Meghan Markle posted a series of vacation photos to Instagram that appeared to confirm two subjects of tabloid speculation in recent months: a visit to Princess Diana’s family estate and a trip to Portugal.
Alongside beach and pool photos, the Duchess of Sussex’s carousel of 12 vacation images included a visit to a restaurant a 15-minute drive from the estate where Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie has a home in Portugal, as well as what appeared to be a visit to Diana’s grave at Althorp.
Yet no paparazzi photos of the family were published at either leg of their European vacation, despite the fact both destinations were forecast by the tabloid press ahead of time. Newsweek reached out to representatives of the Sussexes for comment.
Why It Matters
Prince Harry and Meghan made media harassment a key pillar of their narrative about leaving the United Kingdom for a new life in the United States, and it continues to be an element of the debate about their police security provision.
However, the absence of paparazzi images of the family tells a somewhat different story to Harry’s recent lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail, which described how photographers appeared to follow him and ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy wherever they went.
Prince Harry and Meghan’s Vacation in Portugal
Anticipation that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex might travel to Portugal this year built from June 6 when the Daily Mail stated they had brought in designers from upmarket private members’ club Soho House to refurbish a £6.3 million (around $8.4 million) vacation home they reportedly bought in the Alentejo region in 2023.
On June 28, People reported the Sussexes were taking a vacation in Europe. The article did not state Portugal was the destination. However, reports that Harry and Meghan bought a property near to Princess Eugenie’s own home date back to October 2024, meaning the approximate location was well established among British journalists.
Meghan’s Instagram photos included images of the couple on the beach and at O Melidense, a restaurant in Melides, about 15 minutes from CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club, where Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, reportedly own property.
That suggests they were out in public in the same neighborhood where the press had long been reporting they owned a home, but no paparazzi pictures were published in the British press.
Prince Harry and Meghan’s Visit to Althorp
Meghan’s Instagram carousel also contained photos from the Sussexes’ visit to Althorp House, according to People. One image showed Archie and Lilibet holding flowers near the island that contains Princess Diana’s grave.
Another showed Meghan on a sun lounger with Charles Spencer, Diana’s brother, and his wife Cat Jarman in the background.
Speculation about a visit to Althorp had been growing for months, particularly because Harry was due to visit Birmingham, roughly an hour away by car.
The speculation became more concrete after Althorp’s website recorded that the stately home would be closed to the public on July 10 and 11, the Friday and Saturday of Harry’s visit to the United Kingdom. This was reported by the Daily Mail on June 20, around three weeks beforehand.
There had been no public confirmation until Meghan posted photos on Instagram that recognizably showed Althorp, and a source then confirmed it to People.
Again, Meghan and Harry arrived with their children at a place the tabloids had expected them to visit and no paparazzi photos appeared in print.
Analysis
The absence of paparazzi images is notable given that the family continues to conceal their children’s faces in Instagram posts, meaning there are few recent full-face images of Archie and Lilibet in circulation.
In a previous era, that might have been expected to fuel demand for paparazzi photographs of the children, yet there has been little public sign of such a scramble.
One possible explanation is the development of privacy law in Britain and Europe, under which publishers can face legal challenges over photographs of children even when they are taken in public places. That principle was established in 2014 after a successful legal action brought by the musician Paul Weller against the publisher of the Mail.
It has also been used by the Sussexes, after Meghan was photographed carrying Archie in a baby sling in a public park in Canada in 2020. The couple successfully sued Splash News and Pictures over the images at the High Court in London.
Viewed from one perspective, that suggests a successful strategy by the couple in suing to preserve the right of their children not to be photographed. It is possible, for example, that photos may have been taken but not published.
It also paints a somewhat different picture of the British media from the one reflected in Harry’s historic lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday.
Prince Harry’s Past Experiences With Paparazzi
Harry reflected on the impact paparazzi photographers had on his earlier life in his witness statement for a lawsuit he filed against Associated Newspapers Ltd, publisher of the Mail titles. At the time, he had been dating Chelsy Davy, a Zimbabwean former girlfriend whom he met in 2004.
One article that Harry argued was gathered illegally “revealed paranoia and agitation I felt as a result of the paparazzi attempting to take photographs of Chelsy and I abroad,” he wrote in his January witness statement, seen by Newsweek.
“The Mail was the first to publicly disclose Chelsy’s name. From that point onward everything blew up and her life as she knew it was over; her ability to enjoy some semblance of privacy evaporated instantly.”
The article in question had described “various holidays together” including at a private polo lodge in Argentina and in Cape Town, South Africa, where Davy lived at the time.
“It felt like full blown stalking and constant surveillance,” Harry wrote. In relation to the visit to Argentina, he wrote: “I remember the whole area where we were staying being swarmed in photographers.”
And he was clear about the impact he felt it had on Davy psychologically: “It made her feel like she was being hunted and the press had caught her and it was terrifying for me too because there was nothing I could do to stop it and now she was in my world. She was ‘shaken’ and I was really paranoid about trying to protect our privacy.”
Harry argued that photographers knew where to find them because they broke the law to obtain private information. He lost the lawsuit after the court ruled there was no evidence the Mail hacked phones or participated in other unlawful information gathering techniques. Other news organizations, including the now-defunct News of the World, did use phone hacking.
Either way, in relation to Harry and Meghan’s recent visit to Europe, news organizations had a good indication of where the family might be, yet there has so far been no public sign of the kind of intense paparazzi activity Harry described in his court filings.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Sam Wilson.
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