Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan were involved in a harrowing car chase fueled by paparazzi Tuesday.
The couple’s office said the pair and Meghan’s mother, Diana Ragland, were followed for more than two hours by half a dozen vehicles after leaving a charity event in New York on Tuesday.
It said in a statement to USA TODAY Wednesday that the chase “resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers.” It called the incident “near catastrophic.”
“While being a public figure comes with a level of interest from the public, it should never come at the cost of anyone’s safety,” their office said. “Dissemination of these images, given the ways in which they were obtained, encourages a highly intrusive practice that is dangerous to all in involved.”
USA TODAY has reached out to the New York Police Department for more information.
The couple was in New York City for the Ms. Foundation for Women’s annual gala, at which Meghan accepted the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Award Tuesday night, with Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown. Meghan and Harry entered and exited the event venue through a public entrance. There, paparazzi snapped photos of the duo who were dressed up for the occasion.
The Duchess of Sussex’s acceptance speech closed out the Ms. Foundation for Women’s annual gala, part of the nation’s oldest women’s foundation celebration of its 50th anniversary. Meghan encouraged women to find inspiration to fight for equity. “It’s never too late to start,” Meghan said at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan. “You can be the visionary of your own life. … There is still so much work to be done.”
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Prince Harry has previously denounced the British media’s “malicious” and “relentless” coverage of his wife, sharing an emotional open letter in 2019. “Unfortunately, my wife has become one of the latest victims of a British tabloid press that wages campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences – a ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son,” he wrote in the 2019 statement.
“My deepest fear is history repeating itself,” he wrote. “I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.”
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Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, died in a car accident in 1997 after being chased by paparazzi in France.
In the early hours of Aug. 31, 1997, Princess Diana and her beau Dodi Fayed attempted to evade relentless paparazzi by hopping in the backseat of a black Mercedes S280, driven by Ritz security employee Henri Paul. The speeding car, in a misguided attempt to outrun photogs, collided with a concrete pillar in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Fayed and Paul died on the scene. Diana was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
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Contributing: The Associated Press
