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Gayle King thinks it’s “troubling” that people are “downplaying” the two-hour paparazzi chase her pals Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were involved in earlier this week in New York City.
“I think it was a very unfortunate incident,” the CBS journalist exclusively told Page Six Saturday at the 148th Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Md.
“It’s troubling to me that anybody would try to downplay what that would mean to them. That’s very troubling to me.”
Referring to the slew of media personalities and celebrities who have spoken out against the narrative that the two were “chased” in the streets of Manhattan, King said it’s unsettling that some are trying to “minimize how [Harry and Markle] felt in that moment.”
“I’m just really sorry it happened and very sorry they had to go through it,” said King, who was in Baltimore to give a commencement speech at her alma mater, the University of Maryland. “Everybody can have all of their opinions but I always go back to, ‘How did they feel in that moment?’”
King, 68, met Harry, 38, and Markle, 41, through her best friend, Oprah Winfrey, and has been friends with the two ever since.
As Page Six previously reported, the royal couple – accompanied by Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland – were pursued by photographers through the streets of Manhattan on May 16 after leaving the Ziegfeld Theater.
The trio eventually hopped out of their own SUV and into a working cab driver’s vehicle — later identified as Sukhcharn Singh — in an attempt to evade the paps, but the pursuit went on.
A rep for Harry and Markle provided the following statement to Page Six on Wednesday: “Last night, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Ms. Ragland were involved in a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi.
“This relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours, resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers. 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.”
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However, a number of media personalities slammed the narrative that Harry and Markle’s reps provided, including “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg who slammed the royal couple’s use of the word “car chase.”
“I think people in New York know if it was possible to have car chases in New York, we’d all make it to the theater on time,” Goldberg said.
TV personality Megyn Kelly also called out the Sussexes during “The Megyn Kelly Show,” saying, “There is no way of having a two-hour car chase in New York City, in Manhattan. There just isn’t.”
King has notoriously supported Harry and Markle in the past.
She defended the two in 2022 when Andy Cohen jokingly called the Netflix series “Harry & Meghan” a reality show on an episode of “Watch What Happens Live.”
“It’s not a reality show,” King, who was a guest on the show, rebutted. “It’s not.”
