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By Jack Royston
Chief Royal Correspondent
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Prince Harry broke down on the witness stand during a phone hacking lawsuit he brought against the Daily Mail, in which he said: "They've made my wife's life an absolute misery."
The Duke of Sussex is suing Associated Newspapers Ltd, publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, accusing journalists at the titles of hacking phones and breaking the law in order to get 14 stories about his private life between 2001 and 2013.
That means the core allegations predate his relationship with Meghan Markle; however, her own experiences with the Mail have also hung over the case, after Harry said in a statement that her treatment by the press was part of his motivation for suing.
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The prince's emotions on the subject broke into public view when his voice broke at the very end of his three-hour spell in the witness box as he said: "[The Mail have] made my wife's life an absolute misery."
After his evidence, he released a statement reading: “Today we reminded the Mail Group who is on trial and why.”
And his spokesman added: "Today’s cross-examination was revealing in its weakness: assertive in tone, but collapsing immediately under scrutiny from Prince Harry. Associated couldn’t wait to get him off the stand, questioning him for just 2 hours and avoiding 10 of his 14 articles entirely.”
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Why It Matters
Harry's testimony was always set to be emotional after statements he made in 2022 during his Netflix series, Harry & Meghan, in which he blamed the Mail for a miscarriage Meghan had experienced in July 2020, while she was going through a particularly distressing period of a lawsuit she filed against The Mail on Sunday.
Over three hours, Harry was cross examined in court by the same lawyer, Antony White KC, who fought that case.
What to Know
That background with Meghan's miscarriage is, however, not the only way in which she has cast a shadow over the case as Harry describes how her experiences with the Mail inspired him fight back against the press.
"In late 2016," he said in a witness statement seen by Newsweek, "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.
"The situation got worse when she became pregnant and after our son, Archie, was born. In October 2019, following a number of months of preparatory work, my wife issued a claim against Associated in relation to the publication of a private letter she had sent to her father."
Harry also talked in his verbal testimony how he and Meghan were photographed by paparazzi while in Jamaica for his friend, Thomas Inskip's wedding, in 2017.
According to the prince, the photographers were working for a separate Rupert Mudoch-owned tabloid, The Sun, at the time and he said journalists at the paper booked into the same hotel as them.
Harry and Meghan were "staked out with paparazzi 400m away across the bay," Harry said, "to take photographs of me and my wife on the balcony of the hotel, of which the palace did complain about."
"I would assume the knowledge of this wedding was most likely obtained by UIG [unlawful information gathering]," he added. Harry argued that the Mail would have had to engage in the same tactics in order to keep up with a rival newspaper.
Prince Harry's Past Relationships
A major part of Harry's case is that the Mail destroyed several of his past relationships, including with Chelsy Davy, probably his most serious relationship before Meghan.
One story, he said, contained "highly personal and sensitive information about calls within [sic] my then girlfriend [that] had a hugely negative effect on our relationship. It added pressure and created a massive strain.
"There’s also an element of it creating distrust and suspicion – not necessarily between me and her – but with whoever she might be sharing this information with.
"That caused her to distrust all of her friends and not know who to turn to. It is impossible to sustain a relationship under these circumstances. Over the period that we were together, this happened time and time again. It had a snowball effect on our relationship. It’s never going to end well if this happens all the time, as the paranoia and distrust builds up. It very quickly turns into a nightmare."
However, she was not the only one, with two other past girlfriends, Natalie Pinkham and Laura Gerard-Leigh also mentioned. At one stage in his statement he speculated journalists at the Mail may have wanted to drive him to drink and drugs so they could report on it.
"It’s just one part of an endless pursuit," he wrote, "a campaign, an obsession of having every aspect of my life under surveillance so they could get the run on their competitors and drive me paranoid beyond belief, isolating me, and probably wanting to drive me to drugs and drinking to sell more of their papers."
Do you have a question about King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Update, 01/21/2026, 12:13 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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