Harry can enjoy his victory today, but the Prince of Principles faces trouble tomorrow

Prince Harry always insisted his fight against the tabloid press was also for hundreds of other victims who suffered serious intrusions into their privacy. But, as he receives a public apology and substantial damages from ‘The Sun’, Tessa Dunlop considers the price he’s still having to pay…

There was a feeling of euphoria when Prince Harry stepped out of the High Court into the summer sunshine in June 2023. The first royal to give evidence for over 100 years, he returned to Britain to hold our tabloid culture to account. The self-styled truth-seeking messiah received a warm roar of approval from fans lining the street, he waved majestically and swept away in a chauffeur-driven car. The Prince of Principle was not for turning, this was Harry the hero – virtually the only man on the planet rich enough and famous enough to resist the compromising cash of an out-of-court-settlement with some of Britain’s notorious tabloids.

Needless to say, 2025 began with mounting anticipation for round two; having slayed the Mirror Group and won what his barrister, David Sherborne, described as “a vindicating and affirming” victory, up next was Murdoch’s notorious media empire News Group Newspapers (NGN), more specifically The Sun – a target the Duke’s had in his sights for five long years.

But at the eleventh hour, an out-of-court settlement was announced. On a damp January morning, NGN offered “a full and unequivocal apology” to the prince for “phone-hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators”.

The statement was fulsome proof of what Harry has consistently claimed – that The Sun newspaper ruthlessly and illegally harvested his young life for profit and likewise the private life of his vulnerable mother, Diana Princess of Wales. In the words of David Sherborne, this is a “monumental victory” and a “vindication for the hundreds of other claimants who were strong-armed into settling”.

There is one slight problem, however. Minus specific details and editorial scalps, this settlement is not quite what Harry promised just one month ago when the dogged duke declared his aim was “closure” for the legions of claimants forced to capitulate due to eye-watering legal costs. The prince had in his sights the uncompromising “goal of accountability”, insisting “it is really that simple”.

But as “substantial damages” land with a quiet thud in the duke’s bank account, he has learnt a salient (humbling?) lesson. When it comes to litigation, things are rarely ever “that simple”.

For perspective, cast your mind back to December 2023 when, outside the High Court, Harry’s barrister (the real winner in all of this) announced his client’s victory in the phone-hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers. From the prince’s new perch on the other side of the Atlantic, Harry proclaimed it was “a great day for truth” and beseeched “the authorities to uphold the rule of law and to prove that no one is above it”.

But despite the hyperbole, since that victory, what in all honesty has really changed?

The conversation is only now turning to why senior executives haven’t been properly held to account. Meanwhile, the rules of the tabloid game have already shifted; with new online tech giants ruling the roost, newspapers are not the force they once were. MGN, under new ownership, had to pay legal costs, above which Harry was awarded approximately £300,000 – chicken feed in the duke’s gilded American cage.

Likewise, in the public domain response to the ruling was muted; front-page scoops came there none (or at least very few). Newspapers don’t like to report against their own, and, perhaps more tellingly, no senior heads rolled. Harry’s nemesis, former Mirror editor Piers Morgan, had been in the duke’s sights but Morgan, who has identified the zeitgeist and moved on to YouTube, wasn’t even compelled to give evidence. Instead, he trolled Harry from his sizeable X account: “I totally agree with Prince Harry that ruthless intrusion into the private lives of the royal family for financial gain is utterly reprehensible... and I hope he stops doing it.”

David Sherborne delivers a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Wednesday (AFP/Getty)

And, to make matters worse, while his 2023 victory lacked the pizzazz Harry might have anticipated, it was accompanied by considerable personal cost. Ex-Formula One boss Max Mosley, another high-profile victim of unscrupulous tabloid behaviour who won his privacy case against the News of the World, succinctly identified the problem. “You sue for breach of privacy and the first thing that happens is the whole private matter gets rehearsed all over again in court. So, it is exactly as if somebody broke your leg in a negligence case and you go to court and the court starts off by breaking the other leg.”

If taking the stand was cathartic for Prince Harry, it cannot have been easy exposing his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy to additional scrutiny all these years on, ditto serving up yet more unedifying disclosures about his own family. The court papers revealed Prince William’s approximate £1m settlement with the Murdoch group and the monarchy was accused of collusion with the press. None of which will have improved Harry’s fraught relations with the royal family. According to Mosley, “to sue the press you have to be eccentric if not pretty mad”. Having been there once, Harry can be forgiven for not wanting to repeat the experience.

Small wonder, then, that the duke has agreed to settle for damages and an apology. This “monumental victory” against NGN was met with a predictable backlash. Once more, Piers Morgan entered the fray on X: “So ‘moral crusader’ Harry took the cash... will he now be issuing a ‘full and unequivocal apology’ to the royal family for his own serious intrusion into their lives for personal financial gain?...”

Meghan’s new show has been put on hold until March and ‘Vanity Fair’ ran an unsympathetic cover story titled ‘American Hustle’ (Netflix)

And therein lies another bitter, post-royal lesson for the duke. In the outside world, beyond publicly funded palace walls, Harry has discovered that money matters way more than I suspect he ever imagined. Last week, Vanity Fair led its latest issue with an “American Hustle” cover story about the Sussexes in which Harry was singled out as little more than Meghan’s stooge. It was suggested that “he looks like the kind of guy who would, frankly, happily work for charities for the rest of his life and would be very happy if Meghan made all the money”.

The magazine’s analysis is hardly groundbreaking. After all, beyond the army, Harry’s royal training consisted of glad-handing and back-slapping his way through life in the name of good causes and philanthropic monarchy. However, that gig is proving a little tougher on the outside; framed as grabby grifters, even Americans aren’t quite so keen on a duke and duchess who now have to perform for their tinsel and tiaras.

So yes, it would be naive to assume that money didn’t have something to do with today’s settlement, no matter how valiant the claims were to expose the “cover-ups” and prove that “no one is above the law”. Long-time campaigner against media intrusion Hugh Grant had already taken Murdoch’s money, explaining that he couldn’t risk being saddled with £10m in legal costs.

Like Hugh and legions of others, these days Harry is little more than a common-or-garden celebrity with a fancy title. Beyond the cloistered royal existence that he and his wife found so difficult, the duke is fast discovering that life is not all it is cracked up to be.

In the real world, money matters and it helps if you have a credible means of earning it. Which leads neatly to Harry’s next conundrum: now the legal mist is starting to clear, how the hell is the prince going to meaningfully and profitably fill his time?

Tessa Dunlop is the author of ‘Elizabeth and Philip: The Story of Young Love, Marriage and Monarchy’ (Headline Press, 2022)