Harry’s armed security was pulled when he, Meghan, and Archie (then less than a year old) stepped back from senior royalty and moved to the United States in March 2020. In legal filings, according to reports, Harry alleged that his brother, Prince William, had also settled with NGN in 2020 for a “very large sum.” Despite some public admissions about phone hacking and the shuttering of News of the World in 2011, there were still open questions about what the executives at the company knew, and when they knew it. This lawsuit dealt with aspects of the phone-hacking scandal that were familiar to the British public, having been the subject of a major legislative report in 2012. Harry announced that he was signing on to this case against the British print arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in 2019. X17 eventually admitted that it had shopped around the photos, and the couple’s lawyer told The New York Times that the agency had agreed to pay a portion of their legal fees.

Prince Harry’s Sentebale organization leading initiative to support young people in Southern Africa

Judge Carl Nichols ordered that redacted versions of the court documents be released by 18 March 2025. He stated that he had struggled with aggression, experienced anxiety during royal engagements, and had been “very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions”. He adds in the memoir that he smoked cannabis at Eton and in the gardens Kensington Palace, though he later told a court that “he never smoked in his father’s house”. In 2002, it was reported that, with Charles’s encouragement, Harry had visited a drug-rehabilitation unit to speak with recovering drug addicts after it emerged that he had been smoking cannabis and drinking at his father’s Highgrove House and at a local pub in the summer of 2001.

• In January 2025, Harry and Meghan’s appearance at a food bank during the Southern California wildfires in the Pacific Palisades drew mixed reactions from segments of the media and public figures, who labeled it “disaster tourism”.
• The new household released a statement announcing they had established their own office at nearby St James’s Palace to look after their public, military and charitable activities.
• The tour promoted the rehabilitation of injured American and UK troops, publicised his own charities and supported British interests.
• It also criticised all sides for allowing the conflict “to play out publicly” and cited poor internal governance and a “failure to resolve disputes internally” as factors that impacted the charity’s reputation.
• In October 2024, the judge announced that the two sides should either settle or go to trial in January 2025 and refused to let Harry’s team include allegations that bugs were placed in rooms and cars, and trackers placed on vehicles as “no particulars whatsoever of such allegations” were provided.

Prince Harry, duke of Sussex

In March 2025, Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho resigned from their roles as patrons of Sentebale following a dispute between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board, Sophie Chandauka. The commission later concluded that the foundation did not act unlawfully, but criticised the board of directors for expending a “substantial proportion of funds” to setting up and closing the charity. It was confirmed on 21 February 2020 that “Sussex Royal” would not be used as a brand name for the couple following their withdrawal from public life.

• Harry compared operating the Apache’s weapons systems in Afghanistan to playing video games.
• In January 2025, the two parties settled with NGN paying more than £10 million in pay outs and legal fees in the settlements involving both Harry and former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson.
• While on holiday in Las Vegas in August 2012, Harry and an unknown young woman were photographed naked in a Wynn Las Vegas hotel room, reportedly during a game of strip billiards.
• The decision followed a private letter he had sent to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood earlier in the year.
• In July 2019, Harry and Meghan’s new charity was registered in England and Wales under the title “Sussex Royal The Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex”.
• For years, Harry has argued that the decision to deny him security stemmed from his family’s anger with him, and that RAVEC did not adequately consider the threats against his life.

In March 2020, the couple took Splash UK to court after the Duchess and their son were photographed without permission during a “private family outing” while staying in Canada. His appearance marked the first time a member of the royal family had been cross-examined in court since Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, appeared as a witness in court in 1891. In his lawsuit, Harry sought damages in excess of £200,000 from the publisher of the News of the World and The Sun and alleged an earlier agreement between News Group Newspapers (NGN) and the royal family which would see he and William not take legal action in return for an apology had not been honoured. In January 2020, the Duke and Duchess announced that they were stepping back from their role as senior members of the royal family, and would balance their time between the United Kingdom and North America. On Wednesday, he returned to the courtroom to testify about the effects of the period in the 2000s when his private matters often became front-page news—much to Harry’s surprise. “It’s not a nice experience for anyone to find themselves in court,” a source close to the prince told the Times earlier this month.
However, in December 2007 Harry began serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan after the British media agreed to not publicize details of his service; his tour ended in February 2008 after foreign news outlets reported his deployment. Because of Princess Diana’s desire that Harry and his elder brother, Prince William, experience the world beyond royal privilege, she took them as boys on public transportation and to fast food restaurants and stood in line with them at Disney World. In 2018 Harry married Meghan Markle, and two years later the couple stopped being working members of the British royal family. On Jan. 21, Harry gave evidence earlier than scheduled and spoke with visible emotion about the toll the legal fight — and years of press scrutiny — has taken on his family. They are still referred to as “His/Her Royal Highness” in legal and private settings. Despite the palace congratulating the Duke and Duchess on the birth of their daughter Lilibet in June 2021, a few days later the BBC reported that Harry and Meghan had not sought the permission of the Queen before naming their daughter with her personal family nickname.

Marriage and family

In February 2007 it was announced that Harry’s army regiment would be deployed to Iraq, but, on advice from the armed services, it was decided that neither Harry nor William would serve with Britain’s forces in Iraq, for fear that they would become specific targets of attack and so put their fellow soldiers at excessive risk. The prince later apologized for what he conceded was a serious error of judgment. Like William, Harry attended a sequence of private schools before entering prestigious Eton College.
It was also revealed that during the proceedings Harry had leaked information via email to “a partner of Schillings” and to Johnny Mercer, for which he apologised to the court. Despite his lawyers’ attempts to have him pay no more than 50% of the Home Office’s legal costs of defending his challenge, the judge held him liable for 90% of the costs. In June 2023, a Freedom of Information request revealed that Harry’s legal fight with the Home Office had cost £502,236, with £492,000 covered by the state and the remaining £10,000 covered by Harry. In February 2023, a High Court judge ruled that the second case should be thrown out; however, the decision was later appealed by Harry’s legal team. Harry filed a lawsuit against the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police in August 2022, challenging the decision by RAVEC from January 2022 which stated that State security could not be made available to private individuals even if they wished to pay for it themselves.

Military career

Mahfouz had met Harry in 2013 and 2014 and donated £50,000 to his charity Sentebale and £10,000 to Walking With The Wounded, of which Harry is patron. St James’s Palace confirmed that Harry was in the photographs, saying that he was essentially a victim whose privacy had been invaded and contacted the PCC upon hearing that a number of British newspapers were considering publishing the photographs. Royal aides suggested Clarence House would contact the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) if British publications used the pictures. The pictures were leaked by American celebrity website TMZ on 21 August 2012, and reported worldwide by mainstream media on 22 August 2012.
In September 2019, it was reported that the couple had hired New York-based PR firm Sunshine Sachs, which had been working with them on intermittent projects since 2017. The decision followed a private letter he had sent to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood earlier in the year. In December 2025, it was announced that, for the first time since April 2019, RAVEC would reassess Harry’s threat level. His appeal was rejected by three senior judges in May 2025 and he was likely to be held liable for the UK government’s harry casino login legal fees.

Social activism and the Invictus Games

Mr Justice Swift also reacted to the Duke’s legal team sending a copy of the ruling to someone who was not a lawyer, describing it as “entirely unacceptable”. After receiving applications by the Duke and the Home Office to keep parts of the case private, the High Court ruled in March 2022 that some parts of it would remain confidential. Following the first court hearing of the case by the High Court, it was revealed that Harry had ‘exceptional status’ and the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) still determined his personal protective security on a case-by-case basis.

Prince Harry has tea with his father, King Charles III, in their first meeting in over a year

Harry and Meghan’s exit from the royal family was satirized in a 2023 episode of South Park. In December 2022, Harry was found to be the third most disliked member of the British royal family by YouGov, preceded by his uncle Prince Andrew and his wife Meghan. Harry received backlash again in August 2021 and 2022 for taking a two-hour flight on private jets between California and Aspen, Colorado, to participate in an annual charity polo tournament. The criticism was in line with the reactions the royal family faced in June 2019, after it was revealed that they “had doubled their carbon footprint from business travel”. In view of their environmental activism, Harry and Meghan were criticised in August 2019 for reportedly taking four private jet journeys in 11 days, including one to Elton John’s home in Nice, France.
Agnatically, Harry is a member of the House of Glücksburg, a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg, one of Europe’s oldest royal houses. In July 2021, Harry and Meghan were among people who were selected by UK-based charity Population Matters to receive the Change Champions Award for their decision to have only two children and help with maintaining a smaller and more sustainable population. In December 2010, the German charity Ein Herz für Kinder (“A Heart for Children”) awarded him its Golden Heart Award, in recognition of his “charitable and humanitarian efforts”. Writing for The Guardian, Stephen Bates stated that Harry’s “megaphone diplomacy isn’t working” and “his private security needs are probably not near the top of anybody’s priorities”. In May 2025, Harry was interviewed by Nada Tawfik of the BBC, during which he reflected on his loss of taxpayer-funded security and his ongoing estrangement from his family. In a live-streamed interview with Harry in March 2023, physician Gabor Maté suggested publicly that he could be suffering from PTSD, ADD, anxiety, and depression based on his conversation with him and having read his autobiography Spare.
In January 2025, the two parties settled with NGN paying more than £10 million in pay outs and legal fees in the settlements involving both Harry and former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson. In October 2024, the judge announced that the two sides should either settle or go to trial in January 2025 and refused to let Harry’s team include allegations that bugs were placed in rooms and cars, and trackers placed on vehicles as “no particulars whatsoever of such allegations” were provided. In May 2024, Mr Justice Fancourt refused Harry the permission to include claims against Rupert Murdoch, expand his case’s scope back to 1994 and 1995 to cover allegations involving his mother or to add new allegations from 2016 involving his then-girlfriend Meghan. In July 2023, the judge ruled that part of Harry’s case involving allegations of illegal information gathering would go to trial but his phone-hacking claims were dismissed for being made too late.