “near-disastrous chase”.
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