Prince Harry Dropped a Bombshell About Prince William That Should Have Everyone Questioning the Royal Family's Close Ties to the Media

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Prince Harry is busy battling the British tabloids in a phone-hacking case along with a host of other A-list names, but his legal team dropped a bombshell that he wasn’t the only royal family member who was targeted. The Duke of Sussex’s lawyers spilled the tea that Prince William had a similar issue and received a settlement.

Harry’s battle is against The Sun, who reportedly hired a private investigator to hack his voicemail and gather private information about his dating life before he met Meghan Markle. According to court filings obtained by The Guardian, the Prince of Wales received a “very large sum of money” related to his own phone-hacking issue in 2020. Even more extraordinary is the alleged “secret agreement” between the palace and media mogul Rupert Murdoch that should have every palace watcher questioning why the royal family courts the tabloids.

More from SheKnows

Harry’s court filings claim that he and William would “delay legal proceedings against the newspaper group in return for receiving an apology at a later date,” per the secret deal made before 2012. And it’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s “Tampongate” scandal that apparently was the impetus for this agreement. The court documents state: “The reason for this was to avoid the situation where a member of the royal family would have to sit in the witness box and recount the specific details of the private and highly sensitive voicemails that had been intercepted by [the News of the World royal reporter] Clive Goodman.”

“The institution was incredibly nervous about this and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when The Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and stepmother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother.” It’s shocking to see how cozy the royals are with the Royal Rota after being backstabbed over and over again even after settling out of court. Prince Harry seems to be the only one calling them out for this behind-the-palace-walls hypocrisy, but the endless toxic media cycle will only continue if the royal family lets them.

Click here to read the full article.

Before you go, click here to see the best photos of Prince Harry and Prince William growing up together over the years.

Prince William, Prince Harry
Prince William, Prince Harry

Launch Gallery: 17 Gorgeous Photos of Royals at the Met Gala Over the Years

Best of SheKnows

Sign up for SheKnows' Newsletter.
For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.