Was Prince Harry in a car accident? The ‘near catastrophic car chase,’ explained

In recent years, Prince Harry made headlines when he and wife Meghan Markle moved to the United States. Part of their exit from royal “duties” in the United Kingdom was a fear on his part his wife would be hounded like his mother — Princess Diana — was and would ultimately suffer the same fate in another automobile accident, and, now, it appears the pair have nearly avoided just that.

According to a new report from Reuters and other media outlets, a spokesperson for Harry revealed earlier today they got into a “near catastrophic” chase in New York City where Markle was accepting an award from the Ms. Foundation for Women. The spokesperson goes on to blame highly aggressive paparazzi in their statement, says the incident lasted for two hours and along the road, multiple other drivers were almost struck as well as two officers from the New York City Police Department. There is no indication anyone is seriously hurt as of this story’s filing, but, what took place is definitely similar to his mother Diana’s last day.

For those unfamiliar, she was in Paris in 1997 with then-partner Dodi Al-Fayed when they left a hotel restaurant late at night. Their limousine driver took them on a high-speed trip through the central part of the city’s narrow streets while going more than 60 miles per hour and shortly after midnight their vehicle struck a pillar less than two miles from where they had been eating. Al-Fayed and the driver died at the scene while Diana was taken to the hospital and died hours later from multiple injuries, she was not yet 40. In the aftermath a number of conspiracies surrounding the accident popped up, several in the United Kingdom criticized the reaction for being overly hysterical and Harry himself has said not dealing with the pain caused him to turn to alcohol and drugs to cope.

Currently, Harry and Meghan are around the same age she was. We will have more to come on this as it is revealed to the public. Harry’s spokesperson has urged images from the incident to not be distributed as they feel it encourages dangerous and “intrusive practice” and it is said they were followed by about six blacked-out vehicles driven by people who could not be identified at all. Just beforehand, a man was arrested outside the pair’s home in Los Angeles for intrusive and stalker-like behavior as well.