Despite being described as “catastrophic,” Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s alleged car chase in New York City is not sounding the alarm at Buckingham Palace.
Although he offered thoughts and prayers this morning, King Charles’ was not referring to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“My wife and I are most profoundly shocked and saddened to see the scale of suffering and devastation caused by Cyclone Mocha in Myanmar and Bangladesh,” the newly crowned King wrote to his Instagram. “At this time of desperate need, our special thoughts and prayers are with the communities which have been affected by this dreadful natural disaster, and we send our deepest heartfelt condolences to those that have lost their loved ones in such a tragedy.”
People skewered the royal on social media for his palpable silence on the car incident, writing, “This is sad he isn’t even commenting on the safety of his own,” and “So disappointed that you refuse to make a statement about your son and his wife.”
Royal watcher Omid Scobie tweeted on Wednesday evening that representatives for King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Catherine had declined to comment on the alleged incident.
Representatives for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as well as reps for the royal family, did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Despite receiving public scrutiny for his lack of acknowledgment toward his son and daughter-in-law, royal experts aren’t surprised.
“I don’t think this is an issue for the palace to get involved in. Harry and Meghan left the working royal family and the UK, after all, so the provision of their own security in America is their business,” royal expert Jonathan Sacerdoti told Fox News Digital.
On Tuesday evening, the duke and duchess, as well as Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, “were involved in a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi,” a spokesperson for the couple shared in a statement to Fox News Digital.
The Duchess of Sussex was in New York City to accept the Ms. Foundation Woman of Vision award.
“This relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours, resulted in multiple near-collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers,” the statement added. “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. Dissemination of these images, given the ways in which they were obtained, encourages a highly intrusive practice that is dangerous to all involved.”
Christopher Andersen, author of “The King: The Life of Charles III,” noted that the royals are probably confused by the whole situation.
“The King’s advisors are as perplexed as the rest of us about this incident,” he tells Fox News Digital. “The ‘near-catastrophic two-hour-long high-speed chase’ through the streets of Manhattan that was described in such breathless terms by the Sussexes’ spokesman, turned out in the end to be none of the above.”
“Original reports that there had been a crash and that two pedestrians were injured turned out to be completely false…Why on earth would Harry and Meghan speed up and down the very busy FDR drive for over an hour, then go to a police station, then hail a cab on East 67th Street, and THEN finally take an SUV to where they were going in the first place?” he questioned.
The NYPD told Fox News Digital that the photographers made Harry and Markle’s transport “challenging,” but that they had arrived at their destination safely.
“There were numerous photographers that made their transport challenging,” Julian Phillips, NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
“The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived at their destination and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests in regard,” Phillips noted.
In the aftermath of the incident, New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters that although he had not been given a full briefing yet, it was “reckless and irresponsible” for anyone to be chasing people in vehicles in the densely populated city, adding that “two of our officers could have been injured.”
“I would find it hard to believe that there was a two-hour high-speed chase . . . but we will find out the exact duration of it, but if it’s 10 minutes, a 10-minute chase is extremely dangerous in New York City,” he noted.
Markle’s friend and photographer Misan Harriman, whom she previously introduced ahead of his TED Talk, showed his support for the Duke and Duchess on Twitter.
“They need to be protected, this is unacceptable and terrifying, they have babies at home…. sigh,” he wrote in a message accompanied by a retweeted video of Mayor Adams’ press conference.
An NYPD source said, “Investigators are looking through traffic cameras and other security cameras to piece together what transpired.”
