Prince Harry Breaks Down in Court as He Says Daily Mail Made Meghan’s Life ‘Absolute Misery’

Prince Harry returned to the witness box today and laid out, in stark terms, why he is fighting the publisher of the Daily Mail. As his written statement was released alongside live testimony, the Duke of Sussex described a lifetime of intrusion that began after his mother’s death and escalated into what he called constant surveillance, harassment, and commercial exploitation.

He told the court he grew up conditioned to accept press behaviour without complaint. The palace culture demanded silence. That expectation held until late 2016, when coverage of his relationship with Meghan turned hostile, intrusive, and at times racist. Harry said that failure to act then became impossible to live with. This case, he insisted, exists to force accountability for how information was gathered and sold.

By the end of the afternoon, Harry appeared visibly emotional. He described the process as traumatic and said the litigation had only worsened his life. His voice broke as he told the court that Associated Newspapers Limited had made his wife’s life “an absolute misery.” He then bowed and left the courtroom.

Conditioned into Silence by the Institution

In his witness statement, Prince Harry explained how the royal family’s long-standing rule of “never complain, never explain” shaped his response to the press. He said there was no alternative offered to him. The institution handled legal advice, press relations, and responses, leaving him without independent recourse.

That control extended to legal knowledge. Harry said he believed sworn denials given by Associated executives during the Leveson Inquiry. He told the court he feared retaliation if he challenged them. The Mail’s approach, he said, felt aggressive and intimidating. He accepted those denials because he felt he had no choice.

Only years later did he begin to understand the scale of what he now alleges was unlawful information gathering. He said the silence imposed on him was later weaponised against him, with newspapers questioning why he had not complained sooner.

“Following the death of my mother in 1997 when I was 12 years old and her treatment at the hands of the press, I have always had an uneasy relationship with them. However, as a member of the Institution the policy was to ‘never complain, never explain’.

There was no alternative; I was conditioned to accept it. For the most part, I accepted the interest in my performing my public functions.

However, in late 2016, when my relationship with Meghan, my now wife, became public, I started to become increasingly troubled by the approach of not taking action against the press in the wake of vicious persistent attacks on, harassment of and intrusive, sometimes racist articles concerning Meghan.” – BBC

From Reporting to Surveillance and Stalking

Harry told the court that his private life had been commercialised since he was a teenager. He alleged journalists listening into calls, blagging travel details, tracking flights, and turning up in places where no one should have known he was present.

He singled out incidents in Africa involving Mail on Sunday journalists Barbara Jones and Caroline Graham. According to Harry, they appeared repeatedly at remote locations during his work there. He said it felt like constant surveillance rather than reporting. In one case, he believed access was gained by blagging a local ranger.

He also revisited earlier coverage tied to his relationships. He said the Daily Mail was the first outlet to name Chelsy Davy, after which her privacy disappeared overnight. Articles followed that went into extraordinary detail. Harry told the court those stories drove paranoia and mistrust. He believed people close to him must be leaking, when he now believes unlawful information gathering, not friends, sat behind the detail in some stories.

Friends, Access, and Stories that Collapse Under Scrutiny

Much of today’s cross-examination focused on attempts to frame journalists as part of Harry’s social circle. He rejected that claim repeatedly. Asked whether he was friends with reporters who wrote about him, Harry said he never had been.

That included Katie Nicholl and Rebecca English. Defence counsel suggested closeness, private conversations, and shared social spaces. Harry disagreed. He said everyone knew who these journalists were, which meant people guarded their words around them. He questioned why private investigators were used if sources were so strong.

Harry also addressed claims involving Daily Mail journalist Charlotte Griffiths. The defence suggested he met her in Ibiza. Harry corrected the record. He told the court he had never been to Ibiza until visiting with his wife Meghan. Harry said he met Griffiths at a house party and did not know who she was at the time. He rejected suggestions of later social contact.

The pattern, Harry argued, was consistent. Journalists turned up at events, created the impression of access, and later presented that proximity as sourcing. When tested on details, those narratives did not hold.

Final Thoughts

Prince Harry closed his evidence by returning to the same point he opened with. His life, he said, was never open season. He described the suggestion that he has no right to privacy as disgusting. Revisiting these stories, he told the court, had been deeply distressing.

The case now moves on, but the picture Harry painted today was clear. He described a system that profited from intrusion while hiding behind claims of legitimacy. By speaking under oath, the Duke of Sussex has placed those methods under direct scrutiny and forced them into the open for the courts, media and royal institution to reckon with.

Associated Newspapers Limited denies any wrongdoing and argues that the claims are out of time, insisting its journalists acted lawfully and in the public interest.