Prince Harry Credits Tabloid Lawsuits With Contributing to Royal Family ‘Rift’

A “central piece” to Prince Harry‘s alleged estrangement from the Royal Family has been his yearslong lawsuits against tabloid magazines, the Prince said in a new interview. “I’ve made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done,” he said in a new documentary, Tabloids on Trial, according to Variety. “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. But you know, I’m doing this for my reasons. … It’s caused, yeah, as you say, part of a rift.” The documentary will air on the U.K.’s ITV on Thursday.

The prince also expressed remorse that his mother, the late Princess Diana, didn’t live to see the headway his lawsuits had made against the tabloid industry, which allegedly tapped his and other Royal Family members’ phones. “There is evidence to suggest that she was being hacked in the mid-Nineties, 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,” he said. “But she wasn’t paranoid, she was absolutely right of what was happening to her. And she’s not around today to find out the truth.”

Harry said he first became aware that his phone had been tapped when he’d seen a headline about his onetime girlfriend, Chelsy Davy. “‘Harry’s Girl to Dump Him’ — seems as though they knew something before I even did,” he commented.

“I think there’s a lot of I guess, paranoia, fear, worry, concern, distrust in the people around you, clearly a headline like that has absolutely no public interest whatsoever,” he continued. “There’s a big difference between what interests the public and what is public interest, so what happens in my private life between myself and [my] then girlfriend is exactly that, between us.”

In December, a judge awarded Harry damages totaling £140,600 (about $178,000 at the time) to conclude the prince’s lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers, which includes The Mirror, The Sunday Mirror, and The Sunday People. The judge ruled the papers used “unlawful information gathering” tactics. In February, Harry agreed to a further settlement of £400,000 (about $505,000) with Mirror Group for invading his private life.

“To go in there and come out and have the judge rule in our favor was obviously huge,” Harry said in Tabloids on Trial. “But for him to go as far as he did with regard to, you know, this wasn’t just the individual people. This went right up to the top … this was lawyers, this was high executives. And to be able to achieve that in a trial that’s a monumental victory.”

“We welcomed the judgment in December 2023 that gave the business the necessary clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago,” a spokesperson for Mirror Group said, according to Variety. “Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologize unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid compensation.”