Prince Harry's Lawyers Say He's a 'Very Private Person' Amid Memoir Storm

Prince Harry is suing a tabloid for phone hacking and spilling his private information and is "particularly distressed because he is a very private person," his lawyers said in a court filing obtained by Newsweek.

The account may prove controversial in light of Harry's explosive and deeply personal revelations not only about his own life but also his family's in his new memoir.

Spare details how Prince Harry did drugs including cocaine and magic mushrooms, lost his virginity in a field behind a pub and had frostbite on his penis during Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding after a 200-mile trek through the North Pole.

He opened up about family members too, revealing Prince Charles' words to him and William after Prince Philip's funeral, William's anger after Meghan Markle said Kate Middleton had "baby brain" and Princess Charlotte's tears over her "baggy" flower girl dress before Harry and Meghan's wedding.

And those are by no means all the revelations to emerge after a bungle at a Spanish bookshop meant Spanish language editions were obtained by the press ahead of the memoir's release on January 10.

Prince Harry's lawyers blast unlawful press intrusion

Harry is suing Mirror Group Newspapers at the High Court in London on allegations of phone hacking based on a series of payments to private investigators for work on its coverage of his life, between 1996 and 2011. The company denies the allegations.

The lawsuit accuses the newspaper group, which publishes the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People in Britain, of targeting the prince and those close to him using unlawful techniques.

Among those mentioned are Prince William, Kate Middleton, King Charles III, Princess Diana, and Harry's ex-girlfriends, including Chelsey Davy and Caroline Flack.

A court filing seen by Newsweek reads: "[Prince Harry] was upset at the time that the Articles were published, as will be further amplified in his evidence witness statements. He was particularly distressed because he is a very private person and the intrusion spanned every area of his life, from an extremely early age."

His lawyers added: "The fact that private information was appearing about [Prince Harry], which he did not know the source of, caused him to be paranoid and to distrust all those around him including his close friends. This put an enormous strain on his relationships and caused [Prince Harry] to be especially cautious about forming new ones.

"The fact that, as he has since discovered, they were only published because they either originated from or were verified by information obtained in this unlawful way, has caused him substantial upset."

The document was served on September 6, a month after Harry and Meghan completed their final Netflix interviews and after Harry's book would likely already have gone through several drafts.

However, the filing was not initially publicly accessible and has only just been made available to Newsweek.

Mirror Group Newspapers responded in their own filing, also seen by Newsweek, saying: "It is denied that journalists for whom the Defendant was responsible accessed [Prince Harry's] voicemail messages."

The Mirror Group's lawyers admit it instructed "private investigators to unlawfully obtain private information about [Prince Harry]" on a single occasion, based on a £75 ($89) invoice related to a story about the royal and nightclub Chinawhites, though it is not known what the information was. However, they denied a shopping list of allegations by Harry.

Newsweek reached out to both sides for comment.

Prince Harry and privacy

Prince Harry's stance on privacy has long been a source of debate in the media since he began opening up his and Meghan's lives within their own media projects.

Russel Myers, the Daily Mirror's royal editor, told the podcast Pod Save the King in December in relation to Harry and Meghan's Netflix show: "For a couple wanting privacy, they've just blown it out of the water."

Allegations of hypocrisy in the media prompted the couple's spokesperson to release a statement denying privacy was the reason they left.

A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan released a statement, quoted by The New York Times, in December: "Their statement announcing their decision to step back mentions nothing of privacy and reiterates their desire to continue their roles and public duties.

"They are choosing to share their story, on their terms, yet the tabloid media has created an entirely untrue narrative that permeates press coverage and public opinion. The facts are in front of them."

Nothing in the court filing contradicts the account that they left Britain for other reasons. However, some may note the contrast between the statement by Harry's lawyers that he is a private person and his own detailed and highly personal revelations in Spare.

Prince Harry's most personal details from memoir Spare

A section from the memoir quoted by Page Six described how Harry lost his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a pub: "She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion."

He added: "Quick ride, after which she'd smacked my rump and sent me to graze."

Before Prince William and Kate Middleton's 2011 royal wedding, Harry went on a 200-mile trek through the North Pole, leaving him with frostbite.

He wrote: "While the ears and cheeks were already healing, the [penis] wasn't. It was becoming more of an issue by the day."

A segment of Spare published by Sky News read: "Of course, I had been taking cocaine at that time. At someone's house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more.

"It wasn't very fun, and it didn't make me feel especially happy as seemed to happen to others, but it did make me feel different, and that was my main objective. To feel. To be different."

In another section, he described taking magic mushrooms and thinking a trash can was someone's head: "I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin. I laughed."

It was not just his own private life that Harry delved into. The prince revealed details of a heated discussion with Prince William and King Charles III after Prince Philip's funeral in April 2021.

According to Page Six, the book says Charles asked the brothers not to "make [his] final years a misery" while William swore on Princess Diana's life he wanted Harry to be happy.

Harry also revisits an infamous argument between Kate and Meghan at a bridesmaid's dress fitting before his and Meghan's May 2018 wedding.

The book claims that Kate told Meghan that Princess Charlotte's dress was "too big, long and baggy" and the three-year-old royal "burst into tears when she tried it on."

Spare said Meghan suggested Kate may have had "baby brain because of her hormones," though the argument later left Meghan in tears "on the floor."