Prince Harry has revealed his decision to launch multiple legal battles against a string of tabloid newspapers was “central” to his rift with the royal family.
The Duke of Sussex speaks for the first time about his many cases against the British press in an interview for ITV documentary Tabloids on Trial.
Harry said his determination to fight the publications had destroyed his relationship with the broader royal clan.
“That’s certainly a central piece to it,” he said.
“But, you know, that’s a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press.
“I’ve made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we, you know, did it as a family.
“I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you are in a public role, that these are the things that we should be doing for the greater good.
“But, you know, I’m doing this for my reasons.
“I think everything that’s played out has shown people what the truth of the matter is.
“For me, the mission continues, but it has, it has, yes. It’s caused, yeah, as you say, part of a rift.”
In December, London’s High Court ruled Harry had been the victim of phone-hacking and other unlawful acts by journalists, with the knowledge of their editors at Mirror Group Newspapers.
MGN was publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, which Harry said had targeted him for 15 years.
He was awarded £140,600 ($267,400).
Harry told the ITV documentary, which airs in Britain later on Thursday, that the judge’s ruling in his favour was a “monumental victory”.
“To go in there and come out and have the judge rule in our favour was obviously huge,” he said.
“But for him to go as far as he did with regard to, you know, this wasn’t just the individual people.
“This went right up to the top … this was lawyers, this was high executives. And to be able to achieve that in a trial, that’s a monumental victory.”
Harry told ITV that the headlines published by tabloids often created “paranoia” about how journalists were obtaining private information for the stories.
He spoke about one headline that featured at the trial about his then girlfriend Chelsy Davy. It read “Harry’s girl to dump him”.
“[It] seems as though they knew something before I even did,” he said.
“I think there’s a lot of, I guess, paranoia, fear, worry, concern, distrust in the people around you. Clearly a headline like that has absolutely no public interest whatsoever.
“There’s a big difference between what interests the public and what is public interest. So what happens in my private life between myself and [my] then girlfriend is exactly that, between us.”
But Harry said being legally vindicated about how tabloids had illegally obtained their stories “proves that you weren’t being paranoid”.
