Cabbie said Prince Harry was ‘quite nervous’ during Meghan paparazzi car chase.
New York:
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan were “quite nervous” when they were followed by paparazzi in New York, according to an Indian-American cab driver who lasted about 10 minutes after picking them up at a police station in Manhattan.
Sukhcharan Singh, the driver who briefly drove the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Tuesday night as photographers followed them in their car, said he immediately recognized his passengers.
“I was on 67th Street and then the security guard greeted me. Next thing you know, Prince Harry and his wife were coming in my cab,” he said.
“We got blocked by a garbage truck, and all of a sudden the paparazzi came and started taking pictures,” he said.
Singh said Harry, 38, and Meghan, 41, were about to tell him their location, but they asked to go back to the police station.
“They were nice guys, they looked nervous. I think they were being followed all day or something. They were quite nervous,” Singh told Sky News.
In a statement, a spokesman for Harry and Meghan said on Wednesday that the couple had experienced a “near-destructive car chase” on Tuesday.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) later said they assisted the private security team guarding the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“There were a number of photographers who found their transportation challenging,” it said.
Police, however, said that the couple “arrived at their destination and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries or arrests.” Harry and Meghan were in New York to attend an awards ceremony – the Ms Foundation Women of Vision Awards – with Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland.
The spokesperson said that when they were followed after leaving the event, the couple tried to escape the paparazzi by going to the Manhattan police station – where Singh had picked them up.
Singh laughed when asked if it was a “near-destructive car chase”.
“I don’t think it’s true, it’s exaggerated. Don’t read too much into that,” he said.
When asked if he felt he or his passengers were in danger, he said, “No, New York City is the safest place”, adding that there are police personnel on every corner.
“So, there is nothing to fear in New York,” he said. According to a report in The Washington Post newspaper, Singh picked up Harry, Meghan, her mother and a security guard outside the New York City Police Department’s 19th precinct at around 11 pm on Tuesday.
The report quoted him as saying that he drove them for some time, during which they were followed by other vehicles.
“Singh estimated that the entire trip lasted 10 minutes, and said he got the impression from the group that he had already been followed by paparazzi before entering his car,” according to the report.
Singh said he was followed by two vehicles: a black Honda Accord and an older gray Honda CR-V.
“They kept following us and were coming next to the car. When we stopped they took pictures and were filming us,” he said.
Singh said the security guard was concerned about the photographers and asked them to return to the police station.
The guards thought they were too exposed and didn’t want their location shared more widely, he said.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams called the incident “reckless and irresponsible”.
Responding to a question on the incident during an announcement on combating retail theft in New York City, Adams said Wednesday that while press and reporters seek to get the right shot and the right story, public safety should always be at the forefront.
Adams said two NYPD officers may have been injured in the pursuit.
“New York City is different than a small town somewhere. You shouldn’t be speeding anywhere, but this is a densely populated city, and I think all of us, I don’t think there are many of us who don’t remember how their mother died And it would be terrible to lose an innocent bystander like this during a chase and something happened to them as well.
“Therefore, I think we have to be extremely responsible. I thought it was a little reckless and irresponsible,” the mayor said in a statement.
Harry’s mother Princess Diana and her partner Dodi Fayed, an Egyptian film producer and son of billionaire Mohamed al-Fayed, were constantly followed by the paparazzi and died when their car crashed into an underpass in Paris in August 1997. happened.
In response to a claim by the couple’s spokesman that the car chase lasted two hours, Adams said she “would find it hard to believe that a two-hour high-speed chase took place in a crowded and dense city like New York”.
“I find it hard to believe, but we’ll figure out the exact duration. But if it’s 10 minutes, a 10-minute chase in New York City is extremely dangerous. We have a lot of traffic, a lot of movement, Many people are using our roads,” he said.
He added that any sort of high-speed chase that involves something of that nature is unfair. “Police do it in limited circumstances when they’re going after violent people, but to do it because you want to get the right shot can become a place where people can be harmed in a real way.” is,” he said.
The statement from a spokesman for Harry and Meghan said that “being a public figure comes with a level of public interest, it should never come at the expense of anyone’s safety.” “The dissemination of these images, in the manner in which they were obtained, encourages a highly intrusive practice that is dangerous for everyone involved,” it said.
Photos surfaced on social media showed Harry, Meghan and their mother Ragland in a taxi.
Harry and Meghan stepped down from their royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States partly because of what they described as intense media harassment.
The prince has long spoken of his anger about press intrusion, which he blames for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, when her limousine crashed while chasing paparazzi in Paris in 1997. was killed.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)