Prince Harry’s media lawsuits have seen a resurgence in public interest this year as he continues in his bid to hold Britain’s tabloid press to account for alleged unlawful activity. However, in 2023 the royal revealed that his legal efforts did not win the support of his father, King Charles III.
Since 2019, Harry has launched major unlawful information-gathering lawsuits against three of Britain’s top tabloid publishers, with varying degrees of success.
In June, a hearing in London was held connected with his allegations that employees of News Group Newspapers (publishers of The Sun and now defunct News of the World) committed illegal acts to gain information about his private life in the 1990s and 2010s.
This hearing placed Harry in a difficult position as a judge ordered the prince to officially explain how messages he exchanged with the ghostwriter of his 2023 memoir, Spare, had been deleted.
The tabloid publisher is believed to have wanted to see the messages and drafts of the book to establish whether Harry might have suspected he had been the victim of the alleged unlawful activity before 2013. If he had, they could build a case to have his claims dismissed from court, falling outside the six-year expiration limit for such cases.
Harry’s war against the British press has been one of the most consistent themes of his post-royal life, becoming a main talking point in interviews, documentaries and his memoir since splitting from the monarchy with his wife, Meghan Markle, in 2020.
It was in his memoir, Spare, that the prince revealed his action towards the press was not only discouraged by members of his family, but that his father Charles labeled it a “suicide mission.”
