Prince Harry 'Very Friendly' Until He Met Meghan Markle, Royal Photographer Claims

A royal photographer claims Prince Harry became "distant" with him and other members of the media after the duke met Meghan Markle.

Arthur Edwards, a photographer with U.K.'s The Sun, shared in an interview with News.com.au's "I've Got News For You" podcast that he has a strong relationship with the members of the British royal family, having toured with them for more than 40 years.

Like the other royals, Prince Harry had always been "friendly" to him, according to Edwards. But the royal photographer claimed the Duke of Sussex changed after meeting Markle as the couple's relationship with the media became strained.

"Camilla would always say hello, Kate says hello, William, yeah, they're all very friendly and so was Harry until he met Meghan, and then he became very very distant and he became almost, well, it was miserable," Edwards claimed on the podcast.

Edwards said he eventually stopped going on tours with Prince Harry after the duke married Markle and wasn't present during the Sussexes' 2018 tour of Australia and their 10-day royal tour of South Africa, Malawi, Angola and Botswana in 2019.

"In fact, in the end, I didn't do Harry's tours. I didn't do Harry's tour of Australia, not with Meghan. I didn't do Harry’s tour of South Africa with Meghan," the photographer shared. "I just find it very depressing with them. They just hated the media, and it was miserable so I ducked out of them and sort of went with Charles to New Zealand and you know places like that."

Prince Harry previously cited the British media as one of the reasons why he and his wife chose to step back as working royals and move to California in 2020.

"It was a really difficult environment, as I think a lot of people saw. We all know what the British press can be like. And it was destroying my mental health," he told James Corden during an appearance on "The Late Late Show" last year. "I was like, 'This is toxic.' So I did what any husband and father would do... I need to get my family out of here."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's negative relationship with the press has also been evidenced by the legal action they have taken against publications, photographers and publishers in recent years.

In 2020, the couple filed a lawsuit in a Los Angeles court against unnamed photographers after photos were taken of their then-14-month-old son Archie playing in the backyard of a home they were living in when they first moved to California.

Markle also filed a privacy and copyright infringement lawsuit against the publisher of Mail on Sunday over the publication of her personal letter to her dad, Thomas Markle Sr. She won the suit last year.

In February, Prince Harry filed a libel suit against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, over a report about the duke's legal battle to get police protection in the U.K. which had the headline: "Revealed: How Harry tried to keep his legal fight over bodyguards secret."

The Daily Mail, citing High Court documents, claimed that Prince Harry allegedly sought far-reaching confidentiality to keep his legal battle against the government over the reinstatement of his police protection a secret.

However, the Home Office allegedly argued for transparency, saying, "There must be a sufficiently good reason, in the wider public interest, to justify the departure from open justice that such an order involves."

Prince William's younger brother also brought up privacy claims against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun, and Mirror Group Newspapers, now Reach, which publishes the Mirror, over alleged phone hacking and unlawful information gathering.