Icon: enlarge
Duchess Meghan, Prince Harry (January 2020)
Photo: TOBY MELVILLE / REUTERS
With their move to California, Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry said goodbye to the royal family and the British press.
However, more than a year after the »Megxit«, the dispute with this is still not over.
At the London High Court these days it could be decided whether there will soon be calm between the two sides - or the big mud battle is still ahead.
Meghan and Prince Harry do not want to accept without a fight how deep their private life has been repeatedly pulled to the surface.
Specifically, it concerns a lawsuit against the publisher of the "Mail on Sunday", Associated Newspapers, which quoted in several articles from a private letter from Meghan to her father Thomas Markle in early 2019.
The Duchess wants to see the publication condemned as inadmissible.
It is by no means the only complaint of this kind from Prince Harry and the Duchess.
In the current case, the judges have to decide after a corresponding application whether the royals have to appear and testify in person - an appointment that Meghan wants to avoid.
Her lawyers want to present at a virtual hearing in London this Tuesday why they think that a quick trial, a so-called "summary judgment", is sufficient - a judgment in favor of the 39-year-old without an actual hearing with testimony.
Harry, Meghan and the public - it was and is a kind of love-hate relationship.
For the British gossip papers, Prince Harry, 36 today, has been a hit since he was a teenager.
Unlike the ironed-out, always royally smiling William, his younger brother provided material for scandals with beautiful regularity: Naked Harry, Harry in Nazi costume, harassed Harry, smooching Harry - everything was cannibalized with relish.
Documenting every blink of the eye of the royals is a good British tradition.
Not only »Sun« or »Daily Mail«, the PA news agency also report on just about every rocking of the foot, every designer scarf on the neck and especially every word that the Windsors say.
When the US actress Meghan Markle brought another pinch of glamor, but also African-American roots into the royal family in 2018, there was no stopping them.
The reporting varied from enthusiasm to voyeuristic paparazzi excesses to comments with clear racist undertones.
"My greatest fear is that history will repeat itself"
Prince Harry
Prince Harry compared this to his mother, Princess Diana's relationship with the British press.
"My greatest fear is that history will repeat itself," Harry wrote in the fall of 2019 on his website.
"I lost my mother and now I see my wife fall victim to the same powerful forces."
At the same time, however, it is precisely that excessive interest in their lives that Harry and Meghan want to live from in the future - in a very practical financial sense.
They want to produce documentaries and feature films for Netflix, the contract that has been concluded weighs more than 110 million euros.
The couple also signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Spotify streaming platform and even had one-year-old son Archie in front of the microphone when they made their podcast debut.
That's a lot of self-elected public.
But whether streaming content, a strictly curated photo session or a guest article in the »New York Times«: Harry and Meghan want to hold the strings in their own hands and determine how the world perceives them.
A strictly formalized questioning in court does not fit this very deliberately arranged staging.
Thomas Markle, 76, announced last year through the publisher Associated Newspapers that he would like to get the process in which he is allowed to be summoned as a witness for the publisher as quickly as possible.
None of his relatives had turned 80, so he too could die soon.
He did not convince the court: Thomas Markle's statements are not necessarily decisive for the situation, the judges said.
In addition, there is no medical evidence that Markle will not be able to testify later in 2021.
So far, the pandemic has prevented travel across the Atlantic anyway - but it won't stay that way forever.
It is likely that Meghan and Harry will pay a visit to their old home again when it is possible.
Whether the witness stand in London's High Court will be part of the itinerary is the big question.
It would be a festival for the boulevard.
It is unclear whether a decision will be made at the hearing in London, which is now scheduled for two days.
Icon: The mirror
wit / dpa