Prince Harry vs the Royal Family in court in London

Prince Harry attended a hearing in London’s High Court for the second consecutive day on Tuesday. Along with several celebrities, he sued the Associated Newspaper (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail, accused of illegally collecting information. He also accuses the British royal family of hiding information from him about wiretapping by British tabloids.

In his testimony, signed Feb. 24 and released Tuesday, Harry mentions his “difficult relationship with the press” following the death of his mother, Diana, but explains that “for a member of the institution, politics was never complain, never explain (Never complain, never explain.)” He says the royal family talked him out of suing the press because “it might open a Pandora’s box.” “There’s no doubt that the (royal) institution has long hid information from me about the hacking of the phone, and this only became clear in recent years when I filed my own complaint. ”

Harry, who travels exceptionally to the UK, has made a surprise visit to London to attend hearings in which the ANL is trying to win lawsuits filed by the king’s son, as well as singer Elton John or actress Liz Hurley. Six plaintiffs accuse ANL of hiring detectives to listen in on their telephone conversations.

Harry and Meghan invited to the coronation of Charles III

The group denied “completely and unequivocally this grotesque slander” which it says aims to “dredge the Mail headlines into a 30-year-old wiretapping scandal”. Ten years ago, the British tabloid press was rocked by several scandals of illegal wiretapping, practiced since the early 2000s.

Harry’s visit to the UK will take place just over a month before the king’s coronation on 6 May. Exiled to the United States after the collapse of the monarchy in 2020, Harry and his wife Meghan have been invited to the ceremony but have yet to publicly announce whether they will accept the invitation.

After the documentary aired on Netflix in December, Harry released his controversial memoir The Replacement in early January, in which he details his torn relationship with his father and brother William.