Prince Harry’s anger is becoming very expensive

It’s going to be a long, hot summer for Prince Harry as the wait goes on to find out if he has to foot a multi-million pound bill for unsuccessfully suing Associated Newspapers. After a two day hearing, the judge will take until mid-August to make his decision. For a man who complained so loudly and publicly that he had been financially cut off by his family and who believed so passionately he had been wronged by journalists, coughing up the huge legal costs of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday would certainly hurt. After comprehensively losing his case earlier this month, Harry did what Harry always does: he fired off a furious response claiming that the judgement had been a “complete and obvious whitewash – sadly not altogether unexpected”. He said he and his six co-claimants – including Elton John and Baroness Doreen Lawrence – had gone to court seeking justice and accountability, but “had received neither”. These were not words likely to endear him to the judge who has been hearing the arguments about who should pay for the 11-week trial and legal proceedings which stretched over four long years. And now the Prince may have to pay a hefty price. Harry has always been a hothead, one who refuses to adopt the Windsor stiff upper lip when things go wrong. In a way, it’s quite refreshing. When life doesn’t go his way, we certainly all hear about it. Thanks to the interview he and Meghan did with Oprah Winfrey, their Netflix series and his caustic book Spare, we know precisely what he feels about his royal existence, his family and the Palace courtiers he scathingly nicknamed The Wasp, The Fly and The Bee. In his book, which was described in one review at the time as “the longest angry drunk text ever sent”, he reveals that he sought therapy for his anger. But still, it seems, he just can’t help himself. He chose to torpedo his own successful tour with Meghan to Africa in 2019 by announcing on the final day that he was suing the tabloids. He was furious over how they’d reported on Meghan in previous months and, ironically, was thoroughly annoyed that the tour had been so praised. He lashed out saying that “the positive coverage of the past week from these same publications exposes the double standards of this specific press pack”. The journalists, it seemed, simply could not win. And when he lost his case for security to be provided when he and his family visit the UK, Harry was visibly rigid with fury as he sounded off to the BBC. Summoning a TV crew to vent his feelings, he declared that it was a “good old fashioned establishment stitch up” and blamed the Royal Household for influencing the decision. I don’t know how much he has paid his therapists, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Now the result of all that anger may well cost him dear. The claimants took out insurance against any potential costs. But it wasn’t enough and there’s a shortfall of around £18 million. And that’s obviously not counting their own legal costs. Fortunately for Harry, in previous lawsuits, he did win some damages (said to be around £300,000) against Mirror Group Newspapers and also settled out of court for an undisclosed sum against The Sun, so he is not without funds as a result of his mission to “reform the tabloid press”. Whether those awards will be enough to cover this failed action isn’t known, but seems unlikely. Harry certainly shouldn’t expect any backhanders from his father; he said Charles warned him more than once that taking on the tabloids was a suicide mission. If he happens to have a video catchup with his Dad, he won’t thank him for saying “I told you so”. But by any standards, the Prince is a very rich man – however much he protests about his finances – and if he has to pay out big-time, it will hurt his pride more than his pocket.