Over the past two days, Prince Harry took the witness stand in London to give evidence about the press, his past, and his private life. During his testimony, Harry alleged the Mirror Group (parent company of tabloids The Daily Mirror and The Daily Express) hacked into his phone and then printed the illegally intercepted information within its pages. Harry put forth 100 articles published between 1996 and 2011 to make his case. Thirty-three of them were selected to be considered at trial. Many of them centered around his romantic relationships—and, in the process, gave a glimpse at just how much Harry believes press intrusion has damaged his life.
Before he married Meghan Markle, Harry dated several women—most notably Chelsy Davy, with whom he had a six-year on-and-off relationship between 2004 and 2010. “Unlike so many people I knew, she seemed wholly unconcerned with appearances, with propriety, with royalty,” he wrote of the Zimbabwean-born lawyer in his memoir Spare. “She wasn’t visibly fitting herself for a crown the moment she shook my hand.” Yet, Harry recalled on the witness stand at London’s High Court of Justice, their romance eroded under the constant tabloid speculation. In fact, he claimed, it was “the main factor” for their breakup.
Immensely private details from their phone calls kept appearing in the press, Harry said in court. A few examples: A Daily Mirror story published in November 2007, “Down in the Dumped,” described Harry and Chelsy emotionally discussing a trial separation. “It’s not clear to me how the defendant had this information, or why they thought it was necessary to publish it,” Harry wrote in his witness statement. (The Mirror Group, however, says the information came from prior published reports.) An April 2006 article, published in the People, talks about a “string of phone calls” an upset Davy made to Harry after he visited a strip club. (The publishers said that the information came from two freelance journalists and that his visit was widely publicized.) Back in January 2005, the Daily Mirror wrote that Harry received “a tongue-lashing down the phone” after he was said to have flirted with another girl at a party. (Here, the Mirror Group says the information is “obvious and trivial.”) Then, there was a vacation to Mozambique: a reporter and photographer, alleged the Duke of Sussex, arrived before they did. How could they have known?
An article pertaining to Caroline Flack—the British television presenter who Harry dated in 2009 and later died by suicide in 2020—was also presented as evidence. “Every single time one of these articles was written it had an effect on my life,” he said in his testimony on Tuesday.
In 2016, after the story broke that Prince Harry was dating an American actress Meghan Markle, the prince issued a statement that at the time was considered among the most strongly worded he’d ever issued. “Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her,” it read. “It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms. Markle should be subjected to such a storm. He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game’. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game—it is her life and his.”
Kensington Palace also mentioned that “he has rarely taken formal action on the very regular publication of fictional stories that are written about him.”
Now, Harry very much has. Currently, the Duke has five pending lawsuits against the British tabloids. It’s a complex legal journey that will likely last multiple years—and just as likely, multiple trials. Sometimes, as a cacophony of cameras and microphones swarm the prince, it’s hard to see why it’s all worth it for a couple that desires privacy.
Yet, in a witness statement, Harry made his motivation clear. Not only is he looking for retribution for his past—and the people who accidentally became collateral damage within it—but to change his future. In a written statement, he asked for sweeping changes within the tabloid industry: “Unfortunately, without proper press regulation (which the current government clearly has no appetite for, because their friends in the press said so), it’s only going to get worse.” Will Harry emerge victorious and become the disrupter he wishes? Only time—and a judge—will tell.
