Prince Harry has got in a lot of trouble for airing the Royal family’s dirty laundry in public, in both his tell-all memoir Spare and that infamous interview he and Meghan Markle did with Oprah Winfrey. Throwing open the curtains of Buckingham Palace like this has reportedly severed his relationship with brother Prince William for the rest of time, so it’s maybe a little shocking that Harry’s on the cusp of making another bombshell TV interview.
That said, even William would likely sympathize with his estranged sibling over this one. The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Harry is to take part in an upcoming documentary set to lift the lid on the phone hacking scandal that shook the U.K. media some years ago. Airing on ITV, Tabloids on Trial will also feature actor Hugh Grant, who like Harry is currently battling U.K. tabloid newspapers after they were among many celebrities whose phones were illegally tapped by journalists.
The phone hacking scandal originally broke in 2011, and brought about the dissolution of the long-running News of the World paper. Taking owners News Group Newspapers (NGN) to court has proven to be a taxing exercise even for a prince and an actor of Grant’s stature, however. In May, for instance, the Duke of Sussex was prohibited from expanding his privacy lawsuit to cover NGN owner Rupert Murdoch and presenter/former News of the World editor Piers Morgan.
Harry’s legal action against NGN is yet another way in which he’s departed from Royal tradition since actually parting from the Royals back in 2020 — in fact, the intrusion of the media into his life is one of the reasons the prince has given for his drastic move. According to the synopsis, Tabloids on Trial “hears about his mission to continue his fight to expose the illegal tactics of Britain’s tabloid press, and explore what those in charge at Fleet Street really knew as this scandal unfolded.”
William may not approve of the way Harry goes about things, but seeing as he’s secretly no fan of the British media himself for their role in his mother Princess Diana’s death, he might just be tuning into this documentary to see what his brother has to say. Tabloids on Trial airs on ITV/ITVX on Thursday, July 25.