They have specifically accused the publisher of allegedly hiring private investigators who they claim used unlawful means to gather information on them in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including secretly placing listening devices inside cars and homes and allegedly paying police officials for inside information. Prince Harry, the younger son of King Charles III, took the stand Wednesday in a London courtroom, becoming emotional in his testimony and invoking the experiences of his wife and his late mother. In June 2013, BritainsDNA announced that genealogical DNA tests on two of Harry and William’s distant matrilineal cousins confirm Kewark was matrilineally of Indian descent.
Referring to the press as “the devil”, he also alleged that “certain members” of his family were “in the bed” with them to “rehabilitate their image”. In January 2022, the couple mutually filed a legal complaint against The Times for an article reporting on Archewell raising less than $50,000 in 2020. A September 2020 article by The Times claiming an Invictus Games fundraiser had been cancelled due to its affiliation with a competitor of Netflix, Harry’s business partner, became the subject of a legal complaint issued by the Duke. News Group Newspapers, publisher of the Sun, emphasised that they had done nothing “unlawful” in sourcing the stories and no illegal payments were made. It was alleged that the Sun had made two payments amounting to £4,000 to the partner of a royal official in relation to stories published in June and July 2019 which detailed the nannying and god-parenting arrangements for Harry and Meghan’s son Archie. In April 2020, the Duke and Duchess announced that they would no longer cooperate with the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Mirror and the Express.
Harry and Meghan’s exit harry casino login from the royal family was satirized in a 2023 episode of South Park. In December 2022, Harry was found to be the third most disliked member of the British royal family by YouGov, preceded by his uncle Prince Andrew and his wife Meghan. Harry received backlash again in August 2021 and 2022 for taking a two-hour flight on private jets between California and Aspen, Colorado, to participate in an annual charity polo tournament. The criticism was in line with the reactions the royal family faced in June 2019, after it was revealed that they “had doubled their carbon footprint from business travel”. In view of their environmental activism, Harry and Meghan were criticised in August 2019 for reportedly taking four private jet journeys in 11 days, including one to Elton John’s home in Nice, France.
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Harry’s armed security was pulled when he, Meghan, and Archie (then less than a year old) stepped back from senior royalty and moved to the United States in March 2020. In legal filings, according to reports, Harry alleged that his brother, Prince William, had also settled with NGN in 2020 for a “very large sum.” Despite some public admissions about phone hacking and the shuttering of News of the World in 2011, there were still open questions about what the executives at the company knew, and when they knew it. This lawsuit dealt with aspects of the phone-hacking scandal that were familiar to the British public, having been the subject of a major legislative report in 2012. Harry announced that he was signing on to this case against the British print arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in 2019. X17 eventually admitted that it had shopped around the photos, and the couple’s lawyer told The New York Times that the agency had agreed to pay a portion of their legal fees.
It also criticised all sides for allowing the conflict “to play out publicly” and cited poor internal governance and a “failure to resolve disputes internally” as factors that impacted the charity’s reputation. Chandauka reported the charity to the Charity Commission due to what she described as “poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the coverup that ensued”. In March 2021, it was reported that the Charity Commission for England and Wales was conducting a review of the Sussex Royal organisation in a “regulatory and compliance case” regarding its conduct under charity law during dissolution.
Public image
The publisher agreed to cover Harry’s legal costs and pay damages reported to be in the region of £300,000. Mr Justice Fancourt concluded Piers Morgan and other editors knew about the phone hacking at their publications and were involved in it. The BBC reported on the “scrapped case”, highlighting NGN’s statement which said that the settlement agreement “drew a line under the past” and that they rejected the claims that would have been made in court about a corporate cover-up. Following Harry and Meghan’s trip to Nigeria in May 2024, Lucia Stein of the ABC argued that the couple could have been used by the royal family, and added that “perhaps how helpful they would have been” had an agreement on a “hybrid working model” been achieved.
- He had previously visited a minefield in Mozambique with the charity and spent two days learning about their work and mine-clearing techniques.
- Royal aides suggested Clarence House would contact the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) if British publications used the pictures.
- They have specifically accused the publisher of allegedly hiring private investigators who they claim used unlawful means to gather information on them in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including secretly placing listening devices inside cars and homes and allegedly paying police officials for inside information.
- In June 2019, the Duke was present at the launch of Made by Sport, a charity coalition set to raise money to boost sport in disadvantaged communities.
- He said witnesses, from editors to reporters who have worked for the newspapers for decades, were “lining up” to dispute the allegations and explain the source of each article.
Interviews
The tour promoted the rehabilitation of injured American and UK troops, publicised his own charities and supported British interests. He continued to the Bahamas and Jamaica, where the Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller, was considering initiating a process of turning Jamaica into a republic. The new household released a statement announcing they had established their own office at nearby St James’s Palace to look after their public, military and charitable activities.
- Both brothers brought a claim privately through their mutual attorneys, but Harry decided to pursue his case separately with a new solicitor in 2019.
- Because infant son Archie travelled with the Sussexes, this was “their first official tour as a family”.
- Judge Carl Nichols ordered that redacted versions of the court documents be released by 18 March 2025.
- In January 2020 Harry and Meghan announced that they would “step back” from their royal duties and become “financially independent.” In addition, they planned to divide their time between the United Kingdom and North America.
- In 2002, The Times reported that Harry would share with his brother a disbursement of £4.9 million from trust funds established by their great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, on their 21st birthdays, and a further £8 million on their 40th birthdays.
- He had served as the RFU’s vice-royal patron since 2010, supporting the Queen as patron.
Prince Harry’s Sentebale organization leading initiative to support young people in Southern Africa
In July 2019, Harry and Meghan’s new charity was registered in England and Wales under the title “Sussex Royal The Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex”. In his statement, he lent his support to the charity by arguing that its role in bringing sport into the life of disadvantaged people would save “hundreds of millions of pounds” towards treating the issues among young people. In June 2019, the Duke was present at the launch of Made by Sport, a charity coalition set to raise money to boost sport in disadvantaged communities. He had served as the RFU’s vice-royal patron since 2010, supporting the Queen as patron. In September 2025, Harry announced that he had personally donated £1.1 million to BBC Children in Need in December 2024, describing it as a “significant investment” in grassroots organisations in Nottingham supporting young people affected by violence.
Lawyer says Prince Harry was unfairly ‘singled out’ when stripped of UK security detail
In June 2019, it was announced that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would split from The Royal Foundation and establish their own charity foundation by the end of 2019. In October 2019, along with other members of the royal family, Harry voiced a Public Health England announcement, for the “Every Mind Matters” mental health program. Accusations of abuse by the charity surfaced publicly in 2022 and 2024, when reports claimed that rangers managed by African Parks had been torturing, beating, raping, and forcibly displacing members of the indigenous Baka community.
Repairing rift in the royal family
Both brothers brought a claim privately through their mutual attorneys, but Harry decided to pursue his case separately with a new solicitor in 2019. Former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman had previously stated that he had hacked Harry’s phone on nine occasions. In October 2019, it was announced that Harry had sued the Daily Mirror, The Sun and the now-defunct News of the World “in relation to alleged phone-hacking”. Ahead of the trial, ANL accused the claimants’ legal team of dishonesty, fraud and conspiracy, alleging a “camouflage scheme” to disguise when claimants became aware of potential claims; the judge ordered parts of the submissions to be amended. Harry withdrew the libel claim in January 2024 and became liable for the publisher’s £250,000 legal costs. The prince’s lawyer said the “substantial damages” paid by the publisher would be donated to the Invictus Games Foundation.
“There’s a difference between public interest and what interests the public,” he said. Harry’s lawyers alleged that unlawfully gathered information was used in dozens of articles about the prince that had been published between 1996 and 2010. After more than six years of courtroom struggles, Harry may be getting ready to bury the hatchet. In June 2023, Harry became the first senior royal to testify in High Court since 1891, when his great-great-great-grandfather Edward VII testified for 20 minutes during a trial.
On 17 January 2014, the Ministry of Defence announced that Harry had completed his attachment to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps and would take up a staff officer role, SO3 (Defence Engagement), in HQ London District. Harry compared operating the Apache’s weapons systems in Afghanistan to playing video games. On 8 July 2013, the Ministry of Defence announced that he had successfully qualified as an Apache aircraft commander. On 10 September, within days of his arrival, it was reported that the Taliban had threatened his life. Later that month, it was reported that he had placed top of his class in extensive training undertaken at the Naval Air Facility, El Centro, California.
To raise awareness for HIV testing, Harry took a test live on the royal family Facebook page on 14 July 2016. Harry announced that $1.5 million of the proceeds from the memoir were pledged to the charity Sentebale, while £300,000 would be given to WellChild. In July 2021, it was announced that Harry was set to publish his memoir Spare via Penguin Random House, with Harry reportedly earning an advance of at least $20 million.
