Last year, when all of the stories about Sean Combs were coming out, one of the people suing Combs used Prince Harry’s name in their lawsuit. Harry’s name came up as someone Combs talked about – Combs bragged about how he “partied with Prince Harry.” Harry was not accused of anything. The Sussexes’ reps came out and said that Harry only met Combs twice, and one of those times was the 2007 Concert for Diana, where Prince William was present too. When Harry’s name appeared in that lawsuit, the British tabloids had a f–king field day linking Harry and Combs and making all kinds of awful inferences. Well, as part of Harry’s settlement with the Sun/NGN, various legal filings are still being made public. Harry’s lawyers were prepared to argue that the Sun used the Combs situation (among many others) to exact revenge on Harry for daring to sue them.

Prince Harry accused the Sun newspaper of being motivated by revenge when publishing a front page story reporting that he had been named in a lawsuit accusing Sean “Diddy” Combs of sex trafficking, according to claims in a newly disclosed court document. The story was said by the Duke of Sussex to be among “a large number of false and highly derogatory articles” published by Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) “in retaliation” for his claims of phone hacking and unlawful information gathering.

Harry claimed that the article and others published by the Sun and the Sun on Sunday had “a hugely negative impact on his mental health and that of his wife and children”.

NGN denies the claim about its journalists’ motivation, adding that the article was accurate and that “the Sun publishes stories about the Duke of Sussex which are justified because of the role he holds and the actions he has taken.”

Harry’s allegations are contained in a schedule to his skeleton argument in support of a claim for damages over alleged unlawful behaviour at NGN’s newspapers. The case against NGN, which was jointly taken with the former deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, was not tested in court as it was settled in January with a payout to the claimants for legal costs and damages reportedly in excess of £10m.

In the schedule setting out Harry’s claims, it was alleged that “since issuing his claim on 27 September 2019, NGN has published in the Sun or Sun on Sunday a large number of false and highly derogatory articles about the DoS plainly in retaliation, including articles that suggested he has somehow ‘betrayed’ his family, has ‘lied’ about them to garner sympathy, is a ‘traitor’ to his country and, perhaps most damaging of all, has been named in a high-profile sex-trafficking case.”

The mention of a “high-profile sex-trafficking case” is a reference to a front page story published in the Sun on 27 March 2024 reporting that Harry had been named in a £24m sex-trafficking lawsuit filed against the US rapper Sean Combs, known as P Diddy. It ran under the headline “Harry named in P Diddy sex traffic case”. The story went on to claim that “bombshell legal filings allege Diddy used Harry’s name to give ‘legitimacy’ to wild parties where ‘serious illegal activity’ took place”. It stated at the bottom of the fourth paragraph that Harry was not accused of any wrongdoing.

[From The Guardian]

It’s not just the Sun – the Mail, the Mirror, the Express, the Telegraph and the Times have all run “retaliatory” articles about the Sussexes for many years. But yes, the Combs situation was particularly awful, and it was clear that all of the British reporters were working in concert to make it sound like Harry was implicated in Combs’ crimes. Incidentally, it’s this kind of thing which convinces me that Harry settled for more money than $10 million or whatever. We never did hear the real number, but I still find it hard to believe that Harry would settle for such a relatively paltry sum, especially given all of the evidence of years of “retaliatory” reporting.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, covers courtesy of The Sun.