Prince Harry said his lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids for hacking his phone was about “accountability,” but he acknowledged that any settlement he might be awarded would likely be dwarfed by his legal costs.
“There will be a point where it’s ‘Who’s next?’” Harry said at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit.
Harry’s case against the Murdoch tabloids, which begins next month in a London courtroom, has become a lonely crusade. Once one of about 40 plaintiffs suing Mr. Murdoch’s publications, the prince is now one of only two people still fighting after dozens of others settled their claims.
But Harry said he was determined to press on, in part because he believed that the misconduct of some journalists was calling into question trust in all journalists. That included some such as the Philippine journalist and Nobel laureate, Maria Ressa, who cover repressive governments or wars.
“I will be damned if those journalists are going to ruin journalism for everyone, because we depend on it,” Harry said.
The prince declined to comment on the First Amendment, an issue that has previously gotten him into trouble. In 2021, he said on a podcast that he did not fully understand the principle but that it struck him as “bonkers.”
Harry also declined to get into the details of the phone-hacking case or an unrelated case in Britain involving the loss of police security for him and his family after they withdrew from their royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States. But he left no doubt about the effect of the relentless battles on him and his family.
“We were running from something,” he said. “Quite a few things, actually.”
The prince suggested that pushing for regulation of social media could be the next phase of his campaign. The big tech platforms, he said, lacked transparency or accountability, despite their vast power to spread misinformation.
Despite the serious tone of the conversation, there were flashes of humor in Harry’s comments. Asked whether going to therapy had helped him cope with the challenges of a life in the media fishbowl, he said yes.
“This is starting to feel a little like therapy, actually,” he said. Gesturing to the audience, he added: “Group therapy.”
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