Prince Harry Says Thought of Piers Morgan Listening to Princess Diana’s Private Messages Makes Him “Physically Sick”

Prince Harry has outlined the impact the British tabloid press has had on his life in his first day giving evidence in London’s High Court as part of his legal case against Mirror Group Newspapers.

Making history as the first senior royal to testify in the witness box for 130 years, the Duke of Sussex has been cross-examined by Andrew Green, the barrister of the publishing group, which the royal is suing for damages, claiming journalists at its titles, which includes the The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, were linked to methods including phone-hacking, gaining information by deception and use of private investigators for unlawful activities. The trial is focusing on 33 stories that were published between 1995 and 2011.

In his witness statement, Prince Harry said that articles he believed originated from hacking were hugely damaging to his relationships.

“I would say their actions affected every area of my life,” he wrote. “It created a huge amount of paranoia in my relationships. I would become immediately suspicious of anyone that was named in a story about me. I felt that I couldn’t trust anybody, which was an awful feeling for me especially at such a young age.”

Harry also took aim at Piers Morgan, who edited the Daily Mirror around the time of his mother, the Princess of Wales’, death in 1997, recounting an incident where Morgan had written that he had “heard rumours” of a meeting between the late princess and troubled TV star Michael Barrymore.  

“The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages … makes me feel physically sick and even more determined to hold those responsible, including Mr Morgan, accountable for their vile and entirely unjustified behaviour,” said Harry.

Also in his witness statement, Prince Harry stated that evidence disclosed by Mirror Group Newspapers in this case revealed its newspapers made 289 payments to private investigators for information relating to both him and his associates.

“I understand from my solicitors [that these] are huge numbers in the context of this litigation, especially considering that the defendant is known to have concealed and destroyed evidence of their wrongdoing on an industrial scale,” he wrote. “I now realise that my acute paranoia of being constantly under surveillance was not misplaced after all.”

The trial is the first of five pending legal cases the Prince has launched, most centered around battles with British tabloids.

In addition to Mirror Group Newspapers, Harry is suing Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and Associated Newspapers Ltd., which owns the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

The claims are similar: that journalists and people they employed listened to phone messages and committed other unlawful acts to snoop on Harry and invade his privacy.