Prince Harry took the stand on June 6, 2023, the first time in over a century that a member
of the U.K. royal family has testified in court.
He's part of a group of some 100 celebrities suing Mirror Group Newspapers; what receipts
did he bring?
Prince Harry outlined what it was like dealing with the press publishing stories about him
that were negative and one-sided as he was growing up, and he specifically called them
out for leading him down a negative path.
In a written statement, he described how it felt to him.
He wrote,
"It was a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me, a 'damaged'
young man, into doing something stupid that would make a good story and sell lots of newspapers."
He noted that he felt the press preyed upon him and used negative stereotypes when writing
about him.
He added in his statement,
"You're then either the 'playboy prince', the 'failure', the 'drop out' or, in my case,
the 'thicko', the 'cheat', the 'underage drinker', the 'irresponsible drug taker', the list goes on."
Harry said he then leaned into what people seemed to think about him.
He wrote,
"I thought that, if they are printing this rubbish about me and people were believing
it, I may as well 'do the crime', so to speak."
"He's taking drugs, he's drinking, he's out late, he's nightclubbing, he's got a girlfriend
here, he's got a girlfriend there.
What…what's going on?"
For decades, rumors have persisted that Prince Harry's real father is James Hewitt, not King
Charles III.
Harry's testimony revealed that he didn't realize they were just rumors until 2014.
Harry said of the numerous articles that hinted that King Charles wasn't his real father,
"Stories such as this felt very damaging and very real to me.
They were hurtful, mean and cruel.
I was always left questioning the motives behind the stories.
Were the newspapers keen to put doubt into the minds of the public so I might be ousted
from the Royal Family?"
The basis of the rumors, according to Town & Country, is that Hewitt and Princess Diana
had an affair when he worked for a time as her riding instructor.
Hewitt later spilled the tea about his affair with Diana, and the whole story was collected
in Anna Pasternak's book "Princess in Love."
Hewitt said that the affair lasted between 1986 and 1991.
Harry was born in 1984, so Hewitt being Harry's father seems to be an impossibility.
But the rumors have long persisted in newspapers, including one article that Harry noted in
his testimony that involved trying to get a sample of his DNA to see who his real father was.
The journalists, according to Harry's testimony, knew the timeline meant that Hewitt couldn't
be his biological father.
There has been an ongoing rift between Prince Harry and Prince William for a few years now,
and Harry has noted that he doesn't regularly talk to his brother anymore.
This may have been due to the fact that Harry and wife Meghan Markle stepped back from royal
duties, and it doesn't seem to have been helped by the publication of Harry's memoir "Spare,"
which contained a number of startling revelations about the royal family.
Harry's testimony revealed that reporting in the press may have also had a hand in some
of the conflict between the brothers.
Harry brought up an article published in the newspaper The People that discussed the brothers
privately disagreeing about a meeting with Paul Burrell, former butler for Princess Diana.
Harry believed word about the disagreement may have come from a voicemail that he left
for his brother, so definitely not something that was meant for the public.
Reporting on the disagreement wasn't good for Harry's relationship with William; he said,
"This type of article seeds distrust between brothers."
Before Prince Harry met and married Meghan Markle, he dated Chelsy Davy on and off for years.
Harry blamed the paparazzi and the press' violations of their privacy for playing a
role in his ultimate breakup with Davy.
Harry named several times that he felt that the press had illegally accessed information
about his relationship with Davy.
He brought up one article that detailed Davy telling him off over the phone about being
seen at a party with another girl, something that he felt could only have been discovered
via phone hacking.
Other personal details about his relationship with Davy ended up in the press over the years,
and Harry thought that there was no legal way they could have gotten that information.
Harry also said that there was another potential love interest that was warned off of dating
him considering the hassle and harassment of the press.
Harry noted in his written statement that he was close with Davy, but they were mostly
long-distance, so they often spoke on the phone.He explained,
"We, naturally, spoke about all types of personal matters, including all aspects of our relationship
and this was often through voicemail."
Piers Morgan has seemingly made it his mission to bring down Meghan Markle and Prince Harry
in recent years.
Morgan even quit "Good Morning Britain" in 2021 after his colleague Alex Beresford called
out Morgan for his continued bashing of Markle on the show.
"Yet you continue to trash her."
"OK, I'm done with this."
"No no no!"
"Sorry."
"Do you know what?
That's pathetic."
But it wasn't just Morgan's treatment of Meghan that Harry brought up in court.
Morgan worked as an editor for the Daily Mirror during a time when Princess Diana would often
speak with English actor and comedian Michael Barrymore during a stressful time in Barrymore's life.
Articles about Diana and Barrymore's conversations were then published in the Daily Mirror, and
Harry said,
"The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother's
private and sensitive messages [...] makes me physically sick, and even more determined
to hold those responsible, including Mr. Morgan, accountable for their vile and entirely unjustified behavior."
For his part, Morgan defended his time at the Mirror in a BBC interview, saying,
"I've never hacked a phone.
I've never told anyone to hack a phone."