On Tuesday, January 21, reporters waited outside a courtroom in London as Prince Harry’s trial against British tabloid The Sun began—except that it never really did. After several delays, lawyers for the prince and News Group Newspapers (or NGN, The Sun’s parent company, owned by one Rupert Murdoch) announced they’d reached a settlement: Prince Harry would receive an undisclosed sum as well as a public apology.
The news took journalists, legal experts, and, well, the world by surprise—most expected the trial to drag out for around two months, potentially airing more dirty laundry about the royal family in the process. So, what happened? Below, everything you need to know about the legal drama that wasn’t.
What was the trial about?
In short: unlawful information gathering. Prince Harry accused The Sun of hacking his phone from 2006 to 2011, as well as using private investigators to gather illegal information about him, which News Group Newspapers then published in their papers for readers all over the world. Harry’s lawyers planned to prove that executives at NGN deleted emails and hid evidence about hacking and other wrongdoing.
Harry isn’t the only high-profile figure who has taken such action: Sienna Miller and Hugh Grant have also accused the Rupert Murdoch-owned publication of the same nefarious acts.
Why did they decide to settle?
While neither Harry nor NGN have named an explicit reason for the settlement, it is thought to be financial: British law would have required Harry—who initiated the lawsuit—to pay the legal fees of both himself and the newspaper group regardless of the outcome. During The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, Harry admitted to Andrew Ross Sorkin that the expenses would likely exceed any money he was rewarded. “One of the main reasons for seeing this through is accountability, because I’m the last person that can actually achieve that," he said.
Earlier this year, Grant accepted a settlement from NGN—depsite his belief that The Sun was guilty of “phone hacking, unlawful information gathering, landline tapping, the burglary of my flat and office, the bugging of my car, the illegal blagging of medical records, lies, perjury and the destruction of evidence,” he wrote on X. “I don’t want to accept this money or settle. I would love to see all the allegations that they deny tested in court…but the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer, I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides.” Perhaps Prince Harry had a similar reckoning.
What did Prince Harry get?
All that isn’t to say that Prince Harry’s settlement was, well, settling. The prince was awarded an eight-figure sum—reported by People to exceed $12 million—as well as a public apology and admission of wrongdoing by NGN. It was the first time the newspaper group has admitted wrongdoing by The Sun.
What did the apology say?
News Group apologized to Prince Harry for “the impact on him of the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, in particular during his younger years,” a statement read. “We acknowledge and apologize for the distress caused to the duke, and the damage inflicted on relationships, friendships and family, and have agreed to pay him substantial damages.”
How does Prince Harry feel about it all?
Privately, there’s no way to tell. Publicly, his legal team declared it a victory: “In a monumental victory today, News UK have admitted that The Sun, the flagship title for Rupert Murdoch’s UK media empire, has indeed engaged in illegal practices,” Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne said. “After endless resistance, denials and legal battles by News Group Newspapers, including spending more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs (as well as paying off those in the know) to prevent the full picture from coming out, News UK is finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law.”
What about the royal family?
At the time of publishing, Buckingham Palace has not commented.
