Prince Harry’s Surprise Red Carpet Remark Suggests He’s Still Hung Up on Court Defeat
Duke recently stepped onto the red carpet at a major event in New York and made a comment to the photographers who awaited his arrival.
Prince Harry's issues with the media are well-known, and it seems he is still hung up on them. Harry has spent years criticizing the media intrusion that has followed him since childhood. It hence didn't come as a surprise when the Duke recently stepped onto the red carpet at a major event in New York and made a comment to the photographers who awaited his arrival.
Before heading inside the TIME100 Sports Gala in New York City on Thursday, Harry paused to greet the photographers covering the event. He smiled and made a light-hearted remark that quickly caught everyone's attention. “You are the most polite set of photographers I have ever met in my life,” he remarked before making his way into the venue. Watch the video here.
The sweet compliment seemingly suggested that Harry may still be hung up over his legal battle with Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL). Just last week, as Harry landed in the UK to mark the one-year countdown to the 2027 Invictus, he was faced with a humiliating court defeat that came with a hefty $60 million bill. Against the backdrop of his hostility toward the UK press, his recent remark as he landed in the US may have been a sly dig at the press across the pond.
Since stepping back from royal duties in 2020, Harry has continued to challenge sections of the British media through several legal battles, arguing that unlawful information-gathering and invasive reporting have caused significant harm to him and his family. Among those cases is his long-running dispute with ANL, the publisher of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, and MailOnline.
Harry, along with several high-profile claimants such as Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, and others, had accused the publisher of privacy breaches. ANL had strongly denied the allegations, and the Duke had maintained that pursuing the case was part of his wider effort to hold parts of the British press accountable for what he considers illegal media practices. However, the court overruled his accusations, resulting in his crushing legal defeat and an eye-watering payout.
Despite the setback, Harry arrived at the gala for his work with the Invictus Games, the international sporting event he founded in 2014 for wounded, injured, and sick service personnel and veterans. At the event, Harry reflected on how the idea for the Invictus Games first came to him after witnessing the Warrior Games in the United States in 2013.
Speaking on stage, Harry explained how seeing the transformative power of sport inspired him to create an international competition. He said, “I thought, ‘Wow, look at the power of sport; look at how it is literally changing lives in front of my very eyes.' It was so clear to me. Let’s invite as many countries as possible to make it international. Because clearly more countries need to benefit from this.’”
