{"id":2244786,"date":"2026-01-21T23:52:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T23:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2244786"},"modified":"2026-01-21T23:52:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T23:52:43","slug":"prince-harry-set-to-give-evidence-at-londons-high-court-in-privacy-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/prince-harry-set-to-give-evidence-at-londons-high-court-in-privacy-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry set to give evidence at London’s High Court in privacy case"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LONDON (AP) \u2014 Prince Harry<\/a> struck a defensive tone at the start of his testimony on Wednesday against the publisher of the Daily Mail<\/a> tabloid newspaper and left the witness box hours later on the brink of tears. <\/p>\n

After disputing that reporters used legitimate sources to publish revealing details of his life, he provided an emotional glimpse into the toll that a life in the spotlight and his battle against the British media<\/a> had taken on him and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey continue to come after me, they have made my wife\u2019s life an absolute misery,\u201d he said as he choked back tears in London’s High Court.<\/p>\n

Harry and six other prominent figures, including the singer Sir Elton John and actor Elizabeth Hurley, allege that Associated Newspapers Ltd. invaded their privacy by engaging in a \u201cclear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering\u201d for two decades, attorney David Sherborne said.<\/p>\n

The publisher has denied the allegations, called them preposterous and said the roughly 50 articles in question were reported with sources that included close associates willing to inform on their famous friends. It is expected to name sources during the nine-week trial. <\/p>\n

\u2018Paranoid beyond belief\u2019<\/hl2><\/p>\n

Harry said in his 23-page witness statement that he was distressed and disturbed by intrusions by the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday into his early life and it made him \u201cparanoid beyond belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Harry\u2019s second time testifying after he bucked House of Windsor tradition and became the first senior royal to testify in a court in well over a century when he took the stand in his similar lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mirror in 2023.<\/p>\n

Harry, dressed in a dark suit, held a small Bible in his right hand in London\u2019s High Court and swore to \u201calmighty God that the evidence I shall give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.\u201d <\/p>\n

Under the English court practice, Harry presented written testimony of his claims and after asserting it was true under oath, he was immediately put under cross-examination. <\/p>\n

Defense lawyer Antony White, in a calm and gentle tone, began to put questions to Harry to determine if the sourcing of the articles, in fact, had come from royal correspondents legitimately working their sources at official events or from friends or associates of the prince.<\/p>\n

Harry denied suggestions he was friendly with journalists who covered the royal family or that his friends gave details about him to the tabloids.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy social circles were not leaky,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n

Increasingly defensive<\/hl2><\/p>\n

His curt replies and efforts to explain what it\u2019s like living under what he called \u201c24-hour surveillance\u201d eventually brought the intervention of the judge, who told him not to argue with the defense lawyer<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to bear the burden of arguing the case today,\u201d Justice Matthew Nicklin told the frustrated prince.<\/p>\n

As Harry became increasingly defensive, White said: \u201cI am intent on you not having a bad experience with me, but it is my job to ask you these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harry suggested that details in articles had come from eavesdropping on his phone calls or having private investigators snoop on him. He said journalist Katie Nicholl had used the term \u201cunidentified source\u201d deceptively to hide unlawful measures of investigation. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you complain, they double down on you in my experience,\u201d he said as he explained why he had not objected to the articles at the time. <\/p>\n

Harry said he had had an \u201cuneasy\u201d relationship with the media for many years while following the royal family’s protocol of \u201cnever complain, never explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Vicious persistent attacks’ <\/hl2><\/p>\n

The litigation is part of Harry\u2019s self-proclaimed mission to reform the media that he blames for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi in Paris. <\/p>\n

He also said persistent press attacks on his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex<\/a>, led them to leave royal life and move to the United States in 2020.<\/p>\n

He said \u201cvicious persistent attacks,” harassment and event racists articles about Meghan, who is biracial, had inspired him to break from family tradition to finally sue the press.<\/p>\n

After cross-examination, Harry’s lawyer asked him how he felt about the way Associated Newspapers was defending the case. <\/p>\n

Despite having brought the lawsuit and pushed for a trial for accountability, Harry said it was \u201cfundamentally wrong to put all of us through this again\u201d when all he wanted was an apology. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have never believed that my life is open season to be commercialized by these people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After mentioning his wife, who is not a party in the case, Harry choked up and appeared to be holding back tears as he stepped out of the witness box and walked slowly out of the courtroom. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source mynews13.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Prince Harry struck a defensive tone at the start of his testimony on Wednesday against the publisher of the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper and left the witness box hours later on the brink of tears. After disputing that reporters used legitimate sources to publish revealing details of his life, he provided an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2244787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[434489,366540,366539,434488,22804],"class_list":["post-2244786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-ap-online-top-entertainment-headlines","tag-ap-top-news","tag-ap-top-news-l-twc-regions","tag-ap-top-news-entertainment","tag-associated-press"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Prince-Harry-set-to-give-evidence-at-Londons-High-Court.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2244786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2244788,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2244786\/revisions\/2244788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2244787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2244786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2244786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2244786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}