Prince Harry and Meghan show their newborn baby son, Archie Harrison, to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle in Windsor. AFP

George Clooney is hoping the media will be gentler to Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, after she gave birth to a baby boy.

"I think people should be a little kinder. She's a young woman who just had a baby, you know?" Clooney told The Associated Press.

Clooney is a good friend of Meghan and Prince Harry. He and his lawyer wife Amal attended the royal wedding last year, and Amal was one of the guests at Meghan's baby shower. Clooney has been outspoken in his defense of Meghan, a former actress and American, who has been the subject of harsh gossip in some publications.

At the premiere of his new Hulu series "Catch-22," Clooney said the media scrutiny will likely intensify now that the baby, who was named Archie, has arrived. He conceded that some of that comes with the royal territory.

"If you're a royal, that's what you have to do," he said. "It's the other versions of it: Going to interview people's parents, that kind of stuff. It starts to step into a really dark place."

Besides celebrating upcoming May 17 debut of "Catch-22," Clooney was also in a joyous mood because of the release of two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been imprisoned in Myanmar. They were released early Tuesday after more than a year behind bars. They won the Pulitzer Prize last month for international reporting, along with the AP.

"My wife spent the last year, every day, with (Reuters chief counsel) Gail Gove and with (Reuters editor-in-chief) Stephen Adler, working, as hard as you could work, behind the scenes, to get these guys out," he said.

"And last night, for my (58th) birthday, at my birthday dinner, those two men walked out," Clooney continued. "And I have to tell you, I couldn't be more proud of my wife. I couldn't be more proud of Reuters and the way they stuck up for journalism."

He added: "It's a dangerous time to be a journalist. So, to win one, I'm very proud of my wife. And congratulations to

everyone — and the AP."

Associated Press