Meghan Markle Has Publishers ‘Scared’ to Print Paparazzi Images, Photographer Says: ‘She’s Trouble With a Capital T’
Publishers are “scared” to publish paparazzi photos of Meghan Markle, according to the photographer behind July 2023 images of the Duchess of Sussex shopping. Meghan’s “won.” And, as a result, publications are thinking twice about printing her picture.
Publications are ‘more timid’ regarding paparazzi images of Meghan
“I would say everyone’s scared of her,” Jill Ishkanian, a paparazzi photographer who has photographed the Duchess of Sussex multiple times, told Newsweek. “They’re all scared of her — she won. The publications are just scared of her. They’re more timid.”
Meghan, along with her husband Prince Harry, have sued tabloids for various reasons including the publication of paparazzi photos numerous times in recent years.
Currently, the Duke of Sussex has ongoing lawsuits against British media organizations regarding phone-hacking claims. As for Meghan, she memorably won in court after suing Mail Online for publishing a letter she wrote her estranged father, Thomas Markle. Together, the pair successfully sued regarding paparazzi photos of their now-4-year-old son, Prince Archie.
“She’s trouble with a capital T,” Ishkanian said of Meghan. “When you sell a picture of her, you get lawyers calling you and they ask you all sorts of questions. They ask you, ‘Did she ask you not to take her picture?’”
“I got forms from the Mail, The Sun, everybody,” she added. “They’re all crazy. Then they ask you, ‘Why were you there?’”
The questions reportedly pertain to the IPSO code prohibiting images from being printed in the U.K. if a photographer followed the subject from home or were asked to stop.
As for the photographer’s images of Meghan at the farmer’s market nearby her and Prince Harry’s home in Montecito, California, Ishkanian said: “No one called me, Montecito is a small place. If you’re around, it’s not that hard.”
Paparazzi photographer says Meghan Markle ‘absolutely does not’ tip them off
Harry and Meghan have been photographed by paparazzi multiple times since relocating to California in 2020. However, according to Ishkanian, she and other photographers don’t get a heads-up when the couple is going to be out and about.
“She [Meghan] absolutely does not,” Ishkanian said. “No one calls me, trust me. I have absolutely no support, I do everything by myself. It’s a total pain in the butt when you get their picture, to be totally honest.”
“I kind of hide, to be honest, and so I don’t know if they’re maybe being aggressive,” the photographer said, referencing Harry and Meghan’s May 2023 incident with paparazzi in New York.
“I would say Harry and Meghan want to control the narrative, which you can’t do, especially when you live in a small town,” Ishkanian continued. “No one seems to want to go to Santa Barbara. They all just hang out here so you’re going to get caught.”
“This would be the fourth time since 2021, and I had a different vibe from her this time,” she said of photographing Meghan on July 14. “When you do this kind of work you become very intuitive. The way she looked at me, it was just different than the other times. She just seemed like she’d been humbled a bit or brought down a peg a bit.”
Meghan, she added, “was so nice to those vendors, I am telling you, I heard her being so nice. She smiled and it was just a different thing than I’ve seen before.”
Paparazzi photographer is ‘more on’ Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘team’ after Fourth of July photos
Snaps from Independence Day, the photographer admitted, have somewhat endeared Harry and Meghan to them.
“I’m going to say something nice about those two. I’ve lived here on and off for 58 years,” Ishkanian said. “Every year I’ve gone to Fourth of July, the parade, the fireman’s pancake breakfast, I’ve done all that stuff. I used to always say why do no celebrities go to this to support the firefighters and local things?”
Then Harry and Meghan attended the local Fourth of July celebration with their two kids, Archie and Princess Lilibet, 2.
“When I saw that Meghan and Harry went out there and supported the fire trucks going by,” she continued, “I thought I’ve got to hand it to them that is the first celebrity that has ever done that. And then she was nice to me the other day so I’m getting more on their team.”
