Prince Harry goes to battle with tabloids, rupturing an old relationship

Prince Harry has started legal proceedings against the owners of two British tabloids over accusations that they hacked his phones, Buckingham Palace confirmed Friday, opening a new front in a remarkable campaign against the British press.

Coming at the end of a 10-day royal tour of southern Africa that was lavishly covered by the British press, Harry’s broadsides rankled some royal insiders and stunned longtime palace observers. They amounted to an unusually public rupture in an old, symbiotic relationship, one that shatters the longtime royal mantra: “Never complain, never explain.”

It was the second time in recent days that the prince took aim at British tabloids. Earlier this week he said that his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, had been a victim of “a ruthless campaign” against her, and that he had been “a silent witness to her private suffering for too long.”

The legal action concerns allegations that the tabloids had illegally intercepted voicemail messages, though there were few additional details. British news outlets reported that the claims likely stemmed from incidents of phone hacking in the early 2000s.

The claims were brought last week against the owners of The Sun and The Daily Mirror, according to court filings published in the British press.

Reach PLC, which owns The Mirror, declined to comment Friday night. A message left for Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, which owns The Sun, was not immediately returned.

News Group Newspapers confirmed to the BBC that Harry had issued a legal claim but declined to comment.

There were few specifics about the action Harry had taken. Proceedings like the one he initiated are generally the first step in a possible legal action, starting the clock on escalating measures. Usually, the proceedings are a way to give notice of complaints and demand redress — allowing for the other party to respond — before lawyers formally bring a case to court.

Though the royal family’s turbulent relationship with the British tabloids goes back decades, Buckingham Palace has rarely declared its displeasure about them in public. The tabloids’ coverage has seesawed between breathless celebration — especially of weddings and births — and breathless outrage about rumours of infidelity and royal excess.

But Harry and Meghan have had an especially contentious history with the press.

In 2016, Harry accused the tabloids of using “racial undertones” in their coverage about Meghan, who is biracial and an American, and was known as Meghan Markle as an actress.

In the months before their wedding, the tabloids wrote extensively about Meghan’s family, and this week the prince alluded to how the news media had affected his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a 1997 car crash in Paris as her driver tried to elude paparazzi.

Earlier this week, Harry announced that Meghan had filed a claim against another tabloid, The Mail on Sunday, and its parent company, over the publication of a letter. His statement did not identify what article prompted the lawsuit, but in February the tabloid published a letter that Meghan had sent to her estranged father.

In his statement at the time, Harry accused the tabloid of “unlawfully” publishing a private letter, and said of “strategically omitting select paragraphs, specific sentences, and even singular words to mask the lies they had perpetuated for over a year.”

The tabloid disputed that accusation, saying it stood by the story and would defend it. “We categorically deny that the Duchess’ letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning,” a spokesman for The Mail on Sunday said.

© 2019 New York Times News Service