Prince Harry’s team responded this week with a rare public denial, rejecting a claim by Tina Brown about a private conversation involving Archie. Brown alleged that Harry referred to Archie as “my little African child” during a discussion with the late Jane Goodall. The spokesperson’s response did more than deny the quote. It accused Brown of inventing words and attaching them to a respected woman who can no longer respond. The intervention matters because it exposes how certain royal narratives are built, protected, and repeated without evidence.
A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex denied the claim, saying in a statement to PEOPLE: “The Duke of Sussex has never said anything remotely resembling what is being claimed. Tina Brown knows exactly what she’s doing by inventing these words and attributing them to a highly respected woman who is deceased and unable to correct the record.“
The Claim and the Documented Denial
Tina Brown made the allegation during an appearance on Katie Couric’s podcast in December 2025. She framed the remark as something Jane Goodall had relayed to her after a lunch with Prince Harry years earlier. Goodall died in October 2025, leaving no way to confirm or dispute the story.
Media outlets sought clarification and published a statement from Prince Harry’s spokesperson. The response was unequivocal. The spokesperson said the Duke of Sussex had never said anything remotely resembling the claim and stated that Brown knowingly invented the quote. The statement also criticised the decision to attribute fabricated words to a deceased figure who could not correct the record.
That wording matters. Public figures often issue soft denials. This one did not. It accused a veteran editor and royal commentator of deliberate invention and highlighted the ethical breach involved. The denial stands as the only on-record account supported by a living, accountable source.
The Pattern of Attributing Claims to the Dead
This episode follows a familiar pattern in royal media. Commentators increasingly attribute unverifiable sentiments to figures who are no longer alive. Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Princess Diana, and now Jane Goodall have all been used as narrative anchors for claims that cannot be challenged.
The method offers protection. A deceased source lends authority while removing the risk of contradiction. In this case, the timing drew immediate scrutiny. Brown claimed knowledge of the alleged remark for years, yet she waited until after Goodall’s death to make it public. Supporters and critics alike noted that Goodall had been alive when the conversation supposedly occurred and could have confirmed or denied it then.
Prince Harry has spoken openly about this media dynamic before. He has warned that powerful outlets often operate without meaningful accountability while continuing to frame themselves as arbiters of truth. The statement reflects that critique in practice rather than theory.
Tina Brown’s Record on Harry and Meghan
Brown’s hostility toward the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is well documented. In books, interviews, and podcasts, she has repeatedly framed Meghan Sussex as incompetent, manipulative, and uniquely responsible for the couple’s departure from the UK. She has described Prince Harry as naïve, fragile, and easily led, despite his own detailed account in his memoir Spare.
Her comments stretch back years. In interviews with the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Daily Mail, and more recently on podcasts and her Substack, Brown has dismissed Meghan’s work as worthless and portrayed Harry as a figure who must be reclaimed by the monarchy. That framing persists even as the couple remain financially secure, professionally active, and committed to raising their children away from tabloid exposure.
Critics argue that the narrative relies on racialised and sexist assumptions. The idea of Harry as a childlike figure controlled by his Black wife ignores his own agency and contradicts primary evidence from his life and writing. When Brown now introduces a claim involving Archie, a young child, the context of her past reporting becomes impossible to ignore.
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Final Thoughts
Prince Harry’s team statement shows a change in approach. Instead of allowing a false claim to move unchecked through the press, Prince Harry’s team addressed it openly and on the record. The response relied on verifiable facts and identified the central problem: words were invented and assigned to a deceased person who could not dispute them.
Tina Brown’s conduct fits a wider pattern. British royal coverage has produced repeated instances where inaccurate claims about the Sussexes were published without proper scrutiny. In December, GB News was forced to issue an on-air correction after Carole Malone falsely stated that Doria Ragland had been in prison. The claim targeted a private citizen and aired live. The network returned to the programme days later to correct the record, a rare step in British broadcasting.
These episodes reflect a deeper shift in royal reporting. Commentary now often replaces reporting. Some writers position themselves as opponents rather than observers, despite having no direct knowledge of the people they cover. Meghan Sussex and Prince Harry are written about as subjects to be challenged, not figures to be reported on accurately.
This matters because press narratives shape public judgment. When accuracy gives way to hostility, falsehoods gain traction, and consequences follow. Claims about adults reach their children. If royal media expects credibility, it must stop publishing stories that rely on invention and the silence of those who are no longer alive.
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I think Tina Brown was trying to take the heat off carole malone. She is aware that a new scandal shifts the focus. What the Sussex team should do is to follow on with carole moroon, sue her and others will continue hiding behind dead people.
I hope Doria still sues otherwise they will continue to air lies then make fake apologies to cover themselves . They’ve weaponised dead royals to ONLY criticise the Sussexes , if it was all true why wait until the people concerned are dead before making it known??? It’s not a good look to believe that the grandparents were saying all these things behind their backs when they’re working for said people. It always amazes me that the queen especially has been so chatty and indiscreet since she has died more than the 70 years of her reign. These people have got complacent as they’ve spent the last 8 years saying what they want to smeared the Sussexes without consequences that they thought it would continue forever, I doubt if they gave it a thought that the reason they got a pass was all the litigation Harry had already going on?? The last one is with the daily fail in January so if I were these people I wouldn’t shake the hornet nest but some people will only take notice when it hits them in the pockets.
Thanks Feminegra for the clarity and precision of the observations made in the article.
A washed up, non entity, selfish, opportunist with a book to sell and substack to promote, unsurprisingly took the liberty of presenting unverifiable anecdotes from alleged conversations with the deceased as fact. Clearly, calculated to generate engagement, sales and ultimately income.
The advantage of lived experience gained at her advanced age of over 70 years, could arguably be put to better use, making a difference in the service of others.
I like Tina’s writing and generally it seems well sourced (her husband was an aristocrat so she’s been in those circles for many years) but I did notice in Palace Papers that she seems to have disdain for Meghan.
@THOROUGHLYCOLLECTOR correction required
Brown was the second wife of Harold Evans (deceased). He was not an aristocrat by birth but awarded a knighthood for his “services to journalism”. She was made a CBE for her “services to journalism”.
In 2020 The Guardian newspaper wrote an obituary to Harold Evans, which included the following:
“Evans’s early life was the perfect paradigm of the working-class boy made good. His father, Frederick, was an engine driver and a socialist; his mother, Mary, started a shop in the front room so the family could afford a car. That and his father’s steady job, in depression-era Manchester, were enough to earn him the nickname of “posh Evans” at St Mary’s Road central school, which overlooked the Newton Heath sheds where his father worked”.
Brown’s late father worked as a film producer, her mother a film production assistant and in later life became a gossip columnist.
Clearly she has climbed the social ladder by marriage and has evidently adopted a persona associated with those in aristocrat “circles” who disdain those considered “not one of us”.