Prince Harry arrived at London’s High Court as his legal battle against the publisher Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) on Monday, March 27. The Duke of Sussex, 38, was suited up in black with a white undershirt and blue tie as he arrived for a four-day preliminary hearing. He looked prepared for the lawsuit against the company.
Harry and other celebrities participating in the lawsuit have accused ANL, which owns outlets such as DailyMail, MailOnline, and more, of unlawful gathering of information, alleging that it’s participated in criminal activity when getting information about them, per CNN. Other celebrities in the lawsuit include Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, actress and designer Sadie Frost, activist Doreen Lawrence, and director David Furnish, who is married to Elton.
The celebrities have alleged that ANL has hired private investigators who use shady and illegal means to get information, including listening to private calls, planting listening devices, hacking banking information, paying off police for information, and impersonating to get medical information. A spokesperson for ANL has denied the allegations, calling them “unsubstantiated and highly defamatory claims, based on no credible evidence,” per CNN.
Prince Harry has frequently been critical of the media and coverage of him and his wife Meghan Markle, including in his new memoir Spare and the Netflix docuseries Harry And Meghan. In the first part of the series, Harry explained that he was afraid that Meghan would leave him due to the media attention that they both received. Harry had also accused other members of the Royal Family of leaking stories to the media in interviews he gave leading up to the release of his book. “Every single time I’ve tried to do it privately, there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife,” he said in a 60 Minutes interview in January. “They will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent and that correspondent will literally be spoon-fed information to write the story, and then at the bottom of it, they will say they’ve reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment, but the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting.”