- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are in New York City for Saturday’s Global Citizen Live concert.
- British tabloids are already criticizing the couple’s behavior on the visit.
- The outlets celebrated Prince William and Kate Middleton for similar reasons when they came in 2014.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are in New York City for their first in-person engagements since they welcomed their daughter Lili in June.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are in New York for the charity concert Global Citizen Live on Saturday, at which they will promote vaccine equity, according to Vanity Fair.
They reportedly arrived on Wednesday, before making their first appearance at the One World Observatory on Thursday morning, as Insider previously reported.
Harry and Markle have been in New York City for less than 24 hours, but multiple British tabloids have already taken issue with their trip.
Gotham/Contributor/Getty Images
For example, the Daily Mail criticized the couple for having cocktails on Wednesday night, and for not bringing Archie and Lili with them to New York.
The Daily Mail also questioned Markle’s outerwear for her visit to One World and criticized how much jewelry she was wearing during her visit to the observatory.
Likewise, The Scottish Sun implied it was “embarrassing” that the couple was treating their visit like a royal tour, and The Mirror featured a body-image expert who claimed Markle and Harry seemed anxious at their appearances, even though they were affectionate and smiling at each other throughout the morning.
The coverage is markedly different from the way many of the same outlets wrote about Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2014 trip to New York City, even though the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did some of the exact same things as Markle and Harry.
Mark Cuthbert/ UK Press/ Getty Images
For instance, multiple British tabloids celebrated Middleton’s decision to wear a pink coat during her visit to the 9/11 memorial.
The Daily Mail said she was “fighting off the gloomy weather” with the garment, and the Daily Express named the coat one of her best outfits of 2014.
The same outlets criticized Markle and Harry for wearing black to their visit to the 9/11 museum, even though it’s quite common to wear black to memorial sites.
The Daily Express amplified tweets that questioned the couple’s dark clothing, and the Daily Mail mockingly asked if Markle forgot to check the weather because she wore a coat in 80-degree weather in one of its headlines.
Gotham / Contributor / XPX / Star Max / Contributor / Getty Images
Similarly, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are reportedly staying at the Carlyle Hotel, where William and Middleton stayed during their 2014 visit.
At the time, the Daily Mail wrote: “Kate lands with a bump: Pregnant Duchess arrives at New York hotel favored by Diana as royal couple touch down in the Big Apple,” focusing on Middleton’s pregnancy and Princess Diana’s love of the hotel in its headline.
But when writing about Markle and Harry staying at the same hotel, the Daily Mail titled its article: “Royal couple leave the kids in LA to enjoy drinks at swanky bar inside their $1,300-a-night Carlyle Hotel to kick-start three-day visit to NYC,” spotlighting the hotel’s price instead of its connection to Princess Diana.
The latter also frames Harry and Markle’s trip as a kids-free getaway, even though William and Middleton did not bring Prince George with them on their 2014 trip.
The New York visit isn’t the first instance in which the British press has criticized Markle for the same things Middleton does, such as breaking royal protocol with shoes or requesting people not to take photos of her.
And most recently, people criticized the British tabloids for their sexist reactions to Markle and Harry’s Time 100 cover.
Representatives for the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and Prince William and Kate Middleton did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.