In June 2023, Harry broke with royal protocol by criticising the UK government in a witness statement submitted to a court. The announcement prompted generally positive commentary about having a mixed‑race person as a member of the royal family, particularly in Commonwealth countries with populations of blended or native ancestry. Harry’s tour made him the first member of the British royal family to serve in a war zone since his uncle Prince Andrew, who flew helicopters during the Falklands War. As with William, the royal family and the tabloid press agreed that Harry would be allowed to study free from intrusion in exchange for occasional photograph opportunities, in what became known as the “pressure cooker agreement”. In January 2020, Harry and Meghan stepped back from their roles as working members of the royal family and relocated to Southern California. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussexfn 2 (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984) is a member of the British royal family.
- In January 2022, it was reported that Harry had been in a legal fight since September 2021 over the Home Office’s refusal to allow him to pay for police protection.
- A private investigator whose name is on a sworn statement supporting the claims of Harry and the celebrities has filed another statement denying he ever snooped on them.
- In his lawsuit, Harry sought damages in excess of £200,000 from the publisher of the News of the World and The Sun and alleged an earlier agreement between News Group Newspapers (NGN) and the royal family which would see he and William not take legal action in return for an apology had not been honoured.
- LONDON (AP) — Tens of millions of dollars are on the line as Prince Harry returned to court Monday for the third and final chapter in his legal quest to tame the British tabloids.
- 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.
UK regulators criticize all sides in dispute over Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso’s charity
(Lawyers for the government denied that Harry was treated unfavorably.) Harry was so upset about this issue in particular that he wrote about it Spare, choosing pseudonyms to describe the courtiers he believes were responsible for the decision. For years, Harry has argued that the decision to deny him security stemmed from his family’s anger with him, and that RAVEC did not adequately consider the threats against his life. A group called the Royal and VIP Executive Committee makes decisions about access to police protection; it contains representatives from both the royal household and the British government. Ever since, Harry has been engaged in negotiations and occasional court proceedings to get that protection back.
Harry, though, has spent years aggressively challenging both the press and the government of his native country, ever since he stopped getting legal advice from Queen Elizabeth II’s lawyers and instead hired his own legal representation. A private investigator whose name is on a sworn statement supporting the claims of Harry and the celebrities has filed another statement denying he ever snooped on them. 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. The trial comes as Harry tries to repair a damaged relationship with his family since he moved to America and burned the bridge behind him by penning a scorching 2023 memoir, “Spare,” and airing other family grievances in a Netflix series.
In March 2020, the couple took Splash UK to court after the Duchess and their son were photographed without permission during a “private family outing” while staying in Canada. His appearance marked the first time a member of the royal family had been cross-examined in court since Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, appeared as a witness in court in 1891. In his lawsuit, Harry sought damages in excess of £200,000 from the publisher of the News of the World and The Sun and alleged an earlier agreement between News Group Newspapers (NGN) and the royal family which would see he and William not take legal action in return for an apology had not been honoured. In January 2020, the Duke and Duchess announced that they were stepping back from their role as senior members of the royal family, and would balance their time between the United Kingdom and North America. On Wednesday, he returned to the courtroom to testify about the effects of the period in the 2000s when his private matters often became front-page news—much to Harry’s surprise. “It’s not a nice experience for anyone to find themselves in court,” a source close to the prince told the Times earlier this month.
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Agnatically, Harry is a member of the House of Glücksburg, a cadet branch of harry casino login the House of Oldenburg, one of Europe’s oldest royal houses. In July 2021, Harry and Meghan were among people who were selected by UK-based charity Population Matters to receive the Change Champions Award for their decision to have only two children and help with maintaining a smaller and more sustainable population. In December 2010, the German charity Ein Herz für Kinder (“A Heart for Children”) awarded him its Golden Heart Award, in recognition of his “charitable and humanitarian efforts”. Writing for The Guardian, Stephen Bates stated that Harry’s “megaphone diplomacy isn’t working” and “his private security needs are probably not near the top of anybody’s priorities”. In May 2025, Harry was interviewed by Nada Tawfik of the BBC, during which he reflected on his loss of taxpayer-funded security and his ongoing estrangement from his family. In a live-streamed interview with Harry in March 2023, physician Gabor Maté suggested publicly that he could be suffering from PTSD, ADD, anxiety, and depression based on his conversation with him and having read his autobiography Spare.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
In January 2025, Harry and Meghan’s appearance at a food bank during the Southern California wildfires in the Pacific Palisades drew mixed reactions from segments of the media and public figures, who labeled it “disaster tourism”. It has been suggested by critics that this fall from public esteem is due to Harry and Meghan’s frequent attempts to achieve ongoing relevancy, and their perceived hypocrisy and selfishness. Writing for The New York Times, Sarah Lyall noted that following the release of his memoir Harry and his wife lost support within segments of the American public and press. However, his popularity fell after stepping back from royal duties, and it plummeted after the release of his controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey, his Netflix docuseries, and his memoir. After his marriage, Harry’s popularity skyrocketed above all the other royals as he was deemed likable by 77 per cent of respondents in a poll of 3,600 Britons conducted by statistics and polling company YouGov. In June 2022 and on their way to California after the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Harry and Meghan boarded a private jet that was estimated to have emitted “ten times more carbon than flying commercial”.
Prince Harry, duke of Sussex (born September 15, 1984, London, England) is the duke of Sussex and the younger son of Charles III and Diana, princess of Wales. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s involvement in Cookie Queens was first announced in December 2025, with the Sundance premiere marking their latest professional milestone. “By standing up here and taking a stand against them, this has continued to come after me,” Harry told the court, his voice cracking. The trial marks the last of a series of legal actions Harry has brought against British tabloids in recent years. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped out ahead of the premiere of their new documentary ‘Cookie Queens,’ days after Harry’s emotional court testimony in London
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.
UK tabloids make unprecedented apology to Prince Harry as part of intrusion settlement, AP explains
- It was later announced that the series, titled The Me You Can’t See, would be released on 21 May 2021.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- He was immediately withdrawn due to concerns that the publicity would endanger him and fellow soldiers.
In early June 2007, it was reported that he had arrived in Canada to train alongside soldiers of the Canadian Forces and the British Army at CFB Suffield near Medicine Hat, Alberta, in preparation for a possible deployment to Afghanistan, where Canadian and British forces were serving in the NATO-led Afghan War. Clarence House made public Harry’s disappointment with the decision, though he said he would abide by it. By 16 May, however, Dannatt announced that Harry would not serve in Iraq; concerns included his status as a high-value target – several threats had already been made against him – and the risks this posed to the soldiers around him should any attempt be made on his life or if he were captured. In 2006, it was announced that Harry’s unit was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq the following year.
Public life
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.
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Harry faced difficulties with obtaining and maintaining publicly funded security, both in Canada and the United Kingdom, after he and Meghan announced their self-demotion within the royal family. The prince appeared in court for the suit in June 2023 and ultimately testified for two days, describing how the disclosure of private information affected his mental health and his relationship with his then girlfriend, Chelsy Davy. The royal family spent most of the 20th century largely avoiding public litigation. On 18 January 2020, Buckingham Palace announced that, following their decision to step back from royal duties, from 31 March 2020 the Duke and Duchess would not use their Royal Highness styles in practice or publicly.
Mr Justice Swift also reacted to the Duke’s legal team sending a copy of the ruling to someone who was not a lawyer, describing it as “entirely unacceptable”. After receiving applications by the Duke and the Home Office to keep parts of the case private, the High Court ruled in March 2022 that some parts of it would remain confidential. Following the first court hearing of the case by the High Court, it was revealed that Harry had ‘exceptional status’ and the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) still determined his personal protective security on a case-by-case basis.
Harry and Meghan’s exit 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.