Prince Harry has spoken in a new documentary appearance about the paranoia, fear, worry and concern caused by tabloid newspapers in his relationship with former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, during the early 2000s.
Speaking in a preview of the one-off special program Tabloids on Trial, which airs on Britain's ITV network on July 25, the prince discussed his unlawful information-gathering lawsuit win against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) last year.
In his on-camera discussion with ITV broadcaster Rebecca Barry, Harry said one particular article caused significant distress when it was published in 2005, titled: "Harry's girl 'to dump him'"
The article said that the royal's then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy was planning on bringing an end to their relationship soon after photographs were published of him attending a party wearing a Nazi uniform.
The prince sued MGN, whose titles include the Daily Mirror and Sunday People newspapers, in 2019 over allegations that staff members engaged in or commissioned unlawful activity to obtain information about his private life, which was subsequently published.
The prince said that, between 1996 and 2010, over 140 articles had been sourced illegally through phone hacking, blagging, wiretapping or other illegal methods. This included the dumping story, which was published in the Daily Mirror on January 15, 2005.
A judge ruled in December 2023 that this was likely to have been the case in 15 out of a sample of 33 articles submitted to the court and ruled in partial favor of the prince, awarding him £140,000 in damages.
In February 2024, Harry and MGN reached a settlement agreement in relation to the rest of his claim for an undisclosed amount.
One of the 15 articles that the judge ruled had been sourced illegally was the "Harry's girl 'to dump him'" story.
In a forward clip from Tabloids on Trial released by ITV, Harry discussed the article and the impact that illegal activity from news outlets had on his personal life at the time.
"'Harry's Girl to Dump Him': it seems as if they knew something before I even did," Harry said of the story.
"Paranoia, fear, worry, concern and distrust around 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's in the public interest.
"What happens in my private life between myself and my then-girlfriend is exactly that. Between us," Harry added.
A number of articles about Harry and Davy's relationship were raised by the prince in his legal battle with MGN.
In his witness statement supplied to the court, seen by Newsweek, Harry said that the dumping story was published at a time where Davy had already become "guarded about our relationship" because of press intrusion.
"Our circle of friends who we trusted with information about us had shrunk considerably," Harry said. "Every time these kinds of stories were published, there was a strain put on our relationship; we started to distrust everyone around us.
"In hindsight, knowing the extent to which MGN journalists were targeting us and intercepting our communications, we probably lost friends needlessly, and put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be secretive and deal with problems without support, out of the sense of paranoia that articles like this created."
Harry and Davy dated from 2004 to 2011. They remained in contact and she was a guest at the prince's wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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