Prince Harry’s Alleged Messages to Charlotte Griffiths Expose the Press’s Fixation on His Pre-Meghan Life

The British tabloids have an incurable condition. Every time Prince Harry looks settled, happy and unbothered with Meghan Sussex, someone in the rota has to rummage through the archives and wave around a woman from his past like it is breaking news. This week’s offering is Charlotte Griffiths, now editor-at-large at the Mail on Sunday, whose alleged Facebook exchanges with Harry from late 2011 and early 2012 were aired in court during the final stretch of his privacy case against Associated Newspapers. The messages included lines about “movie snuggles,” nicknames and virtual kisses. People note the obvious point the press keeps pretending is not obvious: all of this was years before Harry met Meghan. 

The Reporter With a History

The Times reported that Griffiths revised part of her account in court:

Prince Harry ‘partied with Mail on Sunday journalist’ Charlotte Griffiths, the Mail on Sunday’s editor-at-large, told the court hearing the prince’s privacy trial that he sent her his phone number via Facebook Charlotte Griffiths told Harry’s privacy trial on Tuesday that he sent her his telephone number via Facebook in 2011. She also claimed that Prince William told her that Kate was pregnant with Prince George four days before the official announcement. David Sherborne, representing Harry, claimed that Griffiths “invented” the claim to “make up connections” with the royal family as a newspaper article at the time reported that William did not tell his own family until the Monday. Griffiths said in an initial statement that she first met Harry at a house party in Ibiza. She told the court that it was a “typo” and she meant that she met Harry’s friends, including Landon. She said that she subsequently attended weekend house parties where Harry was a guest in London and Wiltshire. Harry also told the court that he did not use the Facebook identity “Mr Mischief” to contact the Mail on Sunday journalist, as put to him by Antony White KC, for Associated Newspapers Limited, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Griffiths said in her evidence: “I have never said that he used the name Mr Mischief.”

The Times, March 10, 2026

Charlotte Griffiths is not an innocent party in this. She is an editor-at-large at the Mail on Sunday, who has spent years writing articles attacking Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex. She is part of the same royal reporting circle that has treated the Duchess with contempt since the moment she appeared on the scene. And now she is suddenly front and center with messages from fifteen years ago that she claims prove something about Harry’s character.

Griffiths has already had to walk back parts of her account, including saying in court that the Ibiza reference was a typo. She previously claimed she had hung out with him in Ibiza. When Harry stated under oath that he had never been to Ibiza before meeting Meghan, Griffiths claimed it was a “typo.” She invented a whole Ibiza trip and then blamed it on a typo.

This is the person the media is now presenting as a credible witness. This is the person whose decade-old messages are being treated as a bombshell. And the coverage is dutifully ignoring the fact that her account has already shifted in court, including over the Ibiza reference.

Harry said under oath he was not “Mr. Mischief.” Given Griffiths’ history, given the vagueness of the messages, given the fact that she has already walked back one claim about him, it is entirely plausible that she was catfished. That someone else, pretending to be Harry, sent those messages. Or that she embellished. Or that she is simply wrong. But the papers do not care about any of that. They have a headline. They have a hook. And they are going to ride it until the wheels fall off.

The Double Standard That Never Sleeps

While the media obsesses over Harry’s alleged flirtatious texts from 2011, Prince William left his wife, who was at home with a newborn, to fly to Kenya for a friend’s wedding. He was photographed smiling and partying, while Kate Middleton sat at home with a baby. Where were the front-page stories about that? Where was the dissection of his character, his fitness as a husband, his commitment to his family?

When William was caught in a nightclub while his wife was pregnant and unwell, the press shrugged. William also disappeared for weeks at a time on “private holidays,” the papers ran photo spreads of him looking relaxed. When Harry is accused of sending a flirty text as a single man in his twenties, it is front-page news.

The pattern is not hard to spot. Certain outlets keep dragging Chelsy Davy back into the Prince Harry story, whether it is a pregnancy update, a beach photo or another lazy “what if” fantasy. They still cannot accept that Harry chose Meghan Sussex, built a life with her and left the institution behind. So they keep recycling the women from his past, as if reminding the public that he once dated someone else will somehow cheapen the marriage he has now. It is obvious, it is desperate, and it says far more about the media than it does about Harry.

The Scandal That Is Not a Scandal

Harry said under oath he was not Mr. Mischief. Given Charlotte Griffiths’ history, the Ibiza lie, the vague messages, the convenient timing, believing him is not unreasonable. She writes negative articles about Meghan. She may have a thing for Harry. And now she is trying to use a flirtatious exchange from fifteen years ago to make him look bad.

It will not work. The public is not stupid. They recognize the playbook: dig up something from the past, spin it into a scandal, and hope it sticks. This one is not sticking. The media outlets with a vendetta against Harry can keep scraping, keep digging, keep publishing stories about “movie snuggles” from 2011. The rest of us can keep laughing at how desperate they have become.