Prince Harry's 'Spare' Comes Back to Haunt Him in Court
Prince Harry is back on UK soil to present evidence in his case against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. The Duke, along with six other public figures, has brought the case against the British tabloid for invasion of privacy. However, things took a strikingly complex turn when passages of his 2023 tell-all memoir, Spare, reportedly came haunting back in open court this week. Given the many bombshell revelations, the situation signaled the overlap between public confession and legal evidence. With the proceedings said to continue till March, this new detail has surely added another interesting layer to the high-profile case.
The excerpts were read aloud during the Prince’s testimony on January 21. In a rather frosty cross-examination, he was questioned about a historical article describing a private exchange involving his former girlfriend Chelsy Davy. Lawyers from the publishers’ team then referred the court to passages from Spare covering the same period. That comparison is said to form part of a wider questioning about whether press information could have been gathered through lawful means, upholding the standards of journalism.
As reported by GB News, the memoir passages were presented to Harry directly as evidence under examination. As the questioning progressed, the focus reportedly shifted to how closely the media reporting aligned with the Dukes’ own later recollections. During this exchange, Justice Nicklin had to intervene twice just so he could remind the Prince that, as a witness to the case, he is not there to debate with the lawyers or challenge how the evidence is framed. “You are doing exactly what lots of litigants do,” Justice Nicklin told the court, saying Harry was “arguing back to the barrister about the evidence that is being put to you, when your role is simply to answer the questions.”
The judge also reminded the court that the challenges to evidence were not a matter for witnesses. He further explained that disputes over reliability belonged in legal submissions and not live testimony. The intervention happened as Harry’s responses to questions became more expansive. While observers note that the exchange was procedural, it also placed formal limits on personal narrative once it entered a courtroom. Despite the judge stepping in, Harry’s team maintains that the case centers on alleged unlawful practices and intrusive methods over the years. ANL has strongly rejected these accusations and is defending the claims. Along with Harry, figures like Sir Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, and Baroness Doreen Lawrence are also involved in the lawsuit. Proceedings of the same are expected to continue for several weeks until March.
The third day of the case brought out a lot of emotions from the Prince, who was allegedly on the verge of tears while recalling just how ‘traumatic’ the blatant reporting was for him. At the close of his evidence, when barrister David Sherborne asked how it felt to read the defence, the Duke described it as a ‘recurring traumatic experience.’ Talking about his wife, Meghan Markle, he noted that the constant media scrutiny made her life an absolute ‘misery.’ On why he didn’t bring the claims earlier, Harry explained that being part of the ‘institution,’ referring to the Royal Family, he was forced to follow the ‘never complain, never explain’ policy. “There was no alternative; I was conditioned to accept it,” he highlighted.