Prince Harry‘s legal war with the British tabloids continues.
The Duke of Sussex’s case against the Daily Mail formally kicked off on Monday with a legion of stars by his side at London’s High Court — among those also suing the outlet’s publisher are Elton John and husband David Furnish, actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, as well as U.K. political figures Doreen Lawrence and Simon Hughes.
They allege “grave breaches of privacy” and more illegalities, including the interception of voicemails, tapping of landlines, paying off police officers “with corrupt links to private investigators,” faking medical records, and bugging celebrity homes by the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.
Publisher Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) has repeatedly denied the “lurid” and “preposterous” allegations, maintaining that the lawsuit is an affront to the hard work of their journalists. Key figures connected to the country’s bestselling newspaper, such as long-serving editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, are expected to give evidence.
Things kicked off at the High Court with Harry’s lawyer, a media barrister popular with the stars named David Sherborne, claiming ANL “knew they had skeletons in their closet” and therefore instigated “mass destruction” of thousands of documents related to the case. The trial is expected to last several weeks here in London.
It’s been a long time coming, and is indicative of Prince Harry’s anger at the British press. The royal family member, son of King Charles and brother to William, has been vocal about wanting to wrangle an apology out of the tabloids for the way he, his wife, Meghan Markle, and his mother, the late Princess Diana, have been treated.
“The goal is accountability. It’s really that simple,” Prince Harry told a press event in 2024. Such is the strength of his conviction, the prince wrote in his 2023 memoir Spare, that his public rift with other members of the royal family derives from their unwillingness to stand up to the tabloids.
In January 2025, Harry settled his case against the publisher of the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Sun newspaper, who offered the Duke a “full and unequivocal” apology. Harry had brought the case to publisher NGN, claiming his privacy had been violated by alleged phone hacking and unlawful information gathering carried out by journalists and private investigators working for The Sun and the defunct News of the World between 1996 and 2011.
The tabloids aren’t the only ones facing royal legal action. In May last year, Harry lost a legal challenge over the level of security he is permitted while in the U.K.
He’d appeared in court the month before to appeal the decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded security arrangements while in Britain, describing the country as “central to the heritage” of his children with Markle, Archie and Lilibet.
The arrangement means that the Sussexes would instead receive a cheaper, “bespoke” security service, necessitating that they give 30 days’ notice of any plans to come to the U.K. and that each visit be assessed for threat levels.
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