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The Daily Beast’s Royalist columnist, Tom Sykes, has always had suspiciously good sources in Prince William’s camp. For years – although not in recent months, weirdly – the Royalist has had abundant sources sharing every little detail of William’s thoughts on Prince Harry, William’s thoughts on Harry’s work, William’s thoughts on how Harry is obviously desperate to come back to the UK to be William’s doormat, and William’s thoughts on how William fantasizes daily about punishing Harry for his many perceived transgressions. Now the Royalist magically has a source spilling their guts about NGN’s settlement with Prince Harry last month. Curious, isn’t it? Especially since NGN bought William’s silence (and probably a lot more) and William regularly hands exclusives to NGN to this day. According to these sources, NGN settled with Harry for £10 million and the bulk of the settlement money is going towards Harry’s legal fees. According to these sources, Harry got played. Yes, I’m sure someone in the Windsor clan wants to believe that.
Prince Harry received just a fraction of the reported £10 million ($12.5 million) settlement he reached with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), with “75 percent” going towards his costs, and a smaller chunk to his co-defendant, Tom Watson, a source with knowledge of the matter has told The Daily Beast. Harry’s team has consistently emphasized that the “full and unequivocal” apology to Harry and his mother and NGN’s admission of criminality at the Sun were the critical factors in his decision.
Immediately after the trial, it was widely reported that Harry had walked away with an “eight-figure” settlement, suggesting he had received more than £10 million (around $12 million). While some reports noted that he would have to pay legal costs, some British media, notably that portion of it that tends to be hyper-critical of Harry, characterized the deal as Harry being bought off by the prospect of pocketing a handsome “profit.”
In fact, that is very far from the truth. The Daily Beast can now reveal that after costs, Harry could have received as little as £2 million ($2.5 million)—thought to be just a million pounds more than the sum his brother, Prince William, received from NGN in a secret 2020 deal to resolve his phone hacking claims.
A source with knowledge of the deal told The Daily Beast that “any sum being speculated on was a total sum and includes damages and costs for the two cases (Sussex and Watson) and a majority (in the region of 75%) of the total figure is provided to cover legal costs.”
Prince Harry and NGN both declined to comment. However, the revelation that Harry received a relatively paltry sum after costs may actually bolster the argument widely made by those close to him and his supporters: that what Harry really cared about was NGN’s admission of criminal activity at the Sun, which it has always denied. Sources sympathetic to Harry said that NGN’s admission of guilt was the pivotal factor in Harry accepting their offer and pointed to an article in the magazine Prospect, which said NGN’s settlement looked like “a desperate last-minute move by a publisher anxious to avoid a public trial of the claims.”
One legal source told The Daily Beast: “The amount of damages was actually settled a week before the case opened, what delayed it was the accountability issue. Harry wanted senior NGN executives who he alleged were involved in hacking and the cover up to be named but that was never going to happen. In the end what NGN did, which was a very clever piece of lawyering, was to admit to wrongdoing that was already widely known about, and not admit to the cover-up. Harry’s side has put together a file for the police about the cover-up but [a prosecution] is never going to happen because it was a long time ago and unlawful news gathering has now stopped. Millions of police hours have been spent on this and the police need to get on to ‘now’ problems —such as young men being radicalized in their bedrooms—as opposed to historic matters seen as basically affecting Prince Harry.”
This makes zero sense – a legal source claims that Harry and NGN came to an agreement on the settlement amount a week earlier, and yet there was panic when the lawyers couldn’t get in touch with Harry on the day the trial was supposed to start? NGN made only a partial capitulation at the last minute – “a very clever piece of lawyering” – because they held all the power, huh? As opposed to everything we saw unfold in real time – NGN played chicken with the ginger prince and the prince didn’t blink. He was fully prepared to drag them to hell and back in the trial and NGN (the Murdochs) decided they needed to do everything they could to keep this sh-t from coming out in open court. No, this Daily Beast story is wishful thinking on the part of the British media complex and the Windsors. The over-emphasis on William’s settlement and how Harry effectively only got double what William got… I recognize those fingerprints. I’ve seen this framing before.
Also: I still believe the reporting from that week that it was likely that any settlement would have NGN paying Harry’s legal bills separately from the settlement. I also don’t believe that NGN successfully low-balled Harry, for what it’s worth.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex meeting members of the public at Windsor Castle in Berkshire following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday. Picture date: Saturday September 10, 2022.,Image: 721656879, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
Prince Harry departs The Royal Courts Of Justice in London, England, UK on Monday 27 March, 2023. He is suing the Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) in the High Court over an article published in The Mail On Sunday in February 2022 about his security arrangements in the UK.,Image: 765487574, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
Prince Harry arrives at The Royal Courts Of Justice in London, England, UK on Thursday 30 March, 2023. He is part of a group suing the Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) in the High Court over phone hacking allegations.,Image: 766139797, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
Prince Harry The Duke Of Sussex departs The Rolls Building – Royal Courts Of Justice in London, England, UK on Wednesday 7 June, 2023 as part of the Mirror Group newspapers (MGN) phone hacking trial.,Image: 782000576, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
Prince Harry The Duke Of Sussex departs The Rolls Building – Royal Courts Of Justice in London, England, UK on Wednesday 7 June, 2023 as part of the Mirror Group newspapers (MGN) phone hacking trial.,Image: 782000626, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
Royal Courts of Justice, London, UK. 7th June 2023.
Prince Harry leaving the Royal Courts of Justice, with his lawyer, David Sherborne, following his second day giving testimony in the witness stand.
The Duke of Sussex is suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for damages over alleged unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking and is the first senior British royal to give evidence in court for 130 years.,Image: 782000910, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Supplied by AVALON – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photo by Amanda Rose / Avalon
