Estranged British Royal Prince Harry opened up about his mother, Princess Diana, in an ITV documentary Tabloids on Trial, and defended her against accusations that she was paranoid to suggest her phone was tapped before she died.
In 2007, Diana’s former Private Secretary Michael Gibbins confirmed Diana thought her phone calls were tapped. “She never expressed that concern but her actions were such, in terms of changing her telephone number, that it was clear that that was a concern to her, yes,” Gibbins said, according to The Guardian. Diana’s biographer, Andrew Morton, also wrote about potential phone tapping in his 2011 book, Diana: Her True Story. Diana used to say “‘Hello boys, time to change the tape,” in the middle of her phone conversations, Morton wrote.
Diana’s suspicions were borne out in at least one instance, now known as “Squidgygate,” when Diana’s private phone conversations with her longtime friend, James Gilbey, were leaked to the press. Evidence also suggests the CIA may have tapped Diana’s phone on the night she died, although the agency has denied those accusations.
Harry has his own reasons for being paranoid
Harry’s defense of his late mother’s concerns was brought up in the context of his High Court case against British tabloids, the Mirror Group, which Harry won in 2023. In the settlement, the Mirror Group paid Harry around 400,000 pounds, or about $505,000, for privacy invasions, including phone taps, the AP reported. According to the judge in the case, phone surveillance was “widespread and habitual” at The Mirror for about a decade, beginning in the 1990s. Diana died in 1997.
Speaking with Tabloids on Trial producers, Harry said, “When you’re vindicated it proves that you weren’t being paranoid. You know, same with my mother. There is evidence to suggest that she was being hacked in the mid-nineties… yet still today, the press, the tabloid press very much enjoy painting her as being paranoid. She was absolutely right about what was happening to her.”
Harry says his late grandmother supported the tabloid fight
According to The Independent, Prince Harry, who now lives in California, said his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, supported his fight for privacy. “She knew how much this meant to me and she’s very much up there saying ‘see this through to the end’,” he told Tabloids on Trial producers. He also said his wife Meghan Markle won’t return to the U.K. over safety concerns worsened by tabloid news coverage. “All it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff, to act on what they have read… and whether it’s a knife or acid, whatever it is,” Harry said, and for this reason, he and Markle no longer feel safe in the country.