The feud between Prince Harry and several members of the royal family – including his father, King Charles, and older brother, Prince William – has been going on for several years now, with several things reportedly contributing to it.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping down as working royals in 2020 seemed to play a huge part in it, as did Prince Harry’s bombshell memoir Spare, which was released in January 2023 and spilled many royal family secrets. And now, Prince Harry has confirmed that his legal battle against the British tabloids also had a huge part to play in his fractured relationship with his family.
Prince Harry Says The Tabloids Destroyed His Relationship With The Royal Family In New ITV Interview
In a new interview for ITV's documentary Tabloids on Trial, which premieres on Thursday, July 25th, the Duke of Sussex, 39, talked about his phone hacking lawsuit, while also explaining why he felt the tabloids played a huge part in destroying his relationship with his family.
He went on to suggest that him addressing the phone hacking issue in public, while the rest of the royal family did the opposite and kept a dignified silence, also contributed to their "rift."
"To what extent do you think your determination to fight the tabloids destroyed the relationship with your family?" asked ITV's Rebecca Barry in the documentary, to which Prince Harry replied: "I think that's certainly a central piece to it."
"That's a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press," the father-of-two continued. "I've made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we did it as a family."
"I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you're in a public role, that these are the things that we should be doing for the greater good. But I'm doing this for my reasons," he added.
And when asked about his thoughts about the rest of the royal family's decision not to speak out about the issue, Prince Harry said: "I think everything's that played out has shown people what the truth of the matter is. For me, the mission continues. But it has caused part of a rift."
Prince Harry Says He Feels 'Vindicated' By Judge's Ruling In Phone Hacking Case
Elsewhere in the interview, the Invictus Games founder explained that he feels "vindicated" following the High Court's ruling in the phone hacking case. If you'll recall, the High Court ruling found evidence of "widespread and habitual" use of phone hacking by The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People, with Prince Harry calling the day of the ruling a "great day for truth" and accountability.
According to an ITV article written by Rebecca Barry following their interview, Prince Harry mentioned that the High Court ruling that he was indeed hacked by Mirror Group Newspapers was a "monumental victory."
Prince Harry reportedly told Barry that he felt "vindicated" by the judge's ruling that senior figures at MGN knew about the phone hacking and other unlawful methods of information gathering. "When you're vindicated, it proves that you weren't being paranoid," Prince Harry reportedly told Barry, according to her article.
"To have the judge rule in our favour was obviously huge," Prince Harry said. "But for him to go as far as he did… 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."
