Prince Harry Speaks Out Against British Tabloids And Reveals He Was Paranoid Because Of The Press

One day after missing the court session because of his daughter’s birthday, the prince harry attended this Tuesday, 6, the hearing in London to testify against a British tabloid, which he reported the “suffering” caused by hundreds of articles in a tabloid newspaper, which he accuses of having illegally collected information about him. He became the first member of the royal family in a century to testify in court. The youngest son of King Charles III, two television actors and the ex-wife of a comedian accuse Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publisher of the Mirror newspaper and Sunday People magazine, among numerous publications, of obtaining details about their lives between 1996 and 2011 through methods illegal activities, including cell phone hacking. Harry, 38 years old, began to give his testimony before the High Court in London, where, since May 10, proceedings against the MGN have taken place. “More than thousands, maybe millions of articles have been written about me since I was 11 years old,” he recalled, although in this case the judge reviewed only 33 of them. “Each of these articles caused me pain,” he declared, citing information that sometimes goes back more than 20 years and which he admitted he does not recall accurately. “As a child, each of these articles was a distraction growing up,” he insisted, recalling that information on issues as sensitive as his reaction to the divorce of his parents, the then Prince Charles and the now-deceased Princess Diana, “was everywhere. palaces.” “Other people, friends, classmates read the material and their behavior changed,” he said in a shy, hesitant voice. The prince also denounced “the invasion of the press for most of my life to this day”.

Harry revealed that this press harassment made him “paranoid” in his relationships, distrustful of anyone who might provide information about him, and led him to reduce his circle of friends. Although he found it “hard to believe how (the paper) would have gotten (some information) otherwise”, other than “hacking” his phone messages, he was unable to provide evidence of these allegations. At the beginning of the process, in May, the MGN recognized “some indications” of the illegal collection of information about Harry on a single occasion, apologized and guaranteed, at the time, that “this conduct will not be repeated”. From his reaction to his parents’ divorce, to his health problems and his drug use, he was quizzed one by one on the 33 articles by MGN attorney Andrew Green. Harry had to admit that much of this information was also published by other newspapers and that he couldn’t directly attribute it to the hacking of his cell phone. For him, the UK’s reputation has been damaged by ties between the media and the government. “Our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our government, and I think both are at the lowest level,” he said. “Democracy fails when the press does not scrutinize or hold the government accountable and instead chooses to go to bed with them to secure the status quo,” he added. The Duke of Sussex has not been back to the country since his father’s coronation ceremony on May 6, which he attended without his wife, American actress Meghan Markle. He left shortly after the event, returning to the US, where the couple has lived since 2020. The prince recently accused other members of the British monarchy of colluding with the press. In documents filed with the courts in April, he claimed the royal family had reached a “secret agreement” with a publisher to prevent any of its members from having to testify. This prevented him, claimed Harry, from filing a lawsuit while he was a royal.