Misan Harriman Posts Meghan Markle's Original Pregnancy Announcement Photo After Editing Allegations

"I expect a full apology," the photographer and close friend of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said on Instagram in response to the claims he doctored the photo

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s friend Misan Harriman is speaking out following accusations that he doctored the photo that the couple shared to announce they were expecting their second child, Princess Lilibet.

On Wednesday, the professional photographer posted the original picture of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Instagram he took during a remote photo session in 2021 when Meghan was pregnant with their daughter, now 2, to denounce a Daily Mail report that he manipulated the image.

Harriman revealed the shot in color for the first time, along with the metadata backing up that he took the intimate portrait on an Apple iPad. On Valentine's Day in 2021, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their pregnancy news with a black-and-white snap that was taken remotely by Harriman, their friend and longtime photographer. A smiling (and barefoot) Prince Harry looked lovingly at Meghan who cradled her baby bump as she laid in his lap.

"The original Jpeg without the black and White grade, I expect a full apology and retraction from @dailymail @telegraph," Harriman captioned the post on Wednesday.

Related: Kate Middleton's Mother's Day Photo Had at Least 16 Editing Errors as Experts Find Proof of Photoshop

Harriman's update followed a video he posted earlier on Wednesday to debunk the Daily Mail report that alleged: "a resurfaced podcast has revealed that the intimate 2021 black and white photo of the couple used to announce her second was doctored." Harriman claimed that the Mail twisted what he told Michael Berkely on the BBC’s Private Passions podcast in 2022 to meet the news cycle. On Monday, Kate Middleton issued an apology regarding the Mother's Day photo released over the weekend after multiple global photo agencies pulled the picture around suspicion of manipulation.

"Unfortunately, there’s been an article on the Daily Mail, saying that I have admitted to doctoring the pregnancy announcement portrait I took of Harry and Meghan," Harriman began an address shared to social media. "Apparently, I was switching out trees and meadows...this is crazy."

"No trees or meadows were moved or swapped, this is the image straight out of camera," Harriman added in the post sharing the color photo. "Also that is a Jacaranda Tree, not a willow tree."

The filmmaker and photographer, whose directorial debut The After was nominated for an Academy Award in the Live Action Short Film category at the 2024 Oscars, played back the segment from Private Passions and explained they were talking about popular technology photographers used for virtual shoots during the COVID-19 lockdown.

"My most well-known virtual shooters, the portrait I took of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, announcing their pregnancy. It’s a very joyous image. The technology allows you to take over a phone or iPad, and they can hear my voice, and I can still press the shutter and compose with ease. It’s extraordinary what you can do with technology," Harriman said on the show.

"They weren't actually under a willow tree, were they were lying out solely in a meadow, weren't they, Harry and Meghan, when you took the photograph of them?" Berkely asked.

"They were lost at home in their love, in their garden, comfortable, celebrating new joy, new life, the fortitude of hoping for light in life after such a loss that they went through with the miscarriage. It really was a particularly joyous image to celebrate life itself," Harriman replied, referring to the pregnancy loss that the Duchess of Sussex shared that she suffered in 2020.

Related: Meghan Markle Wins Defamation Lawsuit Brought by Half-Sister Samantha Markle

Speaking again to the camera, Harriman denounced the Daily Mail report that took his comments out of context.

"How that exchange could amount to me admitting to doctoring an image is insidious and really dangerous journalism. Any mention of meadows and willow trees came out of the person doing the interview, not my mouth,” he said. “I did my best to ignore it and focus on what I wanted to talk about."

"To see an article saying, as fact, that I did what I did not do is extraordinary to me. And then to try to merge it with this current news cycle of what's happening is tragic to see,” he continued, seemingly referring to the Mothering Sunday photo scandal without mentioning the Princess of Wales.

"It was a virtual shoot that I shot on an iPad, an 8-mega pixel iPad. The only thing that was changed was a black and white color grade. That’s it," Harriman said.

Meghan, 42, and Prince Harry, 39, have had the celebrated photographer capture many of their milestone moments through the years, from the pregnancy announcement to Princess Lilibet's first birthday photo in 2022 to their appearance at the One Young World Summit and Meghan’s portrait announcing her new podcast deal with Lemonada Media.

"I've been very lucky to photograph many special moments with her and her husband and her family,” Harriman recently told PEOPLE — and the supportive relationship goes both ways.

In November 2023, Meghan hosted a special screening and moderated a talkback with Harriman and The After star David Oyelowo at a private home in Montecito, California, where the Duchess of Sussex lives with Prince Harry and their 4-year-old son Prince Archie and 2-year-old daughter Princess Lilibet.

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"She is really as a sister to me,” the Nigeria-born filmmaker-photographer told PEOPLE when asked what the Duchess of Sussex's support meant and later explained that "my images of them do all the talking."

"Portraiture for me, whether it is royalty or whether I'm in the tip of the spear in any of the civil rights movements that I care deeply about, is looking for truth,” said Harriman, who appeared in the Harry & Meghan Netflix docuseries. "That's fundamentally what my lens is there, to capture the human condition in full fidelity."

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