Prince Harry has reportedly won a substantial settlement after press baron Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers admitted to hacking his mobile phone. Murdoch’s company apologized to Prince Harry for intruding on his personal life and for their private investigators engaging in unlawful conduct. It also apologized for the past activities of its journalists and others regarding Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, who died in 1997.
The settlement comes just a day before News Group Newspapers was set to go on trial, where damaging testimony regarding the hacking and unlawful activity was expected to be made public. Prince Harry, the younger son of King Charles III, was expected to show that News Group Newspapers had not only routinely hacked his mobile phone but also destroyed evidence of their activities.
The British royal was just one of around 40 plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit against Murdoch’s company, which also named News UK chief executive Rebekah Brooks as a co-defendant.
Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of The Washington Post, resigned just months after the lawsuit was launched after a conflict with chief executive Will Lewis. A judge was expected to allow plaintiffs to name Lewis as one of the executives accused of concealing hacking evidence. Lewis, however, told Buzbeee not to cover the story, claiming it was not newsworthy.
Prince Harry currently lives in the United States, having abandoned his duties as a “working royal.” He was reportedly anxious about his immigration status last year, with a judge examining his papers after he admitted to an extensive history of drug abuse, including in the USA, in his autobiography Spare.
According to Harry, he only admitted the drug use because he felt confident that with former President Joe Biden in office, there would be no consequences for his immigration status.