Even though Prince Harry moved to Southern California in 2020, he has continued a series of legal battles in the UK, aimed at improving his access to security and changing the country’s tabloid culture. In a new interview with ITV, Harry mentioned that his concerns for Meghan Markle and her safety are partly why he has continued his legal fights and why he has not considered returning to his home country with his wife.
“It’s still dangerous, and it just takes one lone actor, one person reading that kind of stuff to act on what they’ve read,” Harry told reporters. Rebecca Barry during a discussion session for the network’s documentary The Tabloids on Trial. “Whether it’s a knife or acid, whatever it is, and those are things that really worry me. That’s one of the reasons why I won’t bring my wife back to this country.” In 2022, the former head of counter-terrorism for the Metropolitan Police stated that Meghan had received credible threats during her time in the country, and in January 2024, two neo-Nazi podcasters were sentenced to prison after one of the podcaster’s comments encouraged listeners to commit violence against the prince and his son, Archie.
Although Harry has made several visits to London in 2024, the latest being to organize a thanksgiving ceremony in May in honor of the Invictus Games, Meghan has not returned to the country where she lived from 2017 to 2020 since the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022. The couple’s two children, Archie and Lilibet, have only been there once, during the Platinum Jubilee in June 2022.
Harry’s legal battle in the UK has unfolded on two fronts. Since 2022, he has been contesting a decision by the British government denying him access to armed security officers when traveling to the country. Although a judge at the High Court dismissed his requests in a ruling from February 2024, the Court of Appeal has decided that he is allowed to appeal the decision.
Starting in the fall of 2019, he has sued a handful of publications in the UK, alleging illegal information-gathering practices. In June 2023, Harry testified in court for two days in a case against Mirror Group Newspapers, and last December, the High Court ruled that the newspaper had used illegal information in its coverage of the prince. The prince currently has ongoing lawsuits against Associated Newspapers, the parent company of the Daily Mail, and News Group UK, the parent company of The Sun. (Both companies have denied any wrongdoing.)
In the ITV interview, Harry stated that the late queen supported him in his quest to take on the tabloids during her lifetime. “We had many conversations before her passing. This is something she supported a lot; she knew how much it meant to me,” he said. “She’s up there saying, ‘Go all the way,’ without a doubt.”
He also emphasized that his quest for justice had nothing to do with his father, King Charles III, and sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, both of whom announced their cancer diagnoses earlier this year. “These are two completely different things,” he said. “My father, my sister-in-law and I fighting these legal battles, those are two completely different things.”
