Prince Harry opens up about his battle with paparazzi and privacy in the new ITV doc 'Tabloids on Trial.'
Prince Harry is opening up about why he doesn't feel safe bringing his wife, Meghan Markle, or their two children back to the United Kingdom.
The 39-year-old Duke of Sussex recently sat down for an interview as part of an ITV documentary Tabloids on Trial, and detailed the various litigations between high-profile public figures and British tabloids, as well as the long-running legal entanglements over alleged rampant phone hacking by some in the British press. The documentary is partially centered around Harry's legal fight against Mirror Group Newspapers [MGN], which he settled in February.
While discussing his lawsuit and the multiple public calls for reform and accountability, Harry shared, "I'm trying to get justice for everybody. This is a David versus Goliath situation, [where] the Davids are the claimants and the Goliath is a vast media enterprise."
While Harry said he felt "vindicated" by his court victory over MGN last year, he argued that "phone hacking has been going on for a long time [and] there is a huge amount that has come to light now, that people and the British public didn't know about."
Getting hounded by photographers and paparazzi and followed by tabloid journalists has been something Harry said he's struggled with his whole life, explaining, "It felt like harassment. It felt horrible then. It feels horrible now."
"It's one of the reasons why I won't bring my wife back to this country," Harry added of Meghan.
His departure from the U.K. to the United States -- where he and Meghan raise their 5-year-old son, Archie, and 3-year-old daughter, Lilibet -- has been one reason for the rift between himself and the royal family, including his brother, Prince William, and father, King Charles III. However, Harry argues that it was his fight with the press that strained relations even further.
"It is clear now to everybody that the risk of taking on the press and the risk of such retaliation from them of taking these claims forward -- and it's clearly not in [the royal family's] interest to do that," Harry said. "But, you know, that's a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press... I've made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we, you know, did it as a family. I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you are in a public role, that these are the things that we should be doing for the greater good."
He continued, "I think everything that's played out has shown people what the truth of the matter is. For me, the mission continues, but it has, it has, yes. It's caused, yeah, as you say, part of a rift."
Harry and Meghan stepped away from their royal duties in 2020. More than four years later, the royal rift is alive and well, particularly when it comes to Harry's relationship, or lack thereof, with Prince William, whom royal expert Katie Nicholl said in October 2022 hasn't been able to forgive Harry.
While Harry has settled his phone hacking case with Mirror Group Newspapers (a settlement that included MGN forking over half a million dollars), his fight is far from over. Harry and other claimants are set to go to trial with News Group Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun, in January 2025 over claims of unlawful information gathering. In that case, Harry has come under fire after a lawyer for The Sun accused him of "deliberately" destroying messages he exchanged with the ghostwriter of his 2023 memoir, Spare.
Elsewhere in the documentary, Harry maintains that his late mother, Princess Diana, was "probably one of the first people to be hacked."
"And yet still today, the press, the tabloid press very much enjoy painting her as being paranoid," said Harry, whose family's ongoing fight for privacy dates decades upon decades. "But she wasn't paranoid, she was absolutely right about what was happening to her. And she's not around to find out the truth."
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