Harry adjusted his tie and buttoned up his well-cut jacket. His stress was palpable on the morning of June 6, 2023, in the courtroom of the High Court of Justice, in the heart of London. The Duke of Sussex, the youngest son of King Charles III, fifth in line of succession, was being heard as lead plaintiff in proceedings he has brought against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror, one of Britain's leading tabloids. He was accusing the tabloid of having used phone tapping to obtain details of his private life between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s.

Hesitant at first, his voice grew stronger during the five-hour hearing, his tone sometimes irritated or ironic, but always polite. It took guts for the enfant terrible of the Windsor family to face MGN's lawyer, Andrew Green, who picked apart his arguments without regard for Harry's titles. He also had to overcome his family's legendary reluctance to expose feelings in public. This was the first time in over a century that a British royal had appeared in court since the future Edward VII had had to explain his relationship with a married woman in the 1870s.

Charles III had warned his youngest son that taking on the tabloids was a "suicide mission." These tabloids – typically British press organs, unique cocktails of gossip, human interest stories and politics – remain fearsomely powerful. When the left-leaning Daily Mirror or the very conservative Daily Mail and Sun (owned by News Group, a subsidiary of News Corp, the group founded by Rupert Murdoch), launch campaigns against public figures, they can still have the power to destroy careers or relationships. In 2021, Health Secretary Matt Hancock was forced to resign after the tabloids shared a video of him kissing a female staff member. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's fate was sealed when these papers ran front page after front page on "Partygate," the parties held at Downing Street during lockdowns.

Ups and downs

But Harry would not let the matter drop. At 39, this man, who has fallen out with his father and older brother William, who has been exiled since 2020 to the billionaires' paradise of Montecito, California, with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children, was on a crusade. Prince Harry has said that changing the media landscape is his "life's work" in an interview with ITV television channel in January 2023, when his autobiography Spare was released. In addition to MGN, he was suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, for illegal information gathering (eavesdropping on homes and cars, attempts to access medical or financial data) along with six other plaintiffs, including singer Elton John and actress Elizabeth Hurley. Harry also targeted News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publisher of The Sun, once again for illegal information gathering. Like his wife, he also filed a string of claims of defamation, copyright infringement and breach of privacy.

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